C/U$fot?Jcai c/v
UNDER THE RED ROBE
COUNT HANNIBAL
A GENTLEMAN OF FRANC I
STANLEY J. WEYMAN
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
GIFT OF
Jeanette MacDonald
HISTORICAL ROMANCES
UNDER THE 1(ED ?(QBE
COUNT HANNIBAL
A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
'BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE HOUSE OF THE WOLF
A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
UNDER THE RED ROBE
SHREWSBURY
SOPHIA
COUNT HANNIBAL
IN KINGS' BYWAYS
STARVECROW FARM
LAID UP IN LAVENDER
OVINGTON'S BANK
THE TRAVELLER IN THE FUR CLOAK
QUEEN'S FOLLY
THE LIVELY PEGGY
HISTORICAL ROMANCES
Under The 'Red "Robe
Count Hannibal
(gentleman of France
BY
STANLEY J. WEYMAN
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
55 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK
HISTORICAL ROMANCES
UNDER THE RED ROBE COUNT HANNIBAL
A GENTLEMAN O! FRANCE
COPYRIGHT ' 1893 ' 1894 ' 1900 1901 ' 1921
BY STANLEY J. WEYMAN
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
College
Library
PR
UNDER THE RED ROBE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PACK
I. AT ZATON'S i
II. AT THE GREEN PILLAR 27
III. THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD 53
IV. MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE 78
V. REVENGE 102
VI. UNDER THE Pic DU MIDI 127
VII. A MASTER STROKE 153
VIII. THE QUESTION 178
IX. CLON . . . . ' . . . . . . 204
X. THE ARREST 231
XI. THE ROAD TO PARIS 259
XII. AT THE FINGER-POST 284
XIII. ST. MARTIN'S EVE 3"
XIV. ST. MARTIN'S SUMMER 325
v
UNDER THE RED ROBE.
CHAPTER I.
AT ZATON'S.
" MARKED cards ! "
There were a score round us when the fool,
little knowing the man with whom he had to
deal, and as little how to lose like a gentleman,
flung the words in my teeth. He thought, I'll
be sworn, that I should storm and swear and
ruffle it like any common cock of the hackle.
But that was never Gil de Berault's way. For a
few seconds after he had spoken I did not even
look at him. I passed my eye instead smiling,
bien entendu round the ring of waiting faces,
saw that there was no one except De Pombal I
had cause to fear; and then at last I rose and
looked at the fool with the grim face I have
known impose on older and wiser men.
I B
2 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
" Marked cards, M. 1'Anglais ? " I said, with a
chilling sneer. "They are used, I am told, to
trap players not unbirched schoolboys."
" Yet I say that they are marked ! " he replied
hotly, in his queer foreign jargon. "In my last
hand I had nothing. You doubled the stakes.
Bah, Sir, you knew ! You have swindled me ! "
"Monsieur is easy to swindle when he plays
with a mirror behind him," I answered tartly.
And at that there was a great roar of laughter,
which might have been heard in the street, and
which brought to the table every one in the
eating-house whom his violence had not already
attracted. But I did not relax my face. I waited
until all was quiet again, and then waving aside
two or three who stood between us and the en-
trance, I pointed gravely to the door. "There is
a little space behind the church of St. Jacques,
M. 1'Etranger," I said, putting on my hat and
taking my cloak on my arm. " Doubtless you
will accompany me thither ? "
He snatched up his hat, his face burning with
shame and rage. " With pleasure ! " he blurted
out. " To the devil, if you like ! "
AT ZATON^S. 3
I thought the matter arranged, when the Mar-
quis laid his hand on the young fellow's arm
and checked him. " This must not be," he said,
turning from him to me with his grand fine-
gentleman's air. " You know me, M. de Berault.
This matter has gone far enough."
"Too far, M. de Pombal!" I answered bitterly.
"Still, if you wish to take the gentleman's place,
I shall raise no objection."
"Chut, man ! " he retorted, shrugging his shoul-
ders negligently. " I know you, and I do not fight
with men of your stamp. Nor need this gentle-
man."
" Undoubtedly," I replied, bowing low, " if he
prefers to be caned in the streets."
That stung the Marquis. " Have a care ! have
a care!" he cried hotly. "You go too far, M.
Berault."
"De Berault, if you please," I objected, eyeing
him sternly. " My family has borne the de as long
as yours, M. de Pombal."
He could not deny that, and he answered, " As
you please"; at the same time restraining his
friend by a gesture. "But none the less, take my
B 2
4 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
advice," he continued. " The Cardinal has forbid-
den duelling, and this time he means it ! You
have been in trouble once and gone free. A
second time it may fare worse with you. Let this
gentleman go, therefore, M. de Berault. Besides
why, shame upon you, man ! " he exclaimed
hotly ; " he is but a lad ! "
Two or three who stood behind me applauded
that. But I turned and they met my eye ; and
they were as mum as mice. " His age is his own
concern," I said grimly. "He was old enough a
while ago to insult me."
"And I will prove my words!" the lad cried,
exploding at last. He had spirit enough, and the
Marquis had had hard work to restrain him so
long. "You do me jio service, M. de Pombal," he
continued, pettishly shaking off his friend's hand.
" By your leave, this gentleman and I will settle
this matter."
"That is better," I said, nodding drily, while
the Marquis stood aside, frowning and baffled.
"Permit me to lead the way."
Zaton's eating-house stands scarcely a hundred
paces from St. Jacques la Boucherie, and half the
AT Z ATONES. 5
company went thither with us. The evening was
wet, the light in the streets was waning, the
streets themselves were dirty and slippery. There
were few passers in the Rue St. Antoine ; and
our party, which earlier in the day must have
attracted notice and a crowd, crossed unmarked,
and entered without interruption the paved trian-
gle which lies immediately behind the church. I
saw in the distance one of the Cardinal's guard
loitering in front of the scaffolding round the
new H6tel Richelieu ; and the sight of the uni-
form gave me pause for a moment. But it was
too late to repent.
The Englishman began at once to strip off his
clothes. I closed mine to the throat, for the air
was chilly. At that moment, while we stood pre-
paring and most of the company seemed a little
inclined to stand off from me, I felt a hand on
my arm, and, turning, saw the dwarfish tailor at
whose house in the Rue Savonnerie I lodged at
the time. The fellow's presence was unwelcome,
to say the least of it ; and though for want of
better company I had sometimes encouraged him
to be free with me at home, I took that to be no
6 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
reason why I should be plagued with him before
gentlemen. I shook him off, therefore, hoping
by a frown to silence him.
He was not to be so easily put down, however.
And perforce I had to speak to him. "After-
wards, afterwards," I said. " I am engaged now."
"For God's sake, don't, Sir!" was the poor
fool's answer. " Don't do it ! You will bring a
curse on the house. He is but a lad, and "
" You, too ! " I exclaimed, losing patience. " Be
silent, you scum ! What do you know about gen-
tlemen's quarrels ? Leave me ; do you hear ? "
" But the Cardinal ! " he cried in a quavering
voice. " The Cardinal, M. de Berault ? The last
man you killed is not forgotten yet. This time
he will be sure to "
" Do you hear ? " I hissed. The fellow's im-
pudence passed all bounds. It was as bad as his
croaking. " Begone ! " I said. " I suppose you are
afraid he will kill me, and you will lose your money?"
Prison fell back at that almost as if I had struck
him, and I turned to my adversary, who had
been awaiting my motions with impatience. God
knows he did look young ; as he stood with his
AT Z ATONES. 7
head bare and his fair hair drooping over his
smooth woman's forehead a mere lad fresh from
the College of Burgundy, if they have such a thing
in England. I felt a sudden chill as I looked at
him : a qualm, a tremor, a presentiment. What
was it the little tailor had said ? That I should
but there, he did not know. What did he know
of such things ? If I let this pass I must kill a
man a day, or leave Paris and the eating-house,
and starve.
" A thousand pardons," I said gravely, as I
drew and took my place. " A dun. I am sorry
that the poor devil caught me so inopportunely.
Now, however, I am at your service."
He saluted, and we crossed swords and began.
But from the first I had no doubt what the result
would be. The slippery stones and fading light
gave him, it is true, some chance, some advantage,
more than he deserved ; but I had no sooner felt
his blade than I knew that he was no swordsman.
Possibly he had taken half-a-dozen lessons in rapier
art, and practised what he learned with an Eng-
lishman as heavy and awkward as himself. But
that was all. He made a few wild, clumsy rushes,
UNDER THE RED ROBE.
parrying widely. When I had foiled these, the
danger was over, and I held him at my mercy.
I played with him a little while, watching the
sweat gather on his brow, and the shadow of
the church-tower fall deeper and darker, like
the shadow of doom, on his face. Not out of
cruelty God knows I have never erred in that
direction ! but because, for the first time in my
life, I felt a strange reluctance to strike the blow.
The curls clung to his forehead ; his breath came
and went in gasps ; I heard the men behind me
murmur, and one or two of them drop an oath ;
and then I slipped slipped, and was down in a
moment on my right side, my elbow striking the
pavement so sharply that the arm grew numb to
the wrist.
He held off ! I heard a dozen voices cry, " Now !
now you have him ! " But he held off. He stood
back and waited with his breast heaving and his
point lowered, until I had risen and stood again on
my guard.
" Enough ! enough ! " a rough voice behind me
cried. " Don't hurt the man after that."
"On guard, Sir!" I answered coldly for he
AT ZATOWS. 9
seemed to waver. " It was an accident It shall
not avail you again."
Several voices cried " Shame ! " and one, " You
coward ! " But the Englishman stepped forward,
a fixed look in his blue eyes. He took his place
without a word. I read in his drawn white face
that he had made up his mind to the worst, and
his courage won my admiration. I would gladly
and thankfully have set one of the lookers-on
any of the lookers-on in his place ; but that
could not be. So I thought of Zaton's closed to
me, of Pombal's insult, of the sneers and slights
I had long kept at the sword's point ; and, press-
ing him suddenly in a heat of affected anger, I
thrust strongly over his guard, which had grown
feeble, and ran him through the chest.
When I saw him lying, laid out on the stones
with his eyes half shut, and his face glimmering
white in the dusk not that I saw him thus long,
for there were a dozen kneeling round him in a
twinkling I felt an unwonted pang. It passed,
however, in a moment. For I found myself con-
fronted by a ring of angry faces of men who,
keeping at a distance, hissed and threatened me.
10 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
They were mostly canaille, who had gathered
during the fight, and had viewed all that passed
from the farther side of the railings. While
some snarled and raged at me like wolves, call-
ing me " Butcher ! " and " Cut-throat ! " and the
like, or cried out that Berault was at his trade
again, others threatened me with the vengeance
of the Cardinal, flung the edict in my teeth, and
said with glee that the guard were coming
they would see me hanged yet.
" His blood is on your head ! " one cried furi-
ously. " He will be dead in an hour. And you
will swing for him ! Hurrah ! "
" Begone to your kennel ! " I answered, with a
look which sent him a yard backwards, though
the railings were between us. And I wiped my
blade carefully, standing a little apart. For
well, I could understand it it was one of those
moments when a man is not popular. Those
who had come with me from the eating-house
eyed me askance, and turned their backs when
I drew nearer ; and those who had joined us and
obtained admission were scarcely more polite.
But I was not to be outdone in sangfroid.
AT ZATOWS. II
I cocked my hat, and drawing my cloak over my
shoulders, went out with a swagger which drove
the curs from the gate before I came within a
dozen paces of it. The rascals outside fell back
as quickly, and in a moment I was in the street.
Another moment and I should have been clear
of the place and free to lie by for a while, when
a sudden scurry took place round me. The crowd
fled every way into the gloom, and in a hand-turn
a dozen of the Cardinal's guard closed round me.
I had some acquaintance with the officer in
command, and he saluted me civilly. " This is a
bad business, M. de Berault," he said. "The
man is dead they tell me."
"Neither dying nor dead," I answered lightly.
" If that be all, you may go home again."
"With you," he replied, with a grin, "certainly.
And as it rains, the sooner the better. I must
ask you for your sword, I am afraid."
"Take it," I said, with the philosophy which
never deserts me. "But the man will not die."
" I hope that may avail you," he answered in a
tone I did not like. " Left wheel, my friends !
To the Chatelet! March!"
12 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
"There are worse places," I said, and resigned
myself to fate. After all, I had been in prison
before, and learned that only one jail lets no
prisoner escape.
But when I found that my friend's orders were
to hand me over to the watch, and that I was
to be confined^ like any common jail-bird caught
cutting a purse or slitting a throat, I confess my
heart sank. If I could get speech with the
Cardinal, all would probably be well ; but if I
failed in this, or if the case came before him
in strange guise, or he were in a hard mood
himself, then it might go ill with me. The edict
said, death !
And the lieutenant at the Chatelet did not
put himself to much trouble to hearten me.
" What ! again, M. de Berault ? " he said, raising
his eyebrows as he received me at the gate,
and recognized me by the light of the brazier
which his men were just kindling outside. " You
are a very bold man, Sir, or a very foolhardy
one, to come here again. The old business, I
suppose ? "
"Yes, but he is not dead," I answered coolly.
AT Z ATONES. 13
"He has a trifle a mere scratch. It was behind
the church of St. Jacques."
" He looked dead enough," my friend the
guardsman interposed. He had not yet gone.
"Bah ! " I answered scornfully. " Have you ever
known me make a mistake ? When I kill a man,
I kill him. I put myself to pains, I tell you, not
to kill this Englishman. Therefore he will live."
" I hope so," the lieutenant said, with a dry
smile. " And you had better hope so, too, M. de
Berault. For if not "
"Well?" I said, somewhat troubled. "If not,
what, my friend ? "
" I fear he will be the last man you will fight,"
he answered. " And even if he lives, I would not.
be too sure, my friend. This time the Cardinal is
determined to put it down."
" He and I are old friends," I said confidently.
" So I have heard," he answered, with a short
laugh. " I think the same was said of Chalais. I
do not remember that it saved his head."
This was not reassuring. But worse was to
come. Early in the morning orders were received
that I should be treated with especial strictness,
14 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
and I was given the choice between irons and one
of the cells below the level. Choosing the latter,
I was left to reflect upon many things ; among
others, on the queer and uncertain nature of the
Cardinal, who loved, I knew, to play with a man
as a cat with a mouse ; and on the ill effects which
sometimes attend a high chest-thrust, however
carefully delivered. I only rescued myself at last
from these and other unpleasant reflections by
obtaining the loan of a pair of dice ; and the light
being just enough to enable me to reckon the
throws, I amused myself for hours by casting
them on certain principles of my own. But a
long run again and again upset my calculations;
and at last brought me to the conclusion that a
run of bad luck may be so persistent as to see
out the most sagacious player. This was not a
reflection very welcome to me at the moment.
Nevertheless, for three days it was all the com-
pany I had. At the end of that time the knave
of a jailer who attended me, and who had never
grown tired of telling me, after the fashion of his
kind, that I should be hanged, came to me with a
less assured air. " Perhaps you would like a little
water?" he said civilly.
AT ZATON'S. 15
" Why, rascal ? " I asked.
" To wash with," he answered.
" I asked for some yesterday, and you would
Aot bring it," I grumbled. " However, better late
than never. Bring it now. If I must hang, I will
hang like a gentleman. But, depend upon it, the
Cardinal will not serve an old friend so scurvy a
trick."
"You are to go to him," he answered, when
he came back with the water.
"What? To the Cardinal?" I cried.
"Yes," he answered.
" Good ! " I exclaimed ; and in my joy I sprang
up at once, and began to refresh my dress. " So
all this time I have been doing him an injustice.
Vive Monseigneur ! I might have known it."
" Don't make too sure ! " the man answered
spitefully. Then he went on : "I have some-
thing else for you. A friend of yours left it
at the gate," he added. And he handed me a
packet.
" Quite so ! " I said, reading his rascally face
aright. "And you kept it as long as you dared
as long as you thought I should hang, you
1 6 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
knave ! Was not that so ? But there, do not
lie to me. Tell me instead which of my friends
left it." For, to confess the truth, I had not
so many friends at this time ; and ten good
crowns the packet contained no less a sum
argued a pretty staunch friend, and one of whom
a man might be proud.
The knave sniggered maliciously. "A crooked,
dwarfish man left it," he said. " I doubt I might
call him a tailor and not be far out."
" Chut ! " I answered ; but I was a little out
of countenance. " I understand. An honest fel-
low enough, and in debt to me ! I am glad he
remembered. But when am I to go, friend ? "
" In an hour," he answered sullenly. Doubt-
less he had looked to get one of the crowns ;
but I was too old a hand for that. If I came
back I could buy his services ; and if I did not
I should have wasted my money.
Nevertheless, a little later, when I found my-
self on my way to the Hotel Richelieu under so
close a guard that I could see nothing except
the figures that immediately surrounded me, I
wished I had given him the money. At such
AT ZATON^S. 17
times, when all hangs in the balance and the
sky is overcast, the mind runs on luck and old
superstitions, and is prone to think a crown given
here may avail there though there be a hun-
dred leagues away.
The Palais Richelieu was at this time in build-
ing, and we were required to wait in a long,
bare gallery, where the masons were at work.
I was kept a full hour here, pondering uncom-
fortably on the strange whims and fancies of
the great man who then ruled France as the
King's Lieutenant-General, with all the King's
powers ; and whose life I had once been the
means of saving by a little timely information.
On occasion he had done something to wipe out
the debt ; and at other times he had permitted
me to be free with him. We were not unknown
to one another, therefore.
Nevertheless, when the doors were at last thrown
open, and I was led into his presence, my confi-
dence underwent a shock. His cold glance, that,
roving over me, regarded me not as a man but
an item, the steely glitter of his southern eyes,
chilled me to the bone. The room was bare, the
c
1 8 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
floor without carpet or covering. Some of the
woodwork lay about, unfinished and in pieces.
But the man this man, needed no surroundings.
His keen, pale face, his brilliant eyes, even his
presence though he was of no great height and
began already to stoop at the shoulders were
enough to awe the boldest. I recalled as I looked
at him a hundred tales of his iron will, his cold
heart, his unerring craft. He had humbled the
King's brother, the splendid Duke of Orleans, in
the dust. He had curbed the Queen-mother. A
dozen heads, the noblest in France, had come to
the block through him. Only two years before
he had quelled Rochelle ; only a few months be-
fore he had crushed the great insurrection in Lan-
gucdoc : and though the south, stripped of its old
privileges, still seethed with discontent, no one in
this year 1630 dared lift a hand against him
openly, at any rate. Under the surface a hundred
plots, a thousand intrigues, sought his life or his
power ; but these, I suppose, are the hap of every
great man.
No wonder, then, that the courage on which I
plumed myself sank low at sight of him ; or that
AT ZATON'S. 19
it was as much as I could do to mingle with the
humility of my salute some touch of the sangfroid
of old acquaintanceship.
And perhaps that had been better left out. For
this man was without bowels. For a moment,
while he stood looking at me and before he spoke
to me, I gave myself up for lost. There was a
glint of cruel satisfaction in his eyes that warned
me, before he spoke, what he was going to say
to me.
" I could not have made a better catch, M. de
Berault," he said, smiling villainously, while he
gently smoothed the fur of a cat that had sprung
on the table beside him. "An old offender and
an excellent example. I doubt it will not stop
with you. But later, we will make you the war-
rant for flying at higher game."
"Monseigneur has handled a sword himself," I
blurted out. The very room seemed to be grow-
ing darker, the air colder. I was never nearer
fear in my life.
" Yes ? " he said, smiling delicately. " And so ? "
" Will not be too hard on the failings of a poor
gentleman."
20 UN-DER THE RED ROBE.
" He shall suffer no more than a rich one," h<
replied suavely, as he stroked the cat. " Enjo)
that satisfaction, M. de Berault. Is that all ? "
"Once I was of service to your Eminence," ]
said desperately.
"Payment has been made," he answered, "more
than once. But for that I should not have seen
you, M. de Berault."
" The King's face ! " I cried, snatching at the
straw he seemed to hold out.
He laughed cynically, smoothly. His thin face,
his dark moustache, and whitening hair, gave him
an air of indescribable keenness. " I am not the
King," he said. " Besides, I am told you have
killed as many as six men in duels. You owe the
King, therefore, one life at least. You must pay
it. There is no more to be said, M. de Berault,"
he continued coldly, turning away and beginning
to collect some papers. " The law must take its
course."
I thought he was about to nod to the lieuten-
ant to withdraw me, and a chilling sweat broke
out down my back. I saw the scaffold, I felt the
cords. A moment, and it would be too late ! " I
AT ZATOWS. 21
have a favour to ask," I stammered desperately,
"if your Eminence would give me a moment
alone."
"To what end?" he answered, turning and eye-
ing me with cold disfavour. " I know you your
past all. It can do no good, my friend."
" Nor harm ! " I cried. " And I am a dying
man, Monseigneur !"
"That is true," he said thoughtfully. Still he
seemed to hesitate ; and my heart beat fast. At
last he looked at the lieutenant. " You may leave
us," he said shortly. " Now," when the officer
had withdrawn and left us alone, " what is it ?
Say what you have to say quickly. And above
all, do not try to fool me, M. de Berault."
But his piercing eyes so disconcerted me that
now I had my chance I could not find a word to
say, and stood before him mute. I think this
pleased him, for his face relaxed.
" Well ? " he said at last. " Is that all ? "
"The man is not dead," I muttered.
He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.
"What of that?" he said. "That was not what
you wanted to say to me."
22 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
"Once I saved your Eminence's life," I fai-
tered miserably.
"Admitted," he answered, in his thin, incisive
voice. " You mentioned the fact before. On the
other hand, you have taken six to my knowledge,
M. de Berault. You have lived the life of a
bully, a common bravo, a gamester. You, a man
of family ! For shame ! And it has brought you
to this. Yet on that one point I am willing to
hear more," he added abruptly.
"I might save your Eminence's life again," I
cried. It was a sudden inspiration.
" You know something," he said quickly, fixing
me with his eyes. " But no," he continued, shak
ing his head gently. " Pshaw ! the trick is old.
I have better spies than you, M. de Berault."
" But no better sword," I cried hoarsely. " No,
not in all your guard ! "
"That is true," he said. "That is true." To
my surprise, he spoke in a tone of consideration ;
and he looked down at the floor. " Let me think,
my friend," he continued.
He walked two or three times up and down
the room, while I stood trembling. I confess it
AT Z ATONES. 23
trembling. The man whose pulses danger has
no power to quicken, is seldom proof against
suspense ; and the sudden hope his words awak-
ened in me so shook me that his figure, as he
trod lightly to and fro, with the cat rubbing
against his robe and turning time for time with
him, wavered before my eyes. I grasped the
table to steady myself. I had not admitted even
in my own mind how darkly the shadow of
Montfaucon and the gallows had fallen across
me.
I had leisure to recover myself, for it was some
time before he spoke. When he did, it was in
a voice harsh, changed, imperative. "You have
the reputation of a man faithful, at least, to his
employer," he said. "Do not answer me. I say
it is so. Well, I will trust you. I will give you
one more chance though it is a desperate one.
Woe to you if you fail me ! Do you know
Cocheforet in Beam? It is not far from Auch."
"No, your Eminence."
" Nor M. de Cocheforet ? "
" No, your Eminence."
"So much the better," he retorted. "But you
24 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
have heard of him. He has been engaged in
every Gascon plot since the late King's death,
and gave me more trouble last year in the
Vivarais than any man twice his years. At
present he is at Bosost in Spain, with other
refugees, but I have learned that at frequent
intervals he visits his wife at Cocheforet, which
is six leagues within the border. On one of
these visits he must be arrested."
"That should be easy," I said.
The Cardinal looked at me. " Tush, man !
what do you know about it ? " he answered
bluntly. " It is whispered at Cccheforet if a sol-
dier crosses the street at Auch. In the house
are only two or three servants, but they have
the country-side with them to a man, and they
are a dangerous breed. A spark might kindle
a fresh rising. The arrest, therefore, must be
made secretly."
I bowed.
" One resolute man inside the house, with the
help of two or three servants whom he could
summon to his aid at will, might effect it," the
Cardinal continued, glancing at a paper which lay
AT Z ATONES. 25
on the table. "The question is, will you be the
man, my friend ? "
I hesitated ; then I bowed. What choice
had I ?
"Nay, nay, speak out ! " he said sharply. "Yes
or no, M. de Berault ? "
" Yes, your Eminence," I said reluctantly.
Again, I say, what choice had I ?
" You will bring him to Paris, and alive. He
knows things, and that is why I want him. You
understand?"
"I understand, Monseigneur," I answered.
" You will get into the house as you can," he
continued. " For that you will need strategy, and
good strategy. They suspect everybody. You
must deceive them. If you fail to deceive them,
or, deceiving them, are found out later, M. de
Berault I do not think you will trouble me
again, or break the edict a second time. On the
other hand, should you deceive me'' he smiled
still more subtly, but his voice sank to a purring
note "I will break you on the wheel like the
ruined gamester you are ! "
I met his look without quailing. " So be it ! "
26 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
I said recklessly. " If I do not bring M. de
Cochefordt to Paris, you may do that to me, and
more also!"
" It is a bargain ! " he answered slowly. " I
think you will be faithful. For money, here are a
hundred crowns. That sum should suffice ; but if
you succeed you shall have twice as much more.
Well, that is all, I think. You understand?"
"Yes, Monseigneur."
"Then why do you wait?"
"The lieutenant?" I said modestly.
Monseigneur laughed to himself, and sitting
down wrote a word or two on a slip of paper.
" Give him that," he said, in high good-humour.
"I fear, M. de Berault, you will never get your
deserts in this world I "
CHAPTER II.
AT THE GREEN PILLAR.
COCHEFORET lies in a billowy land of oak and
beech and chestnut a land of deep, leafy bot-
toms, and hills clothed with forest Ridge and
valley, glen and knoll, the woodland, sparsely
peopled and more sparsely tilled, stretches away
to the great snow mountains that here limit
France. It swarms with game wivh wolves
aiid bears, deer and boars. To the end of his
life I have heard that the great King loved this
district, and would sigh, when years and State
fell heavily on him, for the beech-groves and
box-covered hills of South Beam. From the
terraced steps of Auch you can see the forest
roll away in light and shadow, vale and upland,
to the base of the snow-peaks ; and, though 1
come from Brittany and love the smell of the
salt wind, I have seen few sights that outdo this.
27
28 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
It was the second week in October when I
came to Cocheforet, and, dropping down from
the last wooded brow, rode quietly into the place
at evening. I was alone, and had ridden all
day in a glory of ruddy beech-leaves, through
the silence of forest roads, across clear brooks
and glades still green. I had seen more of the
quiet and peace of the country than had been
my share since boyhood, and I felt a little mel-
ancholy ; it might be for that reason, or because
I had no great taste for the task before me
the task now so imminent. In good faith, it
was not a gentleman's work, look at it how you
might.
But beggars must not be choosers, and I knew
that this feeling would pass away. At the inn,
in the presence of others, under the spur of
necessity, or in the excitement of the chase,
were that once begun, I should lose the feeling.
When a man is young, he seeks solitude : when
he is middle-aged he flies it and his thoughts.
I made without ado for the Green Pillar, a little
inn in the village street, to which I had been
iirected at Auch, and, thundering on the door
AT THE GREEN PILLAR. 29
with the knob of my riding-switch, railed at the
man for keeping me waiting.
Here and there at hovel doors in the street
which was a mean, poor place, not worthy of
the name men and women looked out at me
suspiciously. But I affected to ignore them ;
and at last the host came. He was a fair
haired man, half Basque, half Frenchman, and
had scanned me well, I was sure, through some
window or peephole ; for, when he came out,
he betrayed no surprise at the sight of a well-
dressed stranger a portent in that out-of-the-
way village but eyed me with a kind of sullen
reserve.
" I can lie here to-night, I suppose ? " I said,
dropping the reins on the sorrel's neck. The
horse hung its head.
" I don't know," he answered stupidly.
I pointed to the green bough which topped a
post that stood opposite the door.
" This is an inn, is it not ? " I said.
" Yes," he answered slowly ; " it is an inn.
But "
"But you are full, or you are out of food* or
30 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
your wife is ill, or something else is amiss," I
answered peevishly. " All the same, I am going
to lie here. So you must make the best of it,
and your wife, too if you have one."
He scratched his head, looking at me with an
ugly glitter in his eyes. But he said nothing,
and I dismounted.
"Where can I stable my horse?" I asked.
" I'll put it up," he answered sullenly, step-
ping forward and taking the reins in his hands.
" Very well," I said ; " but I go with you. A
merciful man is merciful to his beast, and where-
ever I go I see my horse fed."
" It will be fed," he said shortly. And then
he waited for me to go into the house. " The
wife is in there," he continued, looking at me
stubbornly.
"Imprimis if you understand Latin, my friend,"
I answered, "the horse in the stall."
As if he saw it was no good, he turned the
sorrel slowly round, and began to lead it across
the village street. There was a shed behind
the inn, which I had already marked and taken
for the stable, and I was surprised when I found
AT THE GREEN PILLAR. 31
he was not going there. But I made no remark,
and in a few minutes saw the horse well stabled
in a hovel which seemed to belong to a neighbour.
This done, the man led the way back to the
inn, carrying my valise.
" You have no other guests ? " I said, with a
casual air. I knew he was watching me closely.
" No," he answered.
"This is not much in the way to anywhere, I
suppose ? "
"No."
That was evident ; a more retired place I nevei
saw. The hanging woods, rising steeply to a
great height, so shut the valley in that I was
puzzled to think how a man could leave it save
by the road I had come. The cottages, which
were no more than mean, small huts, ran in a
straggling double line, with many gaps through
fallen trees and ill-cleared meadows. Among
them a noisy brook ran in and out. And the
inhabitants charcoal-burners, or swineherds, or
poor people of the like class, were no better than
their dwellings. I looked in vain for the Chateau.
It was not to be seen, and I dared not ask for it
32 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
The man led me into the common room of the
tavern a low-roofed, poor place, lacking a chim-
ney or glazed windows, and grimy with smoke
and use. The fire a great half-burned tree
smouldered on a stone hearth, raised a foot from
the floor. A huge black pot simmered over it,
and beside one window lounged a country fellow
talking with the goodwife. In the dusk I could
not see his face, but I gave the woman a word,
and sat down to wait for my supper.
She seemed more silent than the common run
of women ; but this might be because her hus-
band was present. While she moved about, get-
ting my meal, he took his place against the door-
post and fell to staring at me so persistently that
I felt by no means at my ease. He was a tall,
strong fellow, with a rough moustache and brown
beard, cut in the mode Henri Ouatre ; and on the
subject of that king a safe one, I knew, with a
Bearnais and on that alone, I found it possible
to make him talk. Even then there was a suspi-
cious gleam in his eyes that bade me abstain from
questions ; and as the darkness deepened behind
him, and the firelight played more and more
AT THE GREEN PILLAR. 33
strongly on his features, and I thought of the
leagues of woodland that lay between this remote
valley and Auch. I recalled the Cardinal's warn-
ing that if I failed in my attempt I should be
little likely to trouble Paris again.
The lout by the window paid no attention to
me ; nor I to him, when I had once satisfied my-
self that he was really what he seemed to be.
But by and by two or three men rough, un-
couth fellows dropped in to reinforce the land-
lord, and they, too, seemed to have no other
business than to sit in silence looking at me, or
now and again to exchange a word in a patois
of their own. By the time my supper was ready,
the knaves numbered six in all ; and, as they
were armed to a man with huge Spanish knives,
and evidently resented my presence in their dull
rustic fashion every rustic is suspicious 1
began to think that, unwittingly, I had put my
head into a wasp's nest.
Nevertheless, I ate and drank with apparent
appetite ; but little that passed within the circle
of light cast by the smoky lamp escaped me. I
watched the men's looks and gestures at least
34 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
as sharply as they watched mine ; and all the
time I was racking my wits for some mode of dis-
arming their suspicions or failing that, of learn-
ing something more of the position, which, it was
clear, far exceeded in difficulty and danger any-
thing I had expected. The whole valley, it would
seem, was on the lookout to protect my man !
I had purposely brought with me from Auch a
couple of bottles of choice Armagnac ; and these
had been carried into the house with my saddle-
bags. I took one out now and opened it, and
carelessly offered a dram of the spirit to the
landlord. He took it. As he drank it, I saw his
face flush; he handed back the cup reluctantly,
and on that hint I offered him another. The
strong spirit was already beginning to work. He
accepted, and in a few minutes began to talk
more freely and with less of the constraint which
had marked us. Still, his tongue ran chiefly on
questions he would know this, he would learn
that; but even this was a welcome change. I
told him openly whence I had come, by what
road, how long I had stayed in Auch, and where ;
and so far I satisfied his curiosity. Only wnen I
AT THE GREEN PILLAR. 35
irame to the subject of my visit to Cocheforet I
kept a mysterious silence, hinting darkly at busi-
ness in Spain and friends across the border, and
this and that, and giving the peasants to under-
stand, if they pleased, that I was in the same
interest as their exiled master.
They took the bait, winked at one another, and
began to look at me in a more friendly way
the landlord foremost. But when I had led them
so far, I dared go no farther, lest I should com-
mit myself and be found out. I stopped, there-
tore, and, harking back to general subjects,
chanced to compare my province with theirs.
The landlord, now become almost talkative, was
not slow to take up this challenge; and it pres-
ently led to my acquiring a curious piece ot
knowledge. He was boasting of, his great snow
mountains, the forests that propped them, the
bears that roamed in them, the izards that loved
the ice, and the boars that fed on the oak mast.
" Well," I said, quite by chance, " we have not
these things, it is true. But we have things in
the north you have not. We have tens of thou-
sands of good horses not such ponies as you
D 2
36 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
breed here. At the horse fair at Fe'camp my
sorrel would be lost in the crowd. Here in the
south you will not meet his match in a long day's
journey."
" Do not make too sure of that ! " the man
replied, his eyes bright with triumph and the
dram. "What would you say if I showed you
a better in my own stable?"
I saw that his words sent a kind of thrill
through his other hearers, and that such of them
as understood for two or three of them talked
their patois only looked at him angrily ; and
in a twinkling I began to comprehend. But ]
affected dulness, and laughed scornfully.
" Seeing is believing," I said. " I doubt if you
know a good horse here when you see one, my
friend."
" Oh, don't I ? " he said, winking. " Indeed ! "
" I doubt it," I answered stubbornly.
"Then come with me, and I will show you
one," he retorted, discretion giving way to vain-
glory. His wife and the others, I saw, looked
at him dumbfounded; but, without paying any
heed to them, he took up a lanthorn, and, assum-
AT THE GREEN PILLAR. 37
ing an air of peculiar wisdom, opened the door.
" Come with me," he continued. " I don't know
a good horse when I see one, don't I ? I know
a better than yours, at any rate!"
I should not have been surprised if the other
men had interfered; but I suppose he was a
leader among them, and they did not, and in
a moment we were outside. Three paces through
the darkness took us to the stable, an offset at
the back of the inn. My man twirled the pin,
and, leading the way in, raised his lanthorn. A
horse whinnied softly, and turned its bright, soft
eyes on us a baldf aced chestnut, with white
hairs in its tail and one white stocking.
" There ! " my guide exclaimed, waving the
lanthorn to and fro boastfully, that I might see
its points. " What do you say to that ? Is that
an undersized pony ? "
" No," 1 answered, purposely stinting my
praise. "It is pretty fair for this country."
"Or any country," he answered wrathfully.
"Any country, I say I don't care where it is!
And I have reason to know ! Why, man, that
horse is But there, that is a good horse, if
$8 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
ever you saw one \ " And with that he ended
abruptly and lamely, lowering the lanthorn with
a sudden gesture, and turning to the door. He
was on the instant in such hurry, that he almost
shouldered me out.
But I understood. I knew that he had nearly
betrayed all that he had been on the point of
blurting out that that was M. de Cochefore"t's
horse ! M. de Cocheforet's, comprenez bien ! And
while I turned away my face in the darkness,
that he might not see me smile, I was not sur-
prised to find the man in a moment changed,
and become, in the closing of the door, as sober
and suspicious as before, ashamed of himself and
enraged with me, and in a mood to cut my throat
for a trifle.
It was not my cue to quarrel, however any-
thing but that. I made, therefore, as if I had
seen nothing, and when we were back in the
inn praised the horse grudgingly, and like a man
but half convinced. The ugly looks and ugly
weapons I saw around me were fine incentives
to caution ; and no Italian, I flatter myself, could
have played his part more nicely than I did. But
AT THE GREEN PILLAR. 39
I was heartily glad when it was over, and I found
myself, at last, left alone for the night in a little
garret a mere fowl-house upstairs, formed by
the roof and gable walls, and hung with strings
of apples and chestnuts. It was a poor sleeping-
place rough, chilly, and unclean. I ascended
to it by a ladder; my cloak and a little fern
formed my only bed. But I was glad to accept
it. It enabled me to be alone and to think out
the position unwatched.
Of course M. de Cocheforet was at the Chateau.
He had left his horse here, and gone up on
foot : probably that was his usual plan. He
was therefore within my reach, in one sense
I could not have come at a better time but in
another he was as much beyond it as if I were
still in Paris. So far was I from being able to
seize him that I dared not ask a question or let
fall a rash word, or even look about me freely.
I saw I dared not. The slightest hint of my
mission, the faintest breath of distrust, would
lead to throat-cutting and the throat would be
mine; while the longer I lay in the village, the
greater suspicion I should incur, and the closer
would be the watch kept over me.
40 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
In such a position some men might have j^iven
up the attempt and saved themselves across the
border. But I have always valued myself on
my fidelity, and I did not shrink. If not to-day,
to-morrow ; if not this time, next time. The
dice do not always turn up aces. Bracing myself,
therefore, to the occasion, I crept, as soon as
the house was quiet, to the window, a small,
square, open lattice, much cobwebbed, and partly
stuffed with hay. I looked out. The village
seemed to be asleep. The dark branches of trees
hung a few feet away, and almost obscured a
grey, cloudy sky, through which a wet moon
sailed drearily. Looking downwards, I could at
first see nothing ; but as my eyes grew used to
the darkness I had only just put out my
rushlight I made out the stable-door and the
shadowy outlines of the lean-to roof.
I had hoped for this. I could now keep
watch, and learn at least whether Cochefore't
left before morning. If he did not I should
know he was still here. If he did, I should be
the better for seeing his features, and learning,
perhaps, other things that might be of use.
AT THE GREEN PILLAR. 41
Making up my mind to be uncomfortable, I.
sat down on the floor by the lattice, and began
a vigil that might last, I knew, until morning.
It did last about an hour. At the end of that
time I heard whispering below, then footsteps;
then, as some persons turned a corner, a voice
speaking aloud and carelessly. I could not catch
the words spoken ; but the voice was a gentle-
man's, and its bold accents and masterful tone
left me in no doubt that the speaker was M. de
Cocheforet himself. Hoping to learn more, I
pressed my face nearer to the opening, and
I had just made out through the gloom two
figures one that of a tall, slight man, wearing
a cloak, the other, I thought, a woman's, in a
sheeny white dress when a thundering rap on
the door of my garret made me spring back a
yard from the lattice, and lie down hurriedly on
my couch. The noise was repeated.
"Well?" I cried, cursing the untimely inter,
ruption. I was burning with anxiety to see more.
"What is it? What is the matter?"
The trapdoor was lifted a foot or more. The
landlord thrust up his head.
42 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
"You called, did you not?" he asked. Tie
held up a rushlight, which illumined half the
room and lit up his grinning face.
" Called at this hour of the night, you fool ? "
I answered angrily. " No ! I did not call. Go
to bed, man ! "
But he remained on the ladder, gaping stupidly.
" I heard you," he said.
"Go to bed ! You are drunk ! " I answered,
sitting up. " I tell you I did not call."
"Oh, very well," he answered slowly. "And
you do not want anything?"
" Nothing except to be left alone ! " I replied
sourly.
" Umph ! he said. " Good-night ! "
" Good-nignt ! Good-night ! " I answered, with
what patience I might. The tramp of the horse's
hoofs as it was led out of the stable was in
my ear at the moment. " Good-night ! ' I con-
tinued feverishly, hoping he would still retire
in time, and I have a chance to look out. " I
want to sleep."
" Good," he said, with a broad grin. " But
it is early yet, and you have plenty of time."
AT THE GREEN PILLAR. 4*y
And then, at last, he slowly let down the trar>
door, and I heard him chuckle as Vie went down
the ladder.
Before he reached the bottom I was at the
window. The woman whom I had seen still
stood below, in the same place; and beside her
a man in a peasant's dress, holding a lanthorn,
But the man, the man I wanted to see was no
longer there. And it was evident that he was
gone; it was evident that the others no longer
feared me, for while I gazed the landlord came
out to them with another lanthorn, and said
something to the lady, and she looked up at my
window and laughed.
It was a warm night, and she wore nothing
over her white dress. I could see her tall,
shapely figure and shining eyes, and the firm
contour of her beautiful face ; which, if any
fault might be found with it, erred in being too
regular. She looked like a woman formed by
nature to meet dangers and difficulties ; and even
here, at midnight, in the midst of these desperate
men, she seemed in place. It was possible that
under her queenly exterior, and behind the con-
44 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
temptuous laugh with which she heard the land
lord's story, there lurked a woman's soul capable
of folly and tenderness. But no outward sign
betrayed its presence.
I scanned her very carefully ; and secretly, if
the truth be told, I was glad to find Madame de
Cocheforet such a woman. I was glad that she
had laughed as she had that she was not a
little, tender, child-like woman, to be crushed by
the first pinch of trouble. For if I succeeded in
my task, if I but, pish ! Women, I said, were
all alike. She would find consolation quickly
enough.
I watched until the group broke up, and
Madame, with one of the men, went her way
round the corner of the inn, and out of my
sight. Then I retired to bed again, feeling more
than ever perplexed what course I should adopt.
It was clear that, to succeed, I must obtain
admission to the house. This was garrisoned,
unless my instruction* erred, by two or three
old men-servants only, and as many women ;
since Madame, to disguise her husband's visits
the more easily, lived, and gave out that she
AT THE GREEN PILLAR. 45
lived, in great retirement. To seize her hus-
band at home, therefore, might be no impossible
task; though here, in the heart of the village,
a troop of horse might make the attempt, and
fail.
But how was I to gain admission to the house
a house guarded by quick-witted women, and
hedged in with all the precautions love could
devise ? That was the question ; and dawn found
me still debating it, still as far as ever from an
answer. With the first light I was glad to get
up. I thought that the fresh air might inspire
me, and I was tired, besides, of my stuffy closet
I crept stealthily down the ladder, and managed
to pass unseen through the lower room, in which
several persons were snoring heavily. The outei
door was not fastened, and in a hand-turn I
stood in the street.
It was still so early that the trees stood up
black against the reddening sky, but the bough
upon the post before the door was growing
green, and in a few minutes the grey light
would be everywhere. Already even in the road
way there was a glimmering of it; and as \
46 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
stood at the corner of the house where I could
command both the front and the side on which
the stable opened looking greedily for any
trace of the midnight departure, my eyes de-
tected something light-coloured lying on the
ground. It was not more than two or three
paces from me, and I stepped to it and picked
It up curiously, hoping it might be a note. It
was not a note, however, but a tiny orange-col-
oured sachet, such as women carry in the bosom.
It was full of some faintly scented powder, and
bore on one side the initial " E," worked in
white silk; and was altogether a dainty little
toy, such as women love.
Doubtless Madame de Cocheforet had dropped
it in the night. I turned it over and over; and
then I put it away with a smile, thinking it
might be useful some time, and in some way.
I had scarcely done this, and turned with the
intention of exploring the street, when the door
behind me creaked on its leather hinges, and in
a moment my host stood at my elbow.
Evidently his suspicions were again aroused.
for from that time he managed to be with me,
AT THE GREEN PILLAR. 47
on one pretence or another, until noon. More-
over, his manner grew each moment more churl-
ish, his hints plainer; until I could scarcely avoid
noticing the one or the other. About midday,
having followed me for the twentieth time into
the street, he came at last to the point, by ask-
ing me rudely if I did not need my horse.
"No," I said. "Why do you ask?"
" Because," he answered, with an ugly smile,
"this is not a very healthy place for strangers."
" Ah ! " I retorted. " But the border air suits
me, you see."
It was a lucky answer; for, taken with my
talk of the night before, it puzzled him, by again
suggesting that I was on the .losing side, and
had my reasons for lying near Spain. Before
he had done scratching his head over it, the clat-
ter of hoofs broke the sleepy quiet of the vil-
lage street, and the lady I had seen the night
before rode quickly round the corner, and drew
her horse on to its haunches. Without looking
at me, she called to the innkeeper to come to
her stirrup.
He went The moment his back was turned,.
48 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
I slipped away, and in a twinkling was hidden
by a house. Two or three glum-looking fellows
stared at me as I passed, but no one moved ; and
in two minutes I was clear of the village, and in
a half-worn track which ran through the wood,
and led if my ideas were right to the Cha-
teau. To discover the house and learn all that
was to be learned about its situation was my
most pressing need : even at the risk of a knife-
thrust, I was determined to satisfy it.
I had not gone two hundred paces along the
path before I heard the tread of a horse behind
me, and I had just time to hide myself before
Madame came up and rode by me, sitting her
horse gracefully, and with all the courage of a
northern woman. I watched her pass, and then,
assured by her presence that I was in the right
road, I hurried after her. Two minutes' walking
at speed brought me to a light wooden bridge
spanning a stream. I crossed this, and, the wood
opening, saw before me first a wide, pleasant
meadow, and beyond this a terrace. On the ter-
race, pressed upon on three sides by thick woods,
stood a grey mansion, with the corner tourelles.
AT THE GREEN" PILLAR. 49
steep, high roofs, and round balconies that men
loved and built in the days of the first Francis.
It was of good size, but wore, I fancied, a
gloomy aspect. A great yew hedge, which seemed
to enclose a walk or bowling-green, hid the ground
floor of the east wing from view, while a formal
rose garden, stiff even in neglect, lay in front of
the main building. The west wing, whose lower
roofs fell gradually away to the woods, probably
contained the stables and granaries.
I stood a moment only, but I marked all, and
noted how the road reached the house, and which
windows were open to attack ; then I turned and
hastened back. Fortunately, I met no one be-
tween the house and the village, and was able to
enter the inn with an air of the most complete
innocence.
Short as had been my absence, I found things
altered there. Round the door loitered and chat-
tered three strangers stout, well-armed fellows,
whose bearing suggested a curious mixture of
smugness and independence. Half-a-dozen pack-
horses stood tethered to the post in front of the
house; and the landlord's manner, from being
50 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
rude and churlish only, had grown perplexed and
almost timid. One of the strangers, I soon found,
supplied him with wine ; the others were travel-
ling merchants, who rode in the first one's com-
pany for the sake of safety. All were substantial
men from Tarbes solid burgesses; and I was
not long in guessing that my host, fearing what
might leak out before them, and particularly that
I might refer to the previous night's disturbance,
was on tenterhooks while they remained.
For a time this did not suggest anything to me.
But when we had all taken our seats for supper
there came an addition to the party. The door
opened, and the fellow whom I had seen the night
before with Madame de Cocheforet entered, and
took a stool by the fire. I felt sure that he was
one of the servants at the Chateau ; and in a flash
his presence inspired me with the most feasible
plan for obtaining admission which I had yet hit
upon. I felt myself growing hot at the thought
it seemed so full of promise and of danger
and on the instant, without giving myself time
to think too much, I began to carry it into
effect.
AT THE GREEN PILLAR. 51
I called for two or three bottles of better wine,
and, assuming a jovial air, passed it round the
table. When we had drunk a few glasses, I fell
to talking, and, choosing politics, took the side
of the Languedoc party and the malcontents, in
so reckless a fashion that the innkeeper was
beside himself at my imprudence. The mer-
chants, who belonged to the class with whom the
Cardinal was always most popular, looked first
astonished and then enraged. But I was not to
be checked. Hints and sour looks were lost upon
me. I grew more outspoken with every glass, I
drank to the Rochellois, I swore it would not be
long before they raised their heads again ; and at
last, while the innkeeper and his wife were en-
gaged lighting the lamp, I passed round the
bottle and called on all for a toast.
" I'll give you one to begin," I bragged noisily.
" A gentleman's toast ! A southern toast ! Here
is confusion to the Cardinal, and a health to all
who hate him ! "
" Mon Dieu ! " one of the strangers cried,
springing from his seat in a rage. " I am not
going to stomach that ! Is your house a common
52 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
treason-hole," he continued, turning furiously on
the landlord, "that you suffer this?"
" Hoity-toity ! " I answered, coolly keeping my
seat. " What is all this ? Don't you relish my
toast, little man ? "
" No nor you ! " he retorted hotly, " whoever
you may be ! "
"Then I will give you another," I answered,
with a hiccough. " Perhaps it will be more to
your taste. Here is the Duke of Orleans, and
may he soon be King ! "
CHAPTER III.
THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD.
MY words fairly startled the three men out of
their anger. Foi" a moment they glared at me
as if they had seen a ghost. Then the wine-
merchant clapped his hand on the table. " That
is enough ! " he said, with a look at his com-
panions. " I think there can be no mistake
about that. As damnable treason as ever I
heard whispered ! I congratulate you, Sir, on
your boldness. As for you," he continued, turn-
ing with an ugly sneer to the landlord, " I
shall know now the company you keep ! I was
not aware that my wine wet whistles to such
a tune!"
But if he was startled, the innkeeper was
furious, seeing his character thus taken away;
and, being at no time a man of many words, he
vented his rage exactly in the way I wished. In
S3
54 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
a twinkling he raised such an uproar as can
scarcely be conceived. With a roar like a bull's
he ran headlong at the table, and overturned it
on the top of me. The woman saved the lamp
and fled with it into a corner, whence she and
the man from the Chateau watched the skirmish
in silence ; but the pewter cups and platters
flew spinning across the floor, while the table
pinned me to the ground among the ruins of my
stool. Having me at this disadvantage for at
first I made no resistance the landlord began
to belabour me with the first thing he snatched
up, and when I tried to defend myself cursed
me with each blow for a treacherous rogue and
a vagrant. Meanwhile, the three merchants,
delighted with the turn things had taken, skipped
round us laughing ; and now hounded him on,
now bantered me with " How is that for the
Duke of Orleans ? " and " How now, traitor ? "
When I thought this had lasted long enough
or, to speak more plainly, when I could stand
the innkeeper's drubbing no longer I threw
him off by a great effort, and struggled to my
feet. But still, though the blood was trickling
THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD. 55
down my face, I refrained from drawing my
sword. I caught up instead a leg of the stool
which lay handy, and, watching my opportunity,
dealt the landlord a shrewd blow under the ear,
which laid him out in a moment on the wreck
of his own table.
" Now ! " I cried, brandishing my new weapon,
which fitted the hand to a nicety, " come on !
Come on, if you dare to strike a blow, you ped-
dling, truckling, huckstering knaves ! A fig for
you and your shaveling Cardinal ! "
The red-faced wine-merchant drew his sword
in a one-two. " Why, you drunken fool," he
said wrathfully, " put that stick down, or I will
spit you like a lark ! "
" Lark in your teeth ! " I cried, staggering as
if the wine were in my head. "Another word,
and I "
He made a couple of savage passes at me, but
in a twinkling his sword flew across the room.
" Voila!" I shouted, lurching forward, as if I
had luck and not skill to thank for it. " Now
the next ! Come on, come on you white-livered
knaves ! " And, pretending a drunken frenzy,
$6 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
I flung my weapon bodily amongst them, and
seizing the nearest, began to wrestle with him.
In a moment they all threw themselves upon
me, and, swearing copiously, bore me back to
the door. The wine-merchant cried breathlessly
to the woman to open it, and in a twinkling
they had me through it and half way across
the road. The one thing I feared was a knife-
thrust in the melee ; but I had to run that risk,
and the men were honest enough and, thinking
me drunk, indulgent. In a trice I found myself
on my back in the dirt, with my head humming ;
and heard the bars of the door fall noisily into
their places.
I got up and went to the door, and, to play
out my part, hammered on it frantically, crying
out to them to let me in. But the three trav-
ellers only jeered at me, and the landlord, com-
ing to the window, with his head bleeding, shook
his fist at me and cursed me for a mischief-
maker.
Baffled in this I retired to a log which lay
in the road a few paces from the house, and
sat down on it to await events. With torn
THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD. 57
clothes and bleeding face, hatless and covered
vvith dirt, I was in scarcely better case than
my opponent. It was raining, too, and the
dripping branches swayed over my head. The
wind was in the south the coldest quarter.
I began to feel chilled and dispirited. If my
scheme failed, I had forfeited roof and bed to
no purpose, and placed future progress out of
the question. It was a critical moment.
But at last that happened for which I had
been looking. The door swung open a few
inches, and a man came noiselessly out; the
door was quickly barred behind him. He stood
a moment, waiting on the threshold and peering
into the gloom; and seemed to expect to be
attacked. Finding himself unmolested, however,
and all quiet, he went off steadily down the street
towards the Chateau.
I let a couple of minutes go by and then I
followed. I had no difficulty in hitting on the
track at the end of the street, but when I had
once plunged into the wood, I found myself in
darkness so intense that I soon stiayed from
the path, and fell over roots, and tore my
58 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
clothes with thorns, and lost my temper twenty
times before I found the path again. However, I
gained the bridge at last, and caught sight of a
light twinkling before me. To make for it across
the meadow and terrace was an easy task ; yet
when I had reached the door and had hammered
upon it, I was in so sorry a plight that I sank
down, and had no need to play a part or pretend
to be worse than I was.
For a long time no one answered. The dark
house towering above me remained silent. I
could hear, mingled with the throbbings of my
heart, the steady croaking of the frogs in a pond
near the stables; but no other sound. In a frenzy
of impatience and disgust I stood up again and
hammered, kicking with my heels on the nail-
studded door, and crying out desperately, "A moi !
A moi!"
Then, or a moment later, I hearc 1 a remote door
opened ; footsteps as of more than one person
drew near. I raised my voice and cried again,
"A moi!"
" Who is there ? " a voice asked.
" A gentleman in distress," I answered piteously,
THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD. 59
moving my hands across the door. " For God's
sake open and let me in. I am hurt, and dying
of cold."
" What brings you here ? " the voice asked
sharply. Despite its tartness, I fancied it was a
woman's.
" Heaven knows ! " I answered desperately. " I
cannot tell. They maltreated me at the inn, and
threw me into the street. I crawled away, and
have been wandering in the wood for hours.
Then I saw a light here."
Thereon, some muttering took place on the
other side of the door, to which I had my ear
It ended in the bars being lowered. The door
swung partly open and a light shone out, dazzling
me. I tried to shade my eyes with mv fingers,
and as I did so fancied I heard a murmur of pity.
But when I looked in under screen of my hand I
saw only one person the man who held the
light, and his aspect was so strange, so terrify-
ing, that, shaken as I was by fatigue, I recoiled
a step.
He was a tall and very thin man, meanly
Pressed in a short scanty jacket and well-darned
60 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
hose. Unable, for some reason, to bend his neckj
he carried his head with a strange stiffness.
And that head ! Never did living man show a
face so like death. His forehead was bald and
white, his cheek-bones stood out under the strained
skin, all the lower part of his face fell in, his jaws
receded, his cheeks were hollow, his lips and chin
were thin and fleshless. He seemed to have only
one expression a fixed grin.
While I stood looking at this formidable crea-
ture he made a quick motion to shut the door
again, smiling more widely. I had the presence
of mind to thrust in my foot, and, before he could
resent the act, a voice in the background cried :
" For shame, Clon ! Stand back. Stand back, do
you hear? I am afraid, Monsieur, that you are
hurt."
The last words were my welcome to that house ;
and, spoken at an hour and in circumstances so
gloomy, they made a lasting impression. Round
the hall ran a gallery, and this, the height of the
apartment, and the dark panelling seemed to swal-
low up the light. I stood within the entrance (as
it seemed to me) of a huge cave ; the skull-headed
THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD. 6l
porter had the air of an ogre. Only the voice
which greeted me dispelled the illusion. I turned
trembling towards the quarter whence it came,
and, shading my eyes, made out a woman's form
standing in a doorway under the gallery. A
second figure, which I took to be that of the
servant I had seen at the inn, loomed uncer-
tainly beside her.
I bowed in silence. My teeth were chattering
I was faint without feigning, and felt a kind of
terror, hard to explain, at the sound of this
woman's voice.
"One of our people has told me about you,"
she continued, speaking out of the darkness. " I
am sorry that this has happened to you here, but
I am afraid that you were indiscreet."
" I take all the blame, Madame," I answered
humbly. " I ask only shelter for the night."
"The time has not yet come when we cannot
give our friends that ! " she answered, with noble
courtesy. " When it does, Monsieur, we shall be
homeless ourselves."
I shivered, looking anywhere but at her; for I
had not sufficiently pictured this scene of my
62 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
arrival I had not foreseen its details ; and now
I took part in it I felt a miserable meanness weigh
me down. I had never from the first liked the
work ! But, I had had no choice. And I had no
choice now. Luckily, the guise in which I came,
my fatigue, and wound were a sufficient mark, or
I should have incurred suspicion at once. For I
am sure that if ever in this world a brave man
wore a hang-dog air, or Gil de Berault fell below
himself, it was then and there on Madame de
Cocheforet's threshold, with her welcome sounding
in my ears.
One, I think, did suspect me. Clon, the porter,
continued to hold the door obstinately ajar and to
eye me with grinning spite, until his mistress,
with some sharpness, bade him drop the bars,
and conduct me to a room.
" Do you go also, Louis," she continued, speak-
ing to the man beside her, "and see this gentle-
man comfortably disposed. I am sorry," she
added, addressing me in the graceful tone she
had before used, and I thought I could see her
head bend in the darkness, " that our present cir-
cumstances do not permit us to welcome you more
THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD. 63
fitly, Monsieur. But the troubles of the times
however, you will excuse what is lacking. Until
to-morrow, I have the honour to bid you good-
night."
"Good-night, Madame," I stammered, trem-
bling. I had not been able to distinguish her
face in the gloom of the doorway, but her voice,
her greeting, her presence, unmanned me. I was
troubled and perplexed ; I had not spirit to kick
a dog. I followed the two servants from the hall
without heeding how we went ; nor was it until we
came to a full stop at a door in a whitewashed
corridor, and it was forced upon me that some-
thing was in question between my two conductors,
that I began to take notice.
Then I saw that one of them, Louis, wished to
lodge me here where we stood. The porter, on
the other hand, who held the keys, would not.
He did not speak a word, nor did the other
and this gave a queer ominous character to the
debate ; but he continued to jerk his head towards
the farther end of the corridor, and, at last, he
carried his point. Louis shrugged his shoulders,
and moved on, glancing askance at me; and I,
64 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
not understanding the matter in debate, followed
the pair in silence.
We reached the end of the corridor, and there,
for an instant, the monster with the keys paused
and grinned at me. Then he turned into a narrow
passage on the left, and after following it for some
paces, halted before a small, strong door. His key
jarred in the lock, but he forced it shrieking round,
and with a savage flourish threw the door open.
I walked in and saw a mean, bare chamber
with barred windows. The floor was indifferently
clean, there was no furniture. The yellow light
of the lanthorn falling on the stained walls gave
the place the look of a dungeon. I turned to the
two men. " This is not a very good room," I said.
"And it feels damp. Have you no other?"
Louis looked doubtfully at his companion. But
the porter shook his head stubbornly.
" Why does he not speak ? " I asked with
impatience.
" He is dumb," Louis answered.
"Dumb!" I exclaimed. "But he hears."
" He has ears," the servant answered drily.
"But he has no tongue, Monsieur."
THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD. 65
I shuddered. " How did he lose it? " I asked.
" At Rochelle. He was a spy, and the King's
people took him the day the town surrendered.
They spared his life, but cut out his tongue."
"Ah ! " I said. I wished to say more, to be
natural, to show myself at my ease. But the
porter's eyes seemed to burn into me, and my
own tongue clove to the roof of my mouth. He
opened his lips and pointed to his throat with a
horrid gesture, and I shook my head and turned
from him " You can let me have some bed-
ding ? " I murmured hastily, for the sake of
saying something, and to escape.
" Of course, Monsieur," Louis answered. " I
will fetch some."
He went away, thinking doubtless that Clon
would stay with me. But after waiting . a min-
ute the porter strode off also with the lanthorn,
leaving me to stand in the middle of the damp,
dark room, and reflect on the position. It was
plain that Clon suspected me. This prison-like
room, with its barred window at the back of the
house, and in the wing farthest from the stables,
proved so much. Clearly, he was a dangerous
66 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
fellow, of whom I must beware. I had just
begun to wonder how Madame could keep such
a monster in her house, when I heard his step
returning. He came in, lighting Louis, who car-
ried a small pallet and a bundle of coverings.
The dumb man had, besides the lanthorn, a
bowl of water and a piece of rag in his hand.
He set them down, and going out again, fetched
in a stool. Then he hung up the lanthorn on
a nail, took the bowl and rag, and invited me to
sit down.
I was loth to let him touch me ; but he con-
tinued to stand over me, pointing and grinning
with dark persistence, and, rather than stand on
a trifle, I sat down at last, and gave him his way.
He bathed my head carefully enough, and I dare
say did. it good ; but I understood. I knew that
his only desire was to learn whether the cut was
real or a pretence. I began to fear him more
and more, and, until he was gone from the room,
dared scarcely lift my face, lest he should read
too much in it.
Alone, even, I felt uncomfortable. This seemed
so sinister a business, and so ill begun. I was
THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD. 67
in the house. But Madame's frank voice haunted
me, and the dumb man's eyes, full of suspicion
and menace. When I presently got up and tried
my door, I found it locked. The room smelled
dank and close like a vault. I could not sec
through the barred window ; but I could hear
the boughs sweep it in ghostly fashion ; and I
guessed that it looked out where the wood grew
close to the walls of the house ; and that even in
the day the sun never peeped through it.
Nevertheless, tired and worn out, I slept at
last. When I awoke the room was full of grey
light, the door stood open, and Louis, looking
ashamed of himself, waited by my pallet with a
cup of wine in his hand, and some bread and
fruit on a platter.
" Will Monsieur be good enough to rise ? "
he said. " It is eight o'clock."
"Willingly," I answered tartly. " Now that the
door is unlocked."
He turned red. " It was an oversight," he
stammered. " Clon is accustomed to lock the
door, and he did it inadvertently, forgetting that
there was any one "
r:
68 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
" Inside ! " I said drily.
"Precisely, Monsieur."
"Ah!" I replied. "Well, I do not think the
oversight would please Madame de Cocheforet,
if she heard of it ? "
" If Monsieur would have the kindness not
to"
" Mention it, my good fellow ? " I answered,
looking at him with meaning, as I rose. " No ;
but it must not occur again."
I saw that this man was not like Qon. He
had the instincts of the family servant, and freed
from the influences of darkness, felt ashamed of
his conduct. While he arranged my clothes, he
looked round the room with an air of distaste,
and muttered once or twice that the furniture of
the principal chambers was packed away.
" M. de Cocheforet is abroad, I think ? " I said,
as I dressed.
" And likely to remain there," the man answered
carelessly, shrugging his shoulders. " Monsieur
will doubtless have heard that he is in trouble.
In the meantime, the house is triste, and Mon-
sieur must overlook much, if he stays. Madame
THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD. 69
lives retired, and the roads are ill-made and visi-
tors few."
" When the lion was ill the jackals left him," I
said.
Louis nodded. " It is true," he answered
simply. He made no boast or brag on his own
account, I noticed ; and it came home to me that
he was a faithful fellow, such as I love. I ques-
tioned him discreetly, and learned that he and
Clon and an older man who lived over the sta-
bles were the only male servants left of a great
household. Madame, her sister-in-law, and three
women completed the family.
It took me some time to repair my wardrobe, so
that I dare say it was nearly ten when I left my
dismal little room. I found Louis waiting in the
corridor, and he told me that Madame de Coche-
foret and Mademoiselle were in the rose-garden,
and would be pleased to receive me. I nodded,
and he guided me through several dim passages
to a parlour with an open door, through which
the sun shone in gaily. Cheered by the morning
air and this sudden change to pleasantness and
life, I stepped lightly out.
70 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
The two ladies were walking up and down
a wide path which bisected the garden. The
weeds grew rankly in the gravel underfoot, the
rose-bushes which bordered the walk thrust their
branches here and there in untrained freedom,
a dark yew hedge which formed the background
bristled with rough shoots and sadly needed trim-
ming. But I did not see any of these things then.
The grace, the noble air, the distinction of the two
women who paced slowly to meet me and who
shared all these qualities greatly as they differed
in others left me no power to notice trifles.
Mademoiselle was a head shorter than her belle
sceur a slender woman and petite, with a beauti-
ful face and a fair complexion. She walked with
dignity, but beside Madame's stately figure she
seemed almost childish. And it was character-
istic of the two that Mademoiselle as they drew
near to me regarded me with sorrowful attention,
Madame with a grave smile.
I bowed low. They returned the salute.
" This is my sister," Madame de Cocheforet said,
with a slight, a very slight air of condescension.
" Will you please to tell me your name, Monsieur ? "
THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD. 7*
"I am M. de Barthe, a gentleman of Nor-
mandy," I said, taking the name of my mother.
My own, by a possibility, might be known.
Madame's face wore a puzzled look. " I do not
know your name, I think," she said thoughtfully.
Doubtless she was going over in her mind all
the names with which conspiracy had made her
familiar.
"That is my misfortune, Madame," I said
humbly.
" Nevertheless I am going to scold you," she
rejoined, still eyeing me with some keenness. " I
am glad to see that you are none the worse for
your adventure but others may be. And you
should have borne that in mind."
" I do not think that I hurt the man seriously,"
I stammered.
" I do not refer to that," she answered coldly.
" You know, or should know, that we are in dis-
grace here ; that the Government regards us
already with an evil eye, and that a very small
thing would lead them to garrison the village and
perhaps oust us from the little the wars have left
us. You should have known this and considered
72 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
it," she continued. " Whereas I do not say that
you are a braggart, M. de Barthe. But on this
one occasion you seem to have played the part
of one."
" Madame, I did not think," I stammered.
" Want of thought causes much evil," she an-
swered, smiling. " However, I have spoken, and
we trust that while you stay with us you will
be more careful. For the rest, Monsieur," she
continued graciously, raising her hand to prevent
me speaking, " we do not know why you are here,
or what plans you are pursuing. And we do not
wish to know. It is enough that you are of our
side. This house is at your service as long as you
please to use it. And if we can aid you in any
other way we will do so."
" Madame ! " I exclaimed ; and there I stopped.
I could not say any more. The rose-garden, with
its air of neglect, the shadow of the quiet house
that fell across it, the great yew hedge which
backed it, and was the pattern of one under
which I had played in childhood all had points
that pricked me. But the women's kindness,
their unquestioning confidence, the noble air of
THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD. 73
hospitality which moved them! Against these
and their placid beauty in its peaceful frame I
had no shield. I turned away, and feigned to
be overcome by gratitude. " I have no words
to thank you!" I muttered presently. "I am
a little shaken this morning. I pardon me."
"We will leave you for a while," Mademoiselle
de Cocheforet said, in gentle, pitying tones.
" The air will revive you. Louis shall call you
when we go to dinner, M. de Barthe. Come,
Elise."
I bowed low to hide my face, and they nodded
pleasantly not looking closely at me as they
walked by me to the house. I watched the two
gracious, pale-robed figures until the doorway
swallowed them, and then I walked away to a
quiet corner where the shrubs grew highest and
the yew hedge threw its deepest shadow, and I
stood to think.
They were strange thoughts, I remember. If
the oak can think at the moment the wind uproots
it, or the gnarled thorn-bush when the landslip
tears it from the slope, they may have such
thoughts. I stared at the leaves, at the rotting
74 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
blossoms, into the dark cavities of the hedge ;
I stared mechanically, dazed and wondering.
What was the purpose for which I was here ?
What was the work I had come to do ? Above
all, how my God ! how was I to do it in the
face of these helpless women, who trusted me
who opened their house to me ? Clon had not
frightened me, nor the loneliness of the leagued
village, nor the remoteness of this corner where
the dread Cardinal seemed a name, and the King's
writ ran slowly, and the rebellion, long quenched
elsewhere, still smouldered. But Madame's pure
faith, the younger woman's tenderness how was
I to face these ?
I cursed the Cardinal, I cursed the English
fool who had brought me to this, I cursed the
years of plenty and scarceness and the Quartier
Marais, and Zaton's, where I had lived like a
pig, and
A touch fell on my arm. I turned. It was
Clon. How he had stolen up so quietly, how
long he had been at my elbow, I could not tell.
But his eyes gleamed spitefully in their deep
sockets, and he laughed with his fleshless lips;
THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD. 75
and I hated him. In the daylight the man
looked more like a death's-head than ever. I
fancied I read in his face that he knew my
secret, and I flashed into rage at sight of
him.
" What is it ? " I cried, with another oath.
' Don't lay your corpse-claws on me ! "
He mowed at me, and, bowing with ironical
politeness, pointed to the house. " Is Madame
served ? " I said impatiently, crushing down my
nnger. " Is that what you mean, fool ? "
He nodded.
"Very well," I retorted. "I can find my way,
then. You may go ! "
He fell behind, and I strode back through the
sunshine and flowers, and along the grass-grown
paths, to the door by which I had come. I
walked fast, but his shadow kept pace with me,
driving out the strange thoughts in which I had
been indulging. Slowly but surely it darkened
my mood. After all, this was a little, little place ;
the people who lived here I shrugged my
shoulders. France, power, pleasure, life lay yon-
der in the great city. A boy might wreck himself
76 UNDER THE RED ROBE,
here for a fancy ; a man of the world, never.
When I entered the room, where the two ladies
stood waiting for me by the table, I was myself
again.
" Clon made you understand, then ? " the
younger woman said kindly.
" Yes, Mademoiselle," I answered. On which
I saw the two smile at one another, and I added :
" He is a strange creature. I wonder you can
bear to have him near you."
" Poor man ! You do not know his story ? "
Madame said.
" I have heard something of it," I answered.
" Louis told me."
"Well, I do shudder at him, sometimes," she
replied, in a low voice. " He has suffered
and horribly, and for us. But I wish it had been
on any other service. Spies are necessary things,
but one does not wish to have to do with them !
Anything in the nature of treachery is so hor-
rible."
" Quick, Louis ! the cognac, if you have any
there ! " Mademoiselle exclaimed. " I am sure
you are still feeling ill, Monsieur."
THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD. 77
" No, I thank you," I muttered hoarsely,
making an effort to recover myself. " I am
quite well. It was an old wound that sometimes
touches me."
CHAPTER IV.
MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE.
To be frank, however, it was not the old wound
that touched me so nearly, but Madame's words;
which, finishing what Clon's sudden appearance
in the garden had begun, went a long way towards
hardening me and throwing me back into myself.
I saw with bitterness what I had perhaps for-
gotten for a moment how great was the chasm
which separated me from these women ; how im-
possible it was we could long think alike ; how far
apart in views, in experience, in aims we were.
And while I made a mock in my heart of their
high-flown sentiments or thought I did I
laughed no less at the folly which had led me
to dream, even for a moment, that I could, at my
age, go back go back and risk all for a whim,
a scruple, the fancy of a lonely hour.
I dare say something of this showed in my face :
78
MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE. 7g
for Madame's eyes mirrored a dim reflection of
trouble as she looked at me, and Mademoiselle ate
nervously and at random. At any rate, I fancied
so, and I hastened to compose myself; and the
two, in pressing upon me the simple dainties of
the table, soon forgot, or appeared to forget, the
incident.
Yet in spite of this contretemps, that first meal
had a strange charm for me. The round table
whereat we dined was spread inside the open door
which led to the garden, so that the October sun-
shine fell full on the spotless linen and quaint old
plate, and the fresh balmy air filled the room with
the scent of sweet herbs. Louis served us with
the mien of major-domo, and set on each dish as
though it had been a peacock or a mess of orto-
lans. The woods provided the larger portion of
our meal ; the garden did its part ; the confections
Mademoiselle had cooked with her own hand.
By-and-bye, as the meal went on, as Louis trod
to and fro across the polished floor, and the last
insects of summer hummed sleepily outside, and
the two gracious faces continued to smile at me
out of the gloom for the ladies sat with their
00 UNDER THE RED ROBE,
backs to the door I began to dream again. I
began to sink again into folly that was half
pleasure, half pain. The fury of the gaming-
house and the riot of Zaton's seemed far away.
The triumphs of the fencing-room even they
grew cheap and tawdry. I thought of existence
as one outside it. I balanced this against that,
and wondered whether, after all, the red soutane
were so much better than the homely jerkin, or
the fame of a day than ease and safety.
And life at Cocheforet was all after the pattern
of this dinner. Each day, I might almost say
each meal, gave rise to the same sequence of
thoughts. In Clon's presence, or when some
word of Madame's, unconsciously harsh, reminded
me of the distance between us, I was myself. At
other times, in face of this peaceful and intimate
life, which was only rendered possible by the
^emoteness of the place and the peculiar circum-
stances in which the ladies stood, I felt a strange
weakness. The loneliness of the woods that en-
circled the house, and here and there afforded a
distant glimpse of snow-clad peaks; the absence
of any link to bind me to the old life, so that at
MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE. 8 1
intervals it seemed unreal ; the remoteness of the
great world, all tended to sap my will and weaken
the purpose which had brought me to this place.
On the fourth day after my coming, however,
something happened to break the spell. It chanced
that I came late to dinner, and entered the room
hastily and without ceremony, expecting to find
Madame and her sister already seated. Instead,
I found them talking in a low tone by the open
door, with every mark of disorder in their appear-
ance ; while Clon and Louis stood at a little dis-
tance with downcast faces and perplexed looks.
I had tune to see all this, and then my en-
trance wrought a sudden change. Clon and Louis
sprang to attention ; Madame and her sister came
to the table and sat down, and made a shallow
pretence of being at their ease. But Mademoi-
selle's face was pale, her hand trembled; and
though Madame's greater self-command enabled
her to carry off the matter better, I saw that she
was not herself. Once or twice she spoke harshly
to Louis; she fell at other times into a brown
study ; and when she thought I was not watching
her, her face wore a look of deep anxiety.
82 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
I wondered what all this meant; and I won-
dered more when, after the meal, the two walked
in the garden for an hour with Clon. Mademoi-
selle came from this interview alone, and I was
sure that she had been weeping. Madame and
the dark porter stayed outside some time longer;
then she, too, came in, and disappeared.
Clon did not return with her, and when I went
into the garden five minutes later Louis also had
vanished. Save for two women who sat sewing
at an upper window, the house seemed to be
deserted. Not a sound broke the afternoon still-
ness of room or garden, and yet I felt that more
was happening in this silence than appeared on
the surface. I began to grow curious suspi-
cious; and presently slipped out myself by way
of the stables, and, skirting the wood at the
back of the house, gained with a little trouble
the bridge which crossed the stream and led to
the village.
Turning round at this point, I could see the
house, and I moved a little aside into the under-
wood, and stood gazing at the windows, trying
to unriddle the matter. It was not likely that
MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE. 83
M. de Cocheforet would repeat his visit so soon;
and, besides, the women's emotions had been
those of pure dismay and grief, unmixed with
any of the satisfaction to which such a meeting,
though snatched by stealth, would give rise. I
discarded my first thought, therefore that he
had returned unexpectedly and I sought for
another solution.
But none was on the instant forthcoming. The
windows remained obstinately blind, no figures
appeared on the terrace, the garden lay deserted,
and without life. My departure had not, as I half
expected it would, drawn the secret into light.
I watched a while, at times cursing my own
meanness; but the excitement of the moment
and the quest tided me over that. Then I de-
termined to go down into the village and see
whether anything was moving there. I had been
down to the inn once, and had been received
half sulkily, half courteously, as a person privi-
leged at the great house, and therefore to be
accepted. It would not be thought odd if I
went again ; and after a moment's thought,
I started down the track.
G 2
84 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
This, where it ran through the wood, was so
densely shaded that the sun penetrated to it little,
and in patches only. A squirrel stirred at times,
sliding round a trunk, or scampering across the
dry leaves. Occasionally a pig grunted and
moved farther into the wood. But the place
was very quiet, and I do not know how it was
that I surprised Clon instead of being surprised
by him.
He was walking along the path before me with
his eyes on the ground walking so slowly, and
with his lean frame so bent that I might have
supposed him ill if I had not remarked the
steady movement of his head from right to left,
and the alert touch with which he now and again
displaced a clod of earth or a cluster of leaves.
By-and-bye he rose stiffly, and looked round him
suspiciously; but by that time I had slipped be-
hind a trunk, and was not to be seen ; and after
a brief interval he went back to his task, stoop-
ing over it more closely, if possible, than before,
and applying himself with even greater care.
By that time I had made up my mind that he
was tracking some one. But whom ? I could not
MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE. 85
make a guess at that. I only knew that the
plot was thickening, and began to feel the eager-
ness of the chase. Of course, if the matter had
not to do with Cocheforet, it was no affair of
mine; but though it seemed unlikely that any-
thing could bring him back so soon, he might
still be at the bottom of this. And, besides, I
felt a natural curiosity. When Clon at last im-
proved his pace, and went on to the village, I took
up his task. I called to mind all the wood-lore
I had ever known, and scanned trodden mould
and crushed leaves with eager eyes. But in vain.
I could make nothing of it at all, and rose at
last with an aching back and no advantage.
I did not go on to the village after that, but
returned to the house, where I found Madame
pacing the garden. She looked up eagerly on
hearing my step ; and I was mistaken if she
was not disappointed if she had not been ex-
pecting some one else. She hid the feeling
bravely, however, and met me with a careless
word; but she turned to the house more than
once while we talked, and she seemed to be all
the while on the watch, and uneasy. I was not
86 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
surprised when Clon's figure presently appeared
in the doorway, and she left me abruptly, and
went to him. I only felt more certain than
before that there was something strange on foot.
What it was, and whether it had to do with M. de
CocheCoret, I could not tell. But there it was,
and I grew more curious the longer I remained
alone.
She came back to me presently, looking
thoughtful and a trifle downcast. "That was
Clon, was it not ? " I said, studying her face.
" Yes," she answered. She spoke absently,
and did not look at me.
"How does he talk to you?" I asked, speak-
ing a trifle curtly.
As I intended, my tone roused her. " By
signs," she said.
' Is he is he not a little mad?" I ventured.
I wanted to make her talk and forget herself.
She looked at me with sudden keenness, then
dropped her eyes.
" You do not like him ? " she said, a note of
challenge in her voice. " I have noticed that,
Monsieur."
MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE. 87
" I think he does not like me," I replied.
" He is less trustful than we are," she an-
swered na'fvely. "It is natural that he should
be. He has seen more of the world."
That silenced me for a moment, but she did
not seem to notice it. " I was looking for him
a little while ago, and I could not find him," I
said, after a pause.
" He has been into the village," she answered.
I longed to pursue the matter farther; but
though she seemed to entertain no suspicion of
me, I dared not run the risk. I tried her, instead,
on another tack. " Mademoiselle de Cocheforet
does not seem very well to-day ? " I said.
" No ? " she answered carelessly. " Well, now
Vou speak of it, I do not think she is. She is
often anxious about my husband."
She uttered the last two words with a little
hesitation, and looked at me quickly when she
had spoken them. We were sitting at the mo-
ment on a stone seat which had the wall of the
house for a back ; and, fortunately, I was toying
with the branch of a creeping plant that hung
over it, so that she could not see more than the
UNDER THE RED ROBE.
side of my face. For I knew that it altered.
Over ray voice, however, I had more control, and
I hastened to answer, "Yes, I suppose so," as
innocently as possible.
"He is at Bosost in Spain. You knew that,
I conclude?" she said, with a certain sharpness.
And she looked me in the face again very
directly.
"Yes," I answered, beginning to tremble.
" I suppose you have heard, too, that he
that he sometimes crosses the border?" she con-
tinued, in a low voice, but with a certain ring of
insistence in her tone. " Or, if you have not
heard it, you guess it ? "
I was in a quandary, and grew, in one second,
hot all over. Uncertain what amount of knowl-
edge I ought to admit, I took refuge in gallantry.
" I should be surprised if he did not," I answered,
with a bow, " being, as he is, so close, and having
such an inducement to return, Madame."
She drew a long, shivering sigh at the
thought of his peril, I fancied, and sat back
against the wall. Nor did she say any more,
though I heard her sigh again. In a moment
MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE. 89
she rose. "The afternoons are growing chilly,"
she said ; " I will go in and see how Mademoiselle
is. Sometimes she does not come to supper. If
she cannot descend this evening, I am afraid
you must excuse me too, Monsieur."
I said what was right, and watched her go in ;
and, as I did so, I loathed my errand, and the
mean contemptible curiosity which it had planted
in my mind, more than at any former time.
These women I could find it in my heart to
hate them for their frankness, for their foolish
confidence, and the silly trustfulness that made
them so easy a prey !
Nom de Dieu ! What did the woman mean by
telling me all this ? To meet me in such a way,
to disarm one by such methods, was to take an
unfair advantage. It put a vile ay, the vilest
aspect, on the work I had to do.
Yet it was very odd ! What could M. de
Cochefore't mean by returning so soon, if M. de
Cochefore"t was here? And, on the other hand,
if it was not his unexpected presence that had so
upset the house, what was the secret? Whom
had Clon been tracking? And what was the
90 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
cause of Madame's anxiety ? In a few minutes I
began to grow curious again ; and, as the ladies
did not appear at supper, I had leisure to give my
brain full license, and in the course of an hour
thought of a hundred keys to the mystery. But
none exactly fitted the lock, or laid open the
secret.
A false alarm that evening helped to puzzle me
still more. I was sitting, about an hour after
supper, on the same seat in the garden I had
my cloak and was smoking when Madame
came out like a ghost, and, without seeing me,
flitted away through the darkness toward the sta-
bles. For a moment I hesitated, then I followed
her. She went down the path and round the
stables, and so far I understood; but when she
had in this way gained the rear of the west wing,
she took a track through the thicket to the east of
the house again, and so came back to the garden
This gained, she came up the path and went in
through the parlour door, and disappeared after
making a clear circuit of the house, and not once
pausing or looking to right or left ! I confess I
was fairly baffled. I sank back on the seat I had
MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE. 91
left, and said to myself that this was the lamest
of all conclusions. I was sure that she had ex-
changed no word with any one. I was equally
sure that she had not detected my presence
behind her. Why, then, had she made this
strange promenade, alone, unprotected, an hour
after nightfall? No dog had bayed, no one had
moved, she had not once paused, or listened, like
a person expecting a rencontre. I could not make
it out. And I came no nearer to solving it, though
I lay awake an hour beyond my usual time.
In the morning neither of the ladies descended
to dinner, and I heard that Mademoiselle was not
ao well. After a lonely meal, therefore I missed
them more than I should have supposed I re-
tired to my favourite seat, and fell to meditating.
The day was fine, and the garden pleasant.
Sitting there with my eyes on the old-fashioned
herb-beds, with the old-fashioned scents in the air,
and the dark belt of trees bounding the view on
either side, I could believe that I had been out of
Paris not three weeks, but three months. The
quiet lapped me round. I could fancy that I had
never loved anything else. The wood-doves cooed
92 UNDER THE RED ROBE7
in the stillness; occasionally the harsh cry of a
jay jarred the silence. It was an hour after noon,
and hot. I think I nodded.
On a sudden, as if in a dream, I saw Clon's
face peering at me round the angle of the parlour
door. He looked, and in a moment withdrew,
and I heard whispering. The door was gently
closed. Then all was still again.
But I was wide awake now, and thinking hard.
Clearly the people of the house wished to assure
themselves that I was asleep and safely out of the
way. As clearly, it was to my interest to know
what was passing. Giving way to the temptation,
I rose quietly, and, stooping below the level of
the windows, slipped round the east end of the
house, passing between it and the great yew
hedge. Here I found all still, and no one stir-
ring. So, keeping a wary eye about me, I went
on round the house reversing the route which
Madame had taken the night before until I
gained the rear of the stables. Here I had
scarcely paused a second to scan the ground
before two persons came out of the stable-court
They were Madame and the porter.
MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE. 93
They stood a brief while outside, and looked
up and down. Then Madame said something to
the man, and he nodded. Leaving him standing
where he was, she crossed the grass with a quick,
light step, and vanished among the trees.
In a moment my mind was made up to follow ;
and, as Clon turned at once and went in, I was
able to do so before it was too late. Bending low
among the shrubs, I ran hot-foot to the point
where Madame had entered the wood. Here I
found a narrow path, and ran nimbly along it, and
presently saw her grey robe fluttering among the
trees before me. It only remained to keep out of
her sight and give her no chance of discovering
that she was followed; and this I set myself to
do. Once or twice she glanced round, but the
wood was of beech, the light which passed
between the leaves was mere twilight, and my
clothes were dark-coloured. I had every advan-
tage, therefore, and little to fear as long as I
could keep her in view and still remain myself at
such a distance that the rustle of my tread would
not disturb her.
Assured that she was on her way to meet her
94 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
husband, whom my presence kept from the house,
I felt that the crisis had come at last ; and I grew
more excited with each step I took. True, I de-
tested the task of watching her : it filled me with
peevish disgust. But in proportion as I hated it I
was eager to have it done and be done with it f
and succeed, and stuff my ears and begone from
the scene. When she presently came to the verge
of the beech wood, and, entering a little open
clearing, seemed to loiter, I went cautiously
This, I thought, must be the rendezvous ; and 1
held back warily, looking to see him step out of
the thicket.
But he did not, and by-and-bye she quickened
her pace. She crossed the open and entered a
wide ride cut through a low, dense wood of alder
and dwarf oak a wood so closely planted, and
so intertwined with hazel and elder and box that
the branches rose like a solid wall, twelve feet
high, on either side of the track.
Down this she passed, and I stood and watched
her go ; for I dared not follow. The ride stretched
away as straight as a line for four or five hundred
yards, a green path between green walls. To
MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE. 95
it was to be immediately detected, if she turned ;
while the thicket itself permitted no passage. I
stood baffled and raging, and watched her pass
along. It seemed an age before she at last
reached the end, and, turning sharply to the right,
was in an instant gone from sight.
I waited then no longer. I started off, and,
running as lightly and quietly as I could, I sped
down the green alley. The sun shone into it, the
trees kept off the wind, and between heat and
haste, I sweated finely. But the turf was soft,
and the ground fell slightly, and in little more
than a minute I gained the end. Fifty yards
short of the turning I stayed myself, and,
stealing on, looked cautiously the way she had
gone.
I saw before me a second ride, the twin of the
other, and a hundred and fifty paces down it her
grey figure tripping on between the green hedges.
I stood and took breath, and cursed the wood and
the heat and Madame's wariness. We must have
come a league or two-thirds of a league, at least.
How far did the man expect her to plod to meet
him ? I began to grow angry. There is modera-
96 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
tion even in the cooking of eggs, and this wood
might stretch into Spain, for all I knew!
Presently she turned the corner and was gone
again, and I had to repeat my manoeuvre. This
time, surely, I should find a change. But no !
Another green ride stretched away into the depths
of the forest, with hedges of varying shades
here light and there dark, as hazel and elder, or
thorn, and yew and box prevailed but always
high and stiff and impervious. Half-way down the
ride Madame's figure tripped steadily on, the only
moving thing in sight. I wondered, stood, and,
when she vanished, followed only to find that
she had entered another track, a little narrower,
but in every other respect alike.
And so it went on for quite half an hour.
Sometimes Madame turned to the right, some-
times to the left. The maze seemed to be end-
less. Once or twice I wondered whether she had
lost her way, and was merely seeking to return.
But her steady, purposeful gait, her measured
pace, forbade the idea. I noticed, too, that she
seldom looked behind her rarely to right or left.
Once the ride down which she passed was car-
MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE. 97
peted not with green, but with the silvery, sheeny
leaves of some creeping plant that in the distance
had a shimmer like that of water at evening. As
she trod this, with her face to the low sun, her tall
grey figure had a pure air that for the moment
startled me she looked unearthly. Then I swore
in scorn of myself, and at the next corner I had
my reward. She was no longer walking on. She
had stopped, I found, and seated herself on a
fallen tree that lay in the ride.
For some time I stood in ambush watching her,
and with each minute I grew more impatient At
last I began to doubt to have strange thoughts.
The green walls were growing dark. The sun
was sinking ; a sharp, white peak, miles and miles
away, which closed the vista of the ride began to
flush and colour rosily. Finally, but not before
I had had leisure to grow uneasy, she stood up
and walked on more slowly. I waited, as usual,
until the next turning hid her. Then I hastened
after her, and, warily passing round the corner
came face to face with her!
I knew all in a moment that she had fooled
me, tricked me, lured me away. Her face was
H
98 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
white with scorn, her eyes blazed ; her figure, as
she confronted me, trembled with anger and infi-
nite contempt.
" You spy ! " she cried. " You hound ! You
gentleman ! Oh, mon Dieu ! if you are one of
us if you are really not canaille we shall pay
for this some day ! We shall pay a heavy reck-
oning in the time to come ! I did not think," she
continued her every syllable like the lash of
a whip "that there was anything so vile as
you in this world ! "
I stammered something I do not know what.
Her words burned into me into my heart ! Had
she been a man, I would have struck her dead!
"You thought you deceived me yesterday,"
she continued, lowering her tone, but with no
lessening of the passion and contempt which
curled her lip and gave fulness to her voice.
" You plotter ! You surface trickster ! You
thought it an easy task to delude a woman
you find yourself deluded. God give you shame
that you may suffer ! " she continued mercilessly.
" You talked of Clon, but Clon beside you is the
most honourable of men ! "
MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE. 99
"Madame," I said hoarsely and I know my
face was grey as ashes " let us understand one
another."
" God forbid ! " she cried, on the instant. " I
would not soil myself ! "
" Fie ! Madame," I said, trembling. " But then,
you are a woman. That should cost a man his
life!"
She laughed bitterly.
"You say well," she retorted. "I am not a
man. Neither am I Madame. Madame de
Cocheforet has spent this afternoon thanks
to your absence and your imbecility with her
husband. Yes, I hope that hurts you ! " she went
on, savagely snapping her little white teeth
together. " To spy and do vile work, and do it
ill, Monsieur Mpuchard Monsieur de Mouchard,
I should say I congratulate you!"
" You are not Madame de Cocheforet ! " I cried,
stunned even in the midst of my shame and
rage by this blow.
"No, Monsieur!" she answered grimly. "I
am not! And permit me to point out for we
io not all lie easily that I never said I was
H 9.
100 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
You deceived yourself so skilfully that we had no
need to trick you."
" Mademoiselle, then ? " I muttered.
" Is Madame ! " she cried. " Yes, and I am
Mademoiselle de Cocheforet. And in that char-
acter, and in all others, I beg from this moment
to close our acquaintance, Sir. When we meet
again if we ever do meet which God for-
bid ! " she cried, her eyes sparkling, " do not pre-
sume to speak to me, or I will have you flogged
by the grooms. And do not stain our roof by
sleeping under it again. You may lie to-night in
the inn. It shall not be said that Cocheforet,"
she continued proudly, "returned even treachery
with inhospitality ; and I will give orders to that
end. To-morrow begone back to your master, like
the whipped cur you are ! Spy and coward ! "
With the last fierce words she moved away.
I would have said something, I could almost have
found it in my heart to stop her and make her
hear. Nay, I had dreadful thoughts; for I was
the stronger, and I might have done with her as
I pleased. But she swept by me so fearlessly
as I might pass some loathsome cripple in the
MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE. IOI
road that I stood turned to stone. Without
looking at me without turning her head' to see
whether I followed or remained, or what I did
she went steadily down the track until the trees
and the shadow and the growing darkness hid
her grey figure from me; and I found myself
alone.
CHAPTER V.
REVENGE.
AND full of black rage ! Had she only re-
proached me, or, turning on me in the hour of
my victory, said all she had now said in the
moment of her own, I could have borne it. She
might have shamed me then, and I might have
taken the shame to myself, and forgiven her.
But, as it was, I stood there in the gathering
dusk, between the darkening hedges, baffled,
tricked, defeated ! And by a woman ! She had
pitted her wits against mine, her woman's will
against my experience, and she had come off the
victor. And then she had reviled me. As I took
it all in, and began to comprehend, also, the more
remote results, and how completely her move had
made further progress on my part impossible, I
hated her. She had tricked me with her gracious
ways and her slow-coming smile. And, after al]
REVENGE. 103
for what she had said it was this man's life
or mine. What had I done that another man
would not do ? Man Dieu ! In the future there
was nothing I would not do. I would make her
smart for those words of hers! I would bring
her to her knees !
Still, hot as I was, an hour might have restored
me to coolness. But when I started to return,
I fell into a fresh rage, for I remembered that I
did not know my way out of the maze of rides
and paths into which she had drawn me ; and
this and the mishaps which followed kept my
rage hot. For a full hour I wandered in the
wood, unable, though I knew where the village
lay, to find any track which led continuously in
one direction. Whenever, at the end of each
attempt, the thicket brought me up short, I fan-
cied I heard her laughing on the farther side of
the brake ; and the ignominy of this chance pun-
ishment, the check which the confinement placed
on my rage, almost maddened me. In the dark-
ness, I fell, and rose cursing ; I tore my hands
with thorns ; I stained my suit, which had suffered
sadly once before. At length, when I had almost
104 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
resigned myself to lie in the wood, I caught sight
of the lights of the village, and trembling between
haste and anger, pressed towards them. In a
few minutes I stood in the little street.
The lights of the inn shone only fifty yards
away ; but before I could show myself even there
pride suggested that I should do something to
repair my clothes. I stopped, and scraped and
brushed them ; and, at the same time, did what
I could to compose my features. Then I ad-
vanced to the door and knocked. Almost on
the instant the landlord's voice cried from the
inside, " Enter, Monsieur ! "
I raised the latch and went in. The man was
alone, squatting over the fire, warming his hands
A black pot simmered on the ashes : as I entered,
he raised the lid and peeped inside. Then he
glanced over his shoulder.
" You expected me ? " I said defiantly, walking
to the hearth, and setting one of my damp boots
on the logs.
" Yes," he answered, nodding curtly. " Your
supper is just ready. I thought you would be
in about this time."
REVENGE. 105
He grinned as he spoke, and it was with diffi-
culty I suppressed my wrath " Mademoiselle
de Cocheforet told you," I said, affecting in-
difference, " where I was ? "
" Ay, Mademoiselle or Madame," he replied,
grinning afresh.
So she had told him where she had left me,
and how she had tricked me ! She had made
me the village laughing-stock! My rage flashed
out afresh at the thought, and, at the sight of
his mocking face, I raised my fist.
But he read the threat in my eyes, and was
up in a moment, snarling, with his hand on his
knife. " Not again, Monsieur ! " he cried, in his
vile patois, " My head is sore still. Raise your
hand, and I will rip you up as I would a pig ! "
" Sit down, fool," I said. " I am not going
to harm you. Where is your wife ? "
" About her business."
"Which should be getting my supper," I re-
torted sharply.
He rose sullenly, and, fetching a platter, poured
the mess of broth and vegetables into it. Then
he went to a cupboard and brought out a loaf
106 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
of black bread and a measure of wine, and set
them also on the table. "You see it," he said
laconically.
" And a poor welcome ! " I exclaimed.
He flamed into sudden passion at that. Lean-
ing with both his hands on the table, he thrust
his rugged face and blood-shot eyes close to
mine. His mustachios bristled; his beard trem-
bled. " Hark ye, Sirrah ! " he muttered, with
sullen emphasis " be content ! I have my sus-
picions. And if it were not for my lady's orders
I would put a knife into you, fair or foul, this
very night. You would lie snug outside, instead
of inside, and I do not think any one would be
the worse. But, as it is, be content. Keep a
still tongue ; and when you turn your back on
Cocheforet to-morrow keep it turned."
"Tut! tut!" I said but I confess I was a
little out of countenance. " Threatened men live
long, you rascal ! "
" In Paris ! " he answered significantly. " Not
here, Monsieur."
He straightened himself with that, nodded
once, and went back to the fire, and I shrugged
REVENGE. 107
my shoulders and began to eat, affecting to for-
get his presence. The logs on the hearth burned
sullenly, and gave no light. The poor oil-lump,
casting weird shadows from wall to wall, served
only to discover the darkness. The room, with
its low roof and earthen floor, and foul clothes
flung here and there, reeked of stale meals and
garlic and vile cooking. I thought of the par-
lour at Cocheforet, and the dainty table, and
the stillness, and the scented pot-herbs; and,
though I was too old a soldier to eat the worse
because my spoon lacked washing, I felt the
change, and laid it savagely at Mademoiselle's
door.
The landlord, watching me stealthily from his
place by the hearth, read my thoughts, and
chuckled aloud. " Palace fare, palace man-
ners ! " he muttered scornfully. " Set a beggar
on horseback, and he will ride back to the
inn ! "
" Keep a civil tongue, will you ! " I answered,
scowling at him.
" Have you finished ? " he retorted.
I rose, without deigning to reply, and, going
108 UNDER TJJE RED ROBE.
to the fire, drew off my boots, which were wet
through. He, on the instant, swept off the
wine and loaf to the cupboard, and then, coming
back for the platter I had used, took it, opened
the back door, and went out, leaving the door
ajar. The draught which came in beat the
flame of the lamp this way and that, and gave
the dingy, gloomy room an air still more miser-
able. I rose angrily from the fire, and went to
the door, intending to close it with a bang.
But when I reached it, I saw something, be-
tween door and jamb, which stayed my hand.
The door led to a shed in which the housewife
washed pots and the like. I felt some surprise,
therefore, when I found a light there at this
time of night ; still more surprise when I saw
what she was doing.
She was seated on the mud floor, with a rush-
light before her, and on either side of her a
high-piled heap of refuse and rubbish. From
one of these, at the moment I caught sight of
her, she was sorting things horrible, filthy
sweepings of road or floor to the other; shak-
ing and sifting each article as she passed it
REVENGE. 109
across, and then taking up another and repeat-
ing the action with it, and so on : all minutely,
warily, with an air of so much patience and
persistence that I stood wondering. Some
things rags she held up between her eyes
and the light, some she passed through her
fingers, some she fairly tore in pieces. And
all the time her husband stood watching her
greedily, my platter still in his hand, as if her
strange occupation fascinated him.
I stood looking, also, for half a minute, per-
haps ; then the man's eye, raised for a single
second to the doorway, met mine. He started,
muttered something to his wife, and, quick as
thought, kicked the light out, leaving the shed
in darkness. Cursing him for an ill-conditioned
fellow, I walked back to the fire, laughing. In a
twinkling he followed me, his face dark with rage.
" Ventre saint gris ! " he exclaimed, thrusting
it close to mine. " Is not a man's house his
own ? "
" It is, for me," I answered coolly, shrugging
my shoulders. " And his wife : if she likes to
pick dirty rags at this hour, that is your affair."
1 10 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
" Pig of a spy ! " he cried, foaming with rage
I was angry enough at bottom, but I had noth-
ing to gain by quarrelling with the fellow ; and
I curtly bade him remember himself. "Your
mistress gave you your orders," I said contempt-
uously. " Obey them ! "
He spat on the floor, but at the same time
he grew calmer. "You are right there," he
answered spitefully. " What matter, after all,
since you leave to-morrow at six ? Your horse
has been sent down, and your baggage is above."
" I will go to it," I retorted. " I want none
of your company. Give me a light, fellow!"
He obeyed reluctantly, and, glad to turn my
back on him, I went up the ladder, still wonder-
ing faintly, in the midst of my annoyance, what
his wife was about that my chance detection of
her had so enraged him. Even now he was not
quite himself. He followed me with abuse, and,
deprived by my departure of any other means
of showing his spite, fell to shouting through
the floor, bidding me remember six o'clock, and
be stirring ; with other taunts, which did not
cease until he had tired himself out.
REVENGE. 1 1 1
The sight of my belongings which I had
left a few hours before at the Chateau strewn
about the floor of this garret, went some way
towards firing me again. But I was worn out
The indignities and mishaps of the evening had,
for once, crushed my spirit, and after swearing
an oath or two I began to pack my bags. Ven-
geance I would have ; but the time and manner
I left for daylight thought. Beyond six o'clock
in the morning I did not look forward; and if
I longed for anything it was for a little of the
good Armagnac I had wasted on those louts of
merchants in the kitchen below. It might have
done me good now.
I had wearily strapped up one bag, and nearly
filled the other, when I came upon something
which did, for the moment, rouse the devil in
me. This was the tiny orange-coloured sachet
which Mademoiselle had dropped the night I
first saw her at the inn, and which, it will be
remembered, I picked up. Since that night I
had not seen it, and had as good as forgotten
it. Now, as I folded up my other doublet, the
one I had then been wearing, it dropped from
the pocket.
112 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
The sight of it recalled all that night, and
Mademoiselle's face in the lanthorn light, and my
fine plans, and the end of them ; and, in a fit of
childish fury, the outcome of long suppressed
passion, I snatched up the sachet from the floor
and tore it across and across, and flung the
pieces down. As they fell, a cloud of fine pun-
gent dust burst from them, and with the dust
something heavier, which tinkled sharply on
the boards. I looked down to see what this was
perhaps I already repented of my act but
for the moment I could see nothing. The floor
was grimy and uninviting, and the light bad.
In certain moods, however, a man is obstinate
about small things, and I moved the taper
nearer. As I did so, a point of light, a flash-
ing sparkle that shone for a second among the
dirt and refuse on the floor, caught my eye. It
was gone in a moment, but I had seen it. I
stared, and moved the light again, and the spark
flashed out afresh, this time in a different place.
Much puzzled, I knelt, and, in a twinkling, found
a tiny crystal. Hard by lay another and an-
other; each as large as a fair-sized pea. I took
REVENGE. 113
up the three, and rose to my feet again, the
light in one hand, the crystals in the palm of
the other.
They were diamonds ! diamonds of price !
I knew it in a moment. As I moved the taper
to and fro above them, and watched the fire
glow and tremble in their depths, I knew that
I held that which would buy the crazy inn and
all its contents a dozen times over. They were
diamonds ! Gems so fine, and of so rare a
water or I had never seen gems that my
hand trembled as I held them, and my head
grew hot, and my heart beat furiously. For a
moment I thought I dreamed, that my fancy
played me some trick; and I closed my eyes
and did not open them again for a minute. But
when I did, there they were, hard, real, and
angular. Convinced at last, in a maze of joy
and fear, I closed my hand upon them, and,
stealing on tip-toe to the trapdoor, laid first my
saddle on it, and then my bags, and over all
my cloak, breathing fast the while.
Then I . stole back ; and, taking up the light
again, began to search the floor, patiently, inch
114 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
by inch, with naked feet, every sound making
me tremble as I crept hither and thither over
the creaking boards. And never was search
more successful or better paid. In the frag-
ments of the sachet I found six smaller diamonds
and a pair of rubies. Eight large diamonds
I found on the floor. One, the largest and
last-found, had bounded away, and lay against
the wall in the farthest corner. It took me an
hour to run that one to earth ; but afterwards
I spent another hour on my hands and knees
before I gave up the search, and, satisfied at
last that I had collected all, sat down on my
saddle on the trap-door, and, by the last flicker
ing light of a candle which I had taken from
my bag, gloated over my treasure a treasure
worthy of fabled Golconda.
Hardly could I believe in its reality, even now.
Recalling the jewels which the English Duke of
Buckingham wore on the occasion of his visit to
Paris in 1625, and of which there was so much
talk, I took these to be as fine, though less in
number. They should be worth fifteen thousand
crowns, more or less. Fifteen thousand crowns!
REVENGE. 115
And I held them in the hollow of my hand
I who was scarcely worth ten thousand sous.
The candle going out cut short my admiration.
Left in the dark with these precious atoms, my
first thought was how I might dispose of them
safely ; which I did, for the time, by secreting
them in the lining of my boot. My second
thought turned on the question how they had
come where I had found them, among the pow-
dered spice and perfumes in Mademoiselle de
Cocheforet's sachet.
A minute's reflection enabled me to come very
near the secret, and at the same time shed a
flood of light on several dark places. What Clon
had been seeking on the path between the house
and the village, what the goodwife of the inn
had sought among the sweepings of yard and
floor, I knew now, the sachet. I knew, too,
what had caused the marked and sudden anxiety
I had noticed at the Chateau the loss of this
sachet.
And there for a while I came to a check. But
one step more up the ladder of thought brought
all in view. In a flash I guessed how the jewels
Il6 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
had come to be in the sachet; and that it was
not Mademoiselle but M. de Cocheforet who
had mislaid them. And I thought the discovery
so important that I began to pace the room softly,
unable, in my excitement, to remain still.
Doubtless he had dropped the jewels in the
hurry of his start from the inn that night!
Doubtless, too, he had carried them in that
bizarre hiding-place for the sake of safety, con-
sidering it unlikely that robbers, if he fell into
their hands, would take the sachet from him ;
as still less likely that they would suspect it to
contain anything of value. Everywhere it would
pass for a love-gift, the work of his mistress.
Nor did my penetration stop there. Ten to
one the gems were family property, the last treas-
ure of the house ; and M. de Cocheforet, when I
saw him at the inn, was on his way to convey
them out of the country; either to secure them
from seizure by the Government, or to raise
money by selling them money to be spent in
some last desperate enterprise. For a day or
two, perhaps, after leaving Cocheforet, while the
mountain road and its chances occupied his
REVENGE.
thoughts, he had not discovered his loss. Then
he had searched for the precious sachet, missed
it, and returned hot-foot on his tracks.
I was certain that I had hit on the true solu-
tion ; and all that night I sat wakeful in the
darkness, pondering what I should do. The
stones, unset as they were, could never be identi-
fied, never be claimed. The channel by which
they had come to my hands could never be
:raced. To all intents they were mine mine,
to do with as I pleased ! Fifteen thousand
crowns ! perhaps twenty thousand crowns !
and I to leave at six in the morning, whether
I would or no ! I might leave for Spain with
the jewels in my pocket.
I confess I was tempted. The gems were so
fine that I doubt not some indifferently honest
men would have sold salvation for them. But a
Berault his honour ? No ! I was tempted, but
not for long. Thank God, a man may be reduced
to living by the fortunes of the dice, and may
even be called by a woman spy and coward
without becoming a thief. The temptation soon
left me I take credit for it and I fell to
Il8 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
thinking of this and that plan for making use
of them. Once it occurred to me to take the
jewels to the Cardinal and buy my pardon with
them ; again, to use them as a trap to capture
Cocheforet; again to and then about five in
the morning, as I sat up on my wretched pallet,
while the first light stole slowly in through the
cobwebbed, hay-stuffed lattice, there came to me
the real plan, the plan of plans, on which I
acted.
It charmed me. I smacked my lips over it,
and hugged myself, and felt my eyes dilate in
the darkness, as I conned it. It seemed cruel,
it seemed mean ; I cared nothing. Mademoiselle
had boasted of her victory over me, of her
woman's wits and her acuteness ; and of my
dulness. She had said her grooms should flog
me, she had rated me as if I had been a
dog. Very well; we would see now whose
brains were the better, whose was the master
mind, whose should be the whipping.
The one thing required by my plan was that
I should get speech with her; that done, I could
trust myself, and my new-found weapon, for the
REVENGE. 1 19
rest. But that was absolutely necessary ; and
seeing that there might be some difficulty about
it, I determined to descend as if my mind were
made up to go ; then, on pretence of saddling
my horse, I would slip away on foot, and lie in
wait near the Chateau until I saw her come out.
Or if I could not effect my purpose in that way
either by reason of the landlord's vigilance,
or for any other cause my course was still
easy. I would ride away, and when I had
proceeded a mile or so, tie up my horse in the
forest and return to the wooden bridge. Thence
I could watch the garden and front of the
Chateau until time and chance gave me the op-
portunity I sought.
So I saw my way quite clearly ; and when
the fellow below called me, reminding me rudely
that I must be going, and that it was six o'clock,
I was ready with my answer. I shouted sulkily
that I was coming, and, after a decent delay,
I took up my saddle and bags and went down.
Viewed by the cold morning light, the inn
room looked more smoky, more grimy, more
wretched than when I had last seen it. The
120 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
goodwife was not visible. The fire was not
lighted. No provision, not so much as a stirrup-
cup or bowl of porridge cheered the heart. I
looked round, sniffing the stale smell of last
night's lamp, and grunted. " Are you going to
send me out fasting ? " I said, affecting a worse
humour than I felt.
The landlord was standing by the window,
stooping over a great pair of frayed and
furrowed thigh-boots, which he was labouring
to soften with copious grease. " Mademoiselle
ordered no breakfast," he answered, with a ma-
licious grin.
"Well, it does not much matter," I replied
grandly. " I shall be at Auch by noon."
' That is as may be," he answered, with another
grin. I did not understand him, but I had
something else to think about, and I opened
the door and stepped out, intending to go to the
stable. Then in a second I comprehended. The
cold air laden with woodland moisture met me
and went to my bones ; but it was not that which
made me shiver. Outside the door, in the road,
sitting on horseback in silence, were two men.
REVENGE. 121
One was Clon. The other, who held a spare
horse by the rein my horse was a man I
had seen at the inn, a rough, shock-headed, hard-
bitten fellow. Both were armed, and Clon was
booted. His mate rode barefoot, with a rusty
spur strapped to one heel.
The moment I saw them a sure and certain
fear crept into my mind : it was that made me
shiver. But I did not speak to them. I went
in again, and closed the door behind me. The
landlord was putting on the boots. " What does
this mean ? " I said hoarsely. I had a clear
prescience of what was coming. " Why are
these men here?"
" Orders," he answered laconically.
"Whose orders?" I retorted.
"Whose?" he answered bluntly. "Well,
Monsieur, that is my business. Enough that we
mean to see you out of the country, and out of
harm's way."
" But if I will not go ? " I cried.
" Monsieur will go," he answered coolly.
"There are no strangers in the village to-day,"
he added, with a significant smile.
122 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
" Do you mean to kidnap me ? " I replied, in a
rage. Behind the rage was something I will
not call it terror, for the brave feel no terror
but it was near akin to it. I had had to do
with rough men all my life, but there was a
grimness and truculence in the aspect of these
three that shook me. When I thought of the dark
paths and narrow lanes and cliff-sides we must
traverse, whichever road we took, I trembled.
"Kidnap you, Monsieur?" he answered, with
an everyday air. "That is as you please to call
it. One thing is certain, however," he continued,
maliciously touching an arquebuss which he had
produced and set upright against a chair while
I was at the door ; " if you attempt the slightest
resistance, we shall know how to put an end to
it, either here or on the road."
I drew a deep breath. The very imminence of
the danger restored me to the use of my faculties
I changed my tone and laughed aloud. " So
that is your plan, is it ? " I said. " The sooner
we start the better, then. And the sooner I see
Auch and your back turned, the more I shall be
pleased."
REVENGE. 12*
He rose. " After you, Monsieur," he said.
I could not restrain a slight shiver. His new-
born politeness alarmed me more than his threats.
I knew the man and his ways, and I was sure
that it boded ill for me.
But I had no pistols, and only my sword and
knife, and I knew that resistance at this point
must be worse than vain. I went out jauntily,
therefore, the landlord coming after me with my
saddle and bags.
The street was empty, save for the two wait-
ing horsemen who sat in their saddles looking
doggedly before them. The sun had not yet
risen, the air was raw. The sky was grey,
cloudy, and cold My thoughts flew back to
the morning on which I had found the sachet
at that very spot, almost at that very hour ;
and for a moment I grew warm again at the
thought of the little packet I carried in my
boot. But the landlord's dry manner, the sullen
silence of his two companions, whose eyes steadily
refused to meet mine, chilled me again. For an
instant the impulse to refuse to mount, to refuse
to go, was almost irresistible ; then, knowing the
124 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
madness of such a course, which might, and
probably would, give the men the chance they
desired, I crushed it down and went slowly to
my stirrup.
" I wonder you do not want my sword," I
said by way of sarcasm, as I swung myself up.
"We are not afraid of it," the innkeeper
answered gravely. " You may keep it for the
present."
I made no answer what answer had I to
make ? and we rode at a foot-pace down the
street; he and I leading, Glon and the shock-
headed man bringing up the rear. The leisurely
mode of our departure, the absence of hurry
or even haste, the men's indifference whether
they were seen, or what was thought, all served
to sink my spirits, and deepen my sense of
peril. I felt that they suspected me, that they
more than half guessed the nature of my errand
at Cocheforet, and that they were not minded
to be bound by Mademoiselle's orders. In par-
ticular I augured the worst from Clon's appear-
ance. His lean malevolent face and sunken
eyes, his very dumbness chilled me. Mercy had
no place there.
REVENGE. 125
We rode soberly, so that nearly half an hour
elapsed before we gained the brow from which
I had taken my first look at Cocheforet. Among
the dwarf oaks whence I had viewed the valley
we paused to breathe our horses, and the strange
feelings with which I looked back on the scene
may be imagined. But I had short time for
indulging in sentiment or recollections. A curt
word, and we were moving again.
A quarter of a mile farther on the road to
Auch dipped into the valley. When we were
already half-way down this descent the inn-
keeper suddenly stretched out his hand and
caught my rein. " This way ! " he said.
I saw he would have me turn into a by-path
leading south-westwards a mere track, faint
and little trodden and encroached on by trees,
which led I knew not whither. I checked my
horse. " Why ? " I said rebelliously. " Do you
think I do not know the road ? This is the way
to Auch."
"To Auch yes," he answered bluntly. " But
we are not going to Auch."
"Whither then?" I said angrily.
126 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
" You will see presently," he replied, with an
ugly smile.
" Yes, but I will know now ! " I retorted, pas-
sion getting the better of me. " I have come so
far with you. You will find it more easy to
take me farther, if you tell me your plans."
" You are a fool ! " he cried, with a snarl.
" Not so," I answered. " I ask only to know
whither I am going."
" Into Spain," he said. " Will that satisfy
you?"
" And what will you do with me there ? " I
asked, my heart giving a great bound.
" Hand you over to some friends of ours," he
answered curtly, "if you behave yourself. If
not, there is a shorter way, and one that will
save us some travelling. Make up your mind.
Monsieur. Which shall it be?"
CHAPTER VI.
UNDER THE PIC DU MIDI.
So that was their plan. Two or three hours
to the southward, the long white glittering wall
stretched east and west above the brown woods.
Beyond that lay Spain. Once across the border,
I might be detained, if no worse happened to me,
as a prisoner of war; for we were then at war
with Spain on the Italian side. Or I might be
handed over to one of the savage bands, half
smugglers, half brigands, that held the passes ; or
be delivered worst fate of all into the power
of the French exiles, of whom some would be
likely to recognize me and cut my throat.
" It is a long way into Spain," I muttered,
watching in a kind of fascination Clon handling
his pistols.
"I think you will find the other road longer
127
128 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
still ! " the landlord answered grimly. " But
choose, and be quick about it."
They were three to one, and they had firearms.
In effect I had no choice. " Well, if I must I
must ! " I cried, making up my mind with seeming
recklessness. " Vogue la galore / Spain be it. It
will not be the first time I have heard the dons
talk."
The men nodded, as much as to say that they
had known what the end would be ; the landlord
released my rein ; and in a trice we were riding
down the narrow track, with our faces set towards
the mountains.
On one point my mind was now more easy.
The men meant fairly by me ; and I had no
longer to fear, as I had feared, a pistol shot in the
back at the first convenient ravine. As far as
that went, I might ride in peace. On the other
hand, if I let them carry me across the border my
fate was sealed. A man set down without creden-
tials or guards among the wild desperadoes who
swarmed in war time in the Asturian passes might
consider himself fortunate if an easy death fell to
his lot. In my case I could make a shrewd guess
UNDER THE PIC DU MIDI. 129
what would happen. A single nod of meaning,
one muttered word, dropped among the savage
men with whom I should be left, and the dia-
monds hidden in my boot would go neither to the
Cardinal nor back to Mademoiselle nor would
it matter to me whither they went.
So while the others talked in their taciturn
fashion, or sometimes grinned at my gloomy face,
I looked out over the brown woods with eyes that
saw, yet did not see. The red squirrel swarming
up the trunk, the startled pigs that rushed away
grunting from their feast of mast, the solitary
rider who met us, armed to the teeth, and passed
northwards after whispering with the landlord
all these I saw. But my mind was not with them.
It was groping and feeling about like a hunted
mole for some way of escape. For time pressed.
The slope we were on was growing steeper. By-
and-bye we fell into a southward valley, and began
to follow it steadily upwards, crossing and recross-
ing a swiftly rushing stream. The snow-peaks
began to be hidden behind the rising bulk of hills
that overhung us ; and sometimes we could see
nothing before or behind but the wooded walls
130 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
of our valley rising sheer and green a thousand
paces on either hand, with grey rocks half masked
by fern and ivy getting here and there through
the firs and alders.
It was a wild and sombre scene even at that
hour, with the midday sun shining on the rushing
water and drawing the scent out of the pines ;
but I knew that there was worse to come, and
sought desperately for some ruse by which I
might at least separate the men. Three were too
many; with one I might deal. At last, when I
had cudgelled my brain for an hour, and almost
resigned myself to a sudden charge on the men
single-handed a last desperate resort I thought
of a plan, dangerous, too, and almost desperate,
but which still seemed to promise something. It
came of my fingers resting in my pocket on the
fragments of the orange sachet, which, without
having any particular design in my mind, I had
taken care to bring with me. I had torn the
sachet into four pieces four corners. As I
played mechanically with them, one of my fingers
fitted into one, as into a glove ; a second finger
into another. And the plan came.
UNDER THE PIC DU MIDI. 131
Still, before I could move in it, I had to wait
antil we stopped to bait the flagging horses, which
we did about noon at the head of the valley.
Then, pretending to drink from the stream, I man-
aged to secure unseen a handful of pebbles, slip-
ping them into the same pocket with the morsels
of stuff. On getting to horse again, I carefully
fitted a pebble, not too tightly, into the largest
scrap, and made ready for the attempt.
The landlord rode on my left, abreast of me;
the other two knaves behind. The road at this
stage favoured me, for the valley, which drained
the bare uplands that lay between the lower spurs
and the base of the real mountains, had become
wide and shallow. Here were no trees, and the
path was a mere -sheep-track covered with short
crisp grass, and running sometimes on this bank
of the stream and sometimes on that.
I waited until the ruffian beside me turned to
speak to the men behind. The moment he did so
and his eyes were averted, I slipped out the scrap
of satin in which I had placed the pebble, and
balancing it carefully on my right thigh as I rode,
I flipped it forward with all the strength of my
K 2
132 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
thumb and finger. I meant it to fall a few paces
before us in the path, where it could be seen.
But alas for my hopes ! At the critical moment
my horse started, my finger struck the scrap
aslant, the pebble flew out, and the bit of stuff
fluttered into a whin-bush close to my stirrup
and was lost !
I was bitterly disappointed, for the same thing
might happen again, and I had now only three
scraps left. But fortune favoured me, by putting
it into i my neighbour's head to plunge into a hot
debate with the shock-headed man on the nature
of some animals seen on a distant brow ; which he
said were izards, while the other maintained that
they were common goats. He continued, on this
account, to ride with his face turned the other
way. I had time to fit another pebble into the
second piece of stuff, and sliding it on to my
thigh, poised it, and flipped it.
This time my finger struck the tiny missile
fairly in the middle, and shot it so far and so
truly that it dropped exactly in the path ten paces
in front of us. The moment I saw it fall I kicked
my neighbour's nag in the ribs ; it started, and
UNDER THE PIC DU MIDI. 133
he, turning in a rage, hit it. The next instant
he pulled it almost on to its haunches.
" Saint Gris ! " he cried ; and sat glaring at the
bit of yellow satin, with his face turned purple
and his jaw fallen.
"What is it?" I said, staring at him in turn.
"What is the matter, fool?"
"Matter?" he blurted out. "MonDieu!"
But Clon's excitement surpassed even his. The
dumb man no sooner saw what had attracted his
comrade's attention, than he uttered an inarticu-
late and horrible noise, and tumbling off his horse,
more like a beast than a man, threw himself bodily
on the precious morsel.
The innkeeper was not far behind him. An
instant and he was down, too, peering at the
thing; and for an instant I thought that they
would fight over it. However, though their jeal-
ousy was evident, their excitement cooled a little
when they discovered that the scrap of stuff was
empty; for, fortunately, the pebble had fallen out
of it. Still, it threw them into such a fever of
eagerness as it was wonderful to witness. They
nosed the ground where it had lain, they plucked
134 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
up the grass and turf, and passed it through their
fingers, they ran to and fro like dogs on a trail;
and, glancing askance at one another, came back
always together to the point of departure. Neither
in his jealousy would suffer the other to be there
alone.
The shock-headed man and I sat our horses
and looked on ; he marvelling, and I pretending
to marvel. As the two searched up and down
the path, we moved a little out of it to give them
space ; and presently, when all their heads were
turned from me, I let a second morsel drop under
a gorse-bush. The shock-headed man, by-and-bye,
found this, and gave it to Clon ; and, as from the
circumstances of the first discovery no suspicion
attached to me, I ventured to find the third and
last scrap myself. I did not pick it up, but I
called the innkeeper, and he pounced on it as I
have seen a hawk pounce on a chicken.
They hunted for the fourth morsel, but, of
course, in vain, and in the end they desisted,
and fitted the three they had together; but
neither would let his own portion out of his
hands, and each looked at the other across the
UNDER THE PIC DU MIDI. 1 35
spoil with eyes of suspicion. It was strange to
see them in that wide-stretching valley, whence
grey boar-backs of hills swelled up into the silence
of the snow it was strange, I say, in that .vast
solitude to see these two, mere dots on its bosom,
circling round one another in fierce forgetfulness
of the outside world, glaring and shifting their
ground like cocks about to engage, and wholly
engrossed by three scraps of orange-colour,
invisible at fifty paces !
At last the innkeeper cried with an oath : " I
am going back. This must be known down
yonder. Give me your pieces, man, and do you
go with Antoine. It will be all right."
But Clon, waving a scrap in either hand and
thrusting his ghastly mask into the other's face,
shook his head in passionate denial. He could
not speak, but he made it clear that if any one
went back with the news he was the man to go.
" Nonsense ! " the landlord retorted fiercely.
"We cannot leave Antoine to go on alone with
him. Give me the stuff.'*
But Clon would not. He had no thought of
resigning the credit of the discovery, and I began
136 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
to think that the two would really come to blows.
But there was an alternative, and first one and
then the other looked at me. It was a moment
of peril, and I knew it. My stratagem might
react on myself, and the two, to put an end to
this difficulty, agree to put an end to me. But
I faced them so coolly and showed so bold a
front, and the ground was so open, that the idea
took no root. They fell to wrangling again more
viciously than before. One tapped his gun and
the other his pistols. The landlord scolded, the
dumb man gurgled. At last their difference
ended as I had hoped it would.
" Very well then, we will both go back ! " the
innkeeper cried in a rage. " And Antoine must
see him on. But the blame be on your head.
Do you give the lad your pistols."
Clon took one pistol and gave it to the shock-
headed man.
" The other ! " the innkeeper said impatiently.
But Clon shook his head with a grim smile,
and pointed to the arquebuss.
By a sudden movement the landlord snatched
the pistol, and averted Clon's vengeance by
UNDER THE PIC DU MIDI. 137
placing both it and the gun in the shock-headed
man's hands. " There ! " he said, addressing the
fatter, " now can you do ? If Monsieur tries to
escape or turn back, shoot him ! But four hours'
riding should bring you to the Roca Blanca.
You will find the men there, and will have no
more to do with it."
Antoine did not see things quite in that light,
however. He looked at me, and then at the
wild track in front otf us ; and he muttered an
oath and said he would die if he would. But
the landlord, who was in a frenzy of impatience,
drew him aside and talked to him, and in the
end seemed to persuade him ; for in a few
minutes the matter was settled. Antoine came
back and said sullenly, " Forward, Monsieur," the
two others stood on one side, I shrugged my
shoulders and kicked up my horse, and in a
twinkling we two were riding on together man
to man. I turned once or twice to see what
those we had left behind were doing, and always
found them standing in apparent debate ; but
my guard showed so much jealousy of these
movements that I presently shrugged my shoul-
ders again and desisted.
138 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
I had racked my brains to bring about this
state of things. But, strange to say, now I had
succeeded, I found it' less satisfactory than I
had hoped. I had reduced the odds and got rid
of my most dangerous antagonists ; but Antoine,
left to himself, proved to be as full of suspicion
as an egg of meat. He rode a little behind me
with his gun across his saddle-bow, and a pistol
near his hand, and at the slightest pause on my
part, or if I turned to look at him, he muttered
his constant " Forward, Monsieur!" in a tone
that warned me that his finger was on the trigger.
At such a distance he could not miss ; and I
saw nothing for it but to go on meekly before
him to the Roca Blanca and my fate.
What was to be done ? The road presently
reached the end of the valley and entered a
narrow pine-clad defile, strewn with rocks and
boulders, over which the torrent plunged and
eddied with a deafening roar. In front the white
gleam of waterfalls broke the sombre ranks of
climbing trunks. The snow-line lay less than half
a mile away on either hand; and crowning all
af the end of the pass, as it seemed to the eye
UNDER THE PIC DU MIDI. 139
-w rose the pure white pillar of the Pic du Midi
shooting up six thousand feet into the blue of
heaven Such a scene, so suddenly disclosed, was
enough to drive the sense of danger from my
mind ; and for a moment I reined in my horse.
But " Forward, Monsieur ! " came the grating
order. I fell to earth again, and went on. What
was to be done ?
I was at my wit's end to know. The man
refused to talk, refused to ride abreast of me,
would have no dismounting, no halting, no com-
\
munication; at all. He would have nothing but
this silent, lonely procession of two, with the
muzzle of his gun at my back. And meanwhile
we were fast climbing the pass. We had left
the others an hour nearly two. The sun was
declining; the time, I supposed, about half-past
three.
If he would only let me come within reach
of him ! Or if anything would fall out to take
his attention ! When the pass presently widened
into a bare and dreary valley, strewn with huge
boulders, and with snow lying here and | there
in the hollows, I looked desperately before me,
140 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
and scanned even the vast snow-fields that
overhung us and stretched away to the base of
the ice-peak. But I saw nothing. No bear
swung across the path, no izard showed itself
on the cliffs. The keen sharp air cut our
cheeks and warned me that we were approach-
ing the summit of the ridge. On all sides were
silence and desolation.
Man Dieu ! And the ruffians on whose
tender mercies I was to be thrown might come
to meet us ! They might appear at any mo-
ment. In my despair I loosened my hat on my
head, and let the first gust carry it to the
ground, and then with an oath of annoyance
tossed my feet loose to go after it. But the
rascal roared to me to keep my seat.
" Forward, Monsieur ! " he shouted brutally.
" Go on ! "
"But my hat!" I cried. " Mille tonnerres,
man! I must "
" Forward, Monsieur, or I shoot ! " he replied
inexorably, raising his gun. "One two "
And I went on. But, oh, I was wrathful !
That I, Gil de Berault, should be outwitted and
UNDER THE PIC DU MIDl. 141
led by the nose, like a ringed bull, by this
Gascon lout! That I, whom all Paris knew
and feared if it did not love the terror of
Zaton's, should come to my end in this dismal
waste of snow and rock, done to death by some
pitiful smuggler or thief ! It must not be !
Surely in the last resort I could give an account
of one man, though his belt were stuffed with
pistols !
But how? Only, it seemed, by open force.
My heart began to flutter as I planned it; and
then grew steady again. A hundred paces
before us a gully or ravine on the left ran up
into the snow-field. Opposite its mouth a jum-
ble of stones and broken rocks covered the
path. I marked this for the place. The knave
would need both his hands to hold up his nag
over the stones, and, if I turned on him sud-
denly enough, he might either drop his gun, or
fire it harmlessly.
But, in the meantime, something happened ;
as, at the last moment, things do happen.
While we were still fifty yards short of the
place, I found his horse's nose creeping for-
142 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
ward on a level with my crupper; and, still
advancing, until I could see it out of the tail of
my eye, and my heart gave a great bound. He
was coming abreast of me : he was going to
deliver himself into my hands ! To cover my
excitement, I began to whistle.
" Hush ! " he muttered fiercely : his voice
sounding strange and unnatural. My first
thought was that he was ill, and I turned to
him. But he only said again, " Hush ! Pass
by here quietly, Monsieur."
" Why ? " I asked mutinously, curiosity get-
ting the better of me. For had I been wise I
had taken no notice ; every second his horse
was coming up with mine. Its nose was level
with my stirrup already.
" Hush, man ! " he said again. This time
there was no mistake about the panic in his
voice. " They call this the Devil's Chapel.
God send us safe by it! It is late to be here.
Look at those ! " he continued, pointing with
a finger which visibly shook.
I looked. At the mouth of the gully, in a
small space partly cleared of stones stood
UNDER THE PIC DU MIDI. 143
three broken shafts, raised on rude pedestals.
"Well?" I said in a low voice. The sun
which was near setting flushed the great peak
above to the colour of blood; but the valley
was growing grey and each moment more
dreary. "Well, what of those?" I said. In
spite of my peril and the excitement of the
coming struggle I felt the chill of his fear.
Never had I seen so grim, so desolate, so God-
forsaken a place ! Involuntarily I shivered.
" They were crosses," he muttered, in a voice
little above a whisper, while his eyes roved this
way and that in terror. " The Cure of Gabas
blessed the place, and set them up. But next
morning they were as you see them now. Come
on, Monsieur, come on ! " he continued, pluck-
ing at my arm. " It is not safe here after sun-
set. Pray God, Satan be not at home ! "
He had completely forgotten in his panic
that he had anything to fear from me. His
gun dropped loosely across his saddle, his leg
rubbed mine. I saw this, and I changed my
plan of action. As our horses reached the
stones I stooped, as if to encourage mine, and
144 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
by a sudden clutch snatched the gun bodily
from his hand; at the same time I backed my
horse with all my strength. It was done in a
moment! A second and I had him at the end
of the gun, and my finger was on the trigger.
Never was victory more easily gained.
He looked at me between rage and terror,
his jaw fallen. " Are you mad ? " he cried, his
teeth chattering as he spoke. Even in this
strait his eyes left me and wandered round in
alarm.
"No, sane!" I retorted fiercely. "But I do
not like this place any better than you do!"
Which was true enough, if not quite true. " So,
by your right, quick march ! " I continued imper-
atively. "Turn your horse, my friend, or take
the consequences."
He turned like a lamb, and headed down the
valley again, without giving a thought to his
pistols. I kept close to him, and in less than
a minute we had left the Devil's Chapel well
behind us, and were moving down again as we
had come up. Only now I held the gun.
When we had gone half a mile or so until
UNDER THE PIC DU MIDL H5
then I did not feel comfortable myself, and
though I thanked Heaven the place existed,
thanked Heaven also that I was out of it
I bade him halt. " Take off your belt ! " I said
curtly, " and throw it down. But, mark me, if
you turn, I fire ! "
The spirit was quite gone out of him. He
obeyed mechanically. I jumped down, still cov-
ering him with the gun, and picked up the belt,
pistols and all. Then I remounted, and we went
on. By-and-bye he asked me sullenly what I
was going to do.
" Go back," I said, " and take the road to
Auch when I come to it."
" It will be dark in an hour," he answered
sulkily.
" I know that," I retorted. " We must camp
and do the best we can."
And as I said, we did. The daylight held
until we gained the skirts of the pine-wood at
the head of the pass. Here I chose a corner a
little off the track, and well-sheltered from the
wind, and bade him light a fire. I tethered the
horses near this and within sight. It remained
146 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
only to sup. I had a piece of bread ; he had
another and an onion. We ate in silence, sitting
on opposite sides of the fire.
But after supper I found myself in a dilemma ;
I did not see how I was to sleep. The ruddy
light which gleamed on the knave's swart face
and sinewy hands showed also his eyes, black,
sullen, and watchful. I knew that the man was
plotting revenge ; that he would not hesitate to
plant his knife between my ribs should I give
him a chance. I could find only one alternative
to remaining awake. Had I been bloody-minded,
I should have chosen it and solved the question
at once and in my favour by shooting him as
he sat.
But I have never been a cruel man, and I
could not find it in my heart to do this. The
silence of the mountain and the sky - - which
seemed a thing apart from the roar of the tor-
rent and not to be broken by it awed me.
The vastness of the solitude in which we sat,
the dark void above through which the stars kept
shooting, the black gulf below in which the un-
seen waters boiled and surged, the absence of
UNDER THE PIC DU MIDI. 147
other human company or other signs of human
existence put such a face upon the deed that I
gave up the thought of it with a shudder, and
resigned myself, instead, to watch through the
night the long, cold, Pyrenean night. Pres-
ently he curled himself up like a dog and slept
in the blaze, and then for a couple of hours I
sat opposite him, thinking. It seemed years
since I had seen Zaton's or thrown the dice.
The old life, the old employments should I ever
go back to them ? seemed dim and distant.
Would Cocheforet, the forest and the mountain,
the grey Chateau and its mistresses, seem one
day as dim ! And if one bit of life could fade
so quickly at the unrolling of another, and seem
in a moment pale and colourless, would all life
some day and somewhere, and all the things we
But faugh ! I was growing foolish. I sprang
up and kicked the wood together, and, taking up
the gun, began to pace to and fro under the cliff.
Strange that a little moonlight, a few stars, a
breath of solitude should carry a man back to
childhood and childish things !
148 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
It was three in the afternoon of the next day,
and the sun lay hot on the oak groves, and the
air was full of warmth as we began to climb the
slope, on which the road to Auch shoots out of
the track. The yellow bracken and the fallen
leaves underfoot seemed to throw up light of
themselves, and here and there a patch of ruddy
beech lay like a bloodstain on the hillside. In
front a herd of pigs routed among the mast,
and grunted lazily ; and high above us a boy
lay watching them. "We part here," I said to
my companion. It was my plan to ride a little
way on the road to Auch so as to blind his eyes ;
then, leaving my horse in the forest, I would go
on foot to the Chateau.
" The sooner the better ! " he answered, with a
snarl. " And I hope I may never see your face
again, Monsieur!"
But when we came to the wooden cross at the
fork of the roads, and were about to part, the boy
we had seen leapt out of the fern and came to
meet us. "Hollo! " he cried, in a sing-song tone.
" Well ! " my companion answered, drawing
rein impatiently. " What is it ? "
UNDER THE PIC DU MfDI. 1 49
" There are soldiers in the village."
"Soldiers?" Antoine cried incredulously.
"Ay, devils on horseback!" the lad answered,
spitting on the ground. " Three score of them !
From Audi!"
Antoine turned to me, his face transformed
with fury. " Curse you ! " he cried. " This is
some of your work ! Now we are all undone !
And my mistresses! Sacrt '! if I had that gun
I would shoot you like a rat ! "
" Steady, fool ! " I answered roughly. " I
know no more of this than you do ! "
This was so true that my surprise was as great
as his. The Cardinal, who rarely made a change
of front, had sent me hither that he might not
be forced to send soldiers, and run the risk of
all that might arise from such a movement.
What of this invasion, then, than which nothing
could be less consistent with his plans ? I won-
dered. It was possible, of course, that the trav-
elling merchants, before whom I had played at
treason, had reported the facts ; and that on
this the Commandant at Auch had acted. But
it seemed unlikely. He had had his orders, too I
150 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
and, under the Cardinal's rule, there was small
place for individual enterprise. I could not
understand it.
One thing was clear, however. I might now
enter the village as I pleased. " I am going on
to look into this," I said to Antoine. " Come,
my man."
He shrugged his shoulders, and stood still.
" Not I ! " he answered, with an oath. " No
soldiers for me! I have lain out one night, and
I can He out another ! "
I nodded indifferently, for I no longer wanted
him ; and we parted. After this, twenty minutes'
riding brought me to the entrance of the village ;
and here the change was great indeed. Not
one of the ordinary dwellers in the place was
to be seen : either they had shut themselves up
in their hovels, or, like Antoine, they had fled to
the woods. Their doors were closed, their win-
dows shuttered. But lounging about the street
were a score of dragoons, in boots and breast-
plates, whose short-barrelled muskets, with pouches
and bandoliers attached, were piled near the inn
door. In an open space where there was a gap
UNDER THE PIC DU MIDI. I$I
in the street, a long row of horses, linked head
to head, stood bending their muzzles over bundles
of rough forage, and. on all sides the cheerful
jingle of chains and bridles and the sound of
coarse jokes and laughter filled the air.
As I rode up to the inn door an old sergeant,
with squinting eyes and his tongue in his cheeks,
eyed me inquisitively, and started to cross the
street to challenge me. Fortunately, at that
moment the two knaves whom I had brought
from Paris with me, and whom I had left at
Auch to await my orders, came up. I made
them a sign not to speak to me, and they passed
on ; but I suppose that they told the sergeant
that I was not the man he wanted, for I saw no
more of him.
After picketing my horse behind the inn I
could find no better stable, every place being
full I pushed my way through the group at
the door, and entered. The old room, with the
low grimy roof and the reeking floor, was half
full of strange figures, and for a few minutes I
stood unseen in the smoke and confusion. Then
the landlord came my way, and as he passed
152 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
me I caught his eye. He uttered a low curse,
dropped the pitcher he was carrying, and stood
glaring at me, like a man possessed.
The soldier whose wine he was carrying flung
a crust in his face, with, " Now, greasy fingers !
What are you staring at?"
" The devil ! " the landlord muttered, beginning
to tremble.
" Then let me look at him ! " the man retorted
and he turned on his stool.
He started, finding me standing over him.
" At your service ! " I said grimly. " A little
time and it will be the other way, my friend."
CHAPTER VII.
A MASTER STROKE.
I HAVE a way with me which commonly com-
mands respect ; and when the landlord's first
terror was over and he would serve me, I managed
to get my supper the first good meal I had
had in two days pretty comfortably in spite
of the soldiers' presence. The crowd, too, which
filled the room, soon began to melt. The men
strayed off in groups to water their horses, or
went to hunt up their quarters, until only two
or three were left. Dusk had fallen outside ;
the noise in the street grew less. The firelight
began to glow and flicker on the walls, and the
wretched room to look as homely as it was in
its nature to look. I was pondering for the
twentieth time what step I should take next
under these new circumstances and why the
soldiers were here, and whether I should let
tI
154 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
the night pass before I moved, when the door,
which had been turning on its hinges almost
without pause for an hour, opened again, and a
woman came in.
She paused a moment on the threshold look-
ing round, and I saw that she had a shawl on
her head and a milk-pitcher in her hand, and
that her feet and ankles were bare. There was
a great rent in her coarse stuff petticoat, and
the hand which held the shawl together was
brown and dirty. More I did not see ; supposing
her to be a neighbour stolen in now that the
house was quiet to get some milk for her child
or the like, I took no further heed of her. I
turned to the fire again and plunged into my
thoughts.
But to get to the hearth where the goodwife
was fidgeting, the woman had to pass in front
of me ; and as she passed I suppose she stole a
look at me from under her shawl. For just
when she came between me and the blaze she
uttered a low cry and shrank aside so quickly
that she almost stepped on the hearth. The
next moment she turned her back to me and
A MASTER STROKE. 155
was stooping, whispering in the housewife's ear.
A stranger might have thought that she had
merely trodden on a hot ember.
But another idea, and a very sharp one, came
into my mind; and I stood up silently. The
woman's back was towards me, but something
in her height, her shape, the pose of her head,
hidden as it was by her shawl, seemed famil-
iar. I waited while she hung over the fire
whispering, and while the goodwife slowly filled
her pitcher out of the great black pot. But when
she turned to go, I took a step forward so as
to bar her way. And our eyes met.
I could not see her features; they were lost
in the shadow of the hood. But I saw a shiver
run through her from head to foot. And I
knew then that I had made no mistake.
" That is too heavy for you, my girl," I said
familiarly, as I might have spoken to a village
wench. " I will carry it for you."
One of the men, who remained lolling at the
table, laughed, and the other began to sing a
low song. The woman trembled in rage or fear,
but she kept silence and let me take the jug
1 56 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
from her hands. And when I went to the door
and opened it, she followed mechanically. An
instant, and the door fell to behind us, shutting
off the light and glow, and we two stood together
in the growing dusk.
" It is late for you to be out, Mademoiselle,"
I said politely. " You might meet with some
rudeness, dressed as you are. Permit me to see
you home."
She shuddered, and I thought I heard her sob,
but she did not answer. Instead, she turned and
walked quickly through the village in the direc-
tion of the Chateau, keeping in the shadow of the
houses. I carried the pitcher and walked beside
her; and in the dark I smiled. I knew how
shame and impotent rage were working in her.
This was something like revenge !
Presently I spoke. " Well, Mademoiselle," I
said. " Where are your grooms ? "
She gave me one look, her eyes blazing with
anger, her face like hate itself ; and after that
I said no more, but left her in peace, and con-
tented myself with walking at her shoulder until
we came to the end of the village, where the
A MASTER STROKE. 1 57
track to the great house plunged into the wood.
There she stopped, and turned on me like a
wild creature at bay. " What do you want ? "
she cried hoarsely, breathing as if she had been
running.
" To see you safe to the house," I answered
coolly.
"And if I will not?" she retorted.
" The choice does not lie with you, Mademoi-
selle," I answered sternly. " You will go to the
house with me, and on the way you will give
me an interview ; but not here. Here we are not
private enough. We may be interrupted at any
moment, and I wish to speak to you at length."
I saw her shiver. " What if I will not ? "
she said again.
" I might call to the nearest soldiers and tell
them who you are," I answered coolly. " I
might, but I should not. That were a clumsy
way of punishing you, and I know a better way.
I should go to the captain, Mademoiselle, and
tell him whose horse is locked up in the inn
stable. A trooper told me as some one had
told him that it belonged to one of his officers;
158 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
but I looked through the crack, and I knew the
horse again."
She could not repress a groan. I waited. Still
she did not speak. " Shall I go to the captain ? "
I said ruthlessly.
She shook the hood back from her face, and
looked at me. "Oh, you coward! you coward!"
she hissed through her teeth. " If I had a
knife ! "
" But you have not, Mademoiselle," I answered,
unmoved. " Be good enough, therefore, to make up
your mind which it is to be. Am I to go with my
news to the captain, or am I to come with you ? "
" Give me the pitcher! " she said harshly.
I did so, wondering. In a moment she flung
it with a savage gesture far into the bushes.
"Come!" she said, "if you will. But some day
God will punish you ! "
Without another word she turned and entered
the path through the trees, and I followed her.
I suppose every turn in its course, every hollow
and broken place in it had been known to her
from childhood, for she followed it swiftly and
unerringly, barefoot as she was. I had to walk
A MASTER STROKE. 159
fast through the darkness to keep up with her.
The wood was quiet, but the frogs were beginning
to croak in the pool, and their persistent chorus
reminded me of the night when I had come to
the house-door hurt and worn out, and Clon had
admitted me, and she had stood under the gallery
in the hall. Things had looked dark then. I had
seen but a very little way ahead. Now all was
plain. The Commandant might be here with all
his soldiers, but it was I who held the strings.
We came to the little wooden bridge and saw
beyond the dark meadows the lights of the house.
All the windows were bright. Doubtless the
troopers were making merry. " Now, Made-
moiselle," I said quietly. " I must trouble you
to stop here, and give me your attention for a
few minutes. Afterwards you may go your way."
" Speak ! " she said defiantly. " And be quick !
I cannot breathe the air where you are ! It poi-
sons me !"
" Ah ! " I said slowly. " Do you think you
make things better by such speeches as those ? "
" Oh ! " she cried and I heard her teeth click
together. " Would you have me fawn on you ? "
160 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
" Perhaps not," I answered. " Still you make
one mistake."
"What is it?" she panted.
" You forget that I am to be feared as well
as loathed!" I answered grimly. "Ay, Made-
moiselle, to be feared ! " I continued. " Do you
think that I do not know why you are here in this
guise ? Do you think that I do not know for
whom that pitcher of broth was intended ? Or
who will now have to fast to-night? I tell you
I know all these things. Your house is full of
soldiers ; your servants were watched and could
not leave. You had to come yourself and get
food for him ! "
She clutched at the hand-rail of the bridge, and
for an instant clung to it for support. Her face,
from which the shawl had fallen, glimmered
white in the shadow of the trees. At last I had
shaken her pride. At last ! " What is your
price ? " she murmured faintly.
" I am going to tell you," I replied, speaking
so that every word might fall distinctly on her
ears, and sating my eyes on her proud face. I
had never dreamed of such revenge as this !
A MASTER STROKE. l6l
"About a fortnight ago, M. de Cochefore't left
here at night with a little orange-coloured sachet
in his possession."
She uttered a stifled cry, and drew herself
stiffly erect.
" It contained but there, Mademoiselle, you
know its contents," I went on. "Whatever they
were, M. de Cocheforet lost it and them at start-
ing. A week ago he came back unfortunately
for himself to seek them."
She was looking full in my face now. She
seemed scarcely to breathe in the intensity of her
surprise and expectation. "You had a search
made, Mademoiselle," I continued quietly. " Your
servants left no place unexplored. The paths,
the roads, the very woods were ransacked. But
in vain, because all the while the orange sachet
lay whole and unopened in my pocket."
" No ! " she cried impetuously. " You lie, Sir !
The sachet was found, torn open, many leagues
from this place ! "
"Where I threw it, Mademoiselle," I replied,
"that I might mislead your rascals and be free
to return. Oh ! believe me," I continued, letting
1 62 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
something of myself, something of my triumph,
appear at last in my voice. " You have made
a mistake ! You would have done better had
you trusted me. I am no bundle of sawdust,
Mademoiselle, but a man : a man with an arm
to shield and a brain to serve, and as I am
going to teach you a heart also ! "
She shivered.
" In the orange-coloured sachet that you lost I
believe there were eighteen stones of great value?"
She made no answer, but she looked at me
as if I fascinated her. Her very breath seemed
to pause and wait on my words. She was so
little conscious of anything else, of anything
outside ourselves, that a score of men might
have come up behind her unseen and unnoticed.
I took from my breast a little packet wrapped
in soft leather, and held it towards her. "Will
you open this ? " I said. " I believe it contains
what you lost. That it contains all I will not
answer, Mademoiselle, because I spilled the
stones on the floor of my room, and I may have
failed to find some. But the others can be re-
covered I know where they are."
A MASTER STROKE. 163
She took the packet slowly and began to
unroll it, her fingers shaking. A few turns and
the mild lustre of the stones made a kind of
moonlight in her hands such a shimmering
glory of imprisoned light as has ruined many a
woman and robbed many a man of his honour.
Morbleu ! as I looked at them and as she
stood looking at them in dull, entranced per-
plexity I wondered how I had come to resist
the temptation.
While I gazed her hands began to waver. " I
cannot count," she muttered helplessly. "How
many are there ? "
" In all, eighteen.'
"They should be eighteen," she said.
She closed her hand on them with that, and
opened it again, and did so twice, as if to re-
assure herself that the stones were real and that
she was not dreaming. Then she turned to
me with sudden fierceness, and I saw that her
beautiful face, sharpened by the greed of pos-
session, was grown as keen and vicious as before.
"Well?" she muttered between her teeth. "Your
price, man? Your price ? "
M 2
1 64 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
" I am coming to it now, Mademoiselle," 1
said gravely. " It is a simple matter. You re-
member the afternoon when I followed you
clumsily and thoughtlessly perhaps through
the wood to restore these things ? It seems
about a month ago. I believe it happened the
day before yesterday. You called me then some
very harsh names, which I will not hurt you
by repeating. The only price I ask for restor-
ing your jewels is that you recall those names
" How ? " she muttered. " I do not understand.'
I repeated my words very slowly. "The only
price or reward I ask, Mademoiselle, is that you
take back those names, and say that they were
not deserved."
"And the jewels?" she exclaimed hoarsely.
"They are yours. They are nothing to me.
Take them, and say that you do not think of
me Nay, I cannot say the words, Made-
moiselle."
"But there is something else! What else?"
she cried, her head thrown back, her eyes, bright
as any wild animal's, searching mine. "Ha! my
brother? What of him? What of him, Sir?"
A MASTER STROKE. l6$
"For him, Mademoiselle I would prefer that
you should tell me no more than I know al-
ready," I answered in a low voice. " I do not
wish to be in that affair. But yes, there is one
thing I have not mentioned. You are right"
She sighed so deeply that I caught the sound.
" It is," I continued slowly, " that you will
permit me to remain at Cocheforet for a few
days, while the soldiers are here. I am told
that there are twenty men and two officers quar-
tered in your house. Your brother is away. I
ask to be permitted, Mademoiselle, to take his
place for the time, and to be privileged to protect
your sister and yourself from insult. That is all."
She raised her hand to her head. After a
long pause : " The frogs ! " she muttered, " they
croak! I cannot hear."
And then, to my surprise, she turned suddenly
on her heel, and walked over the bridge, leaving
me there. For a moment I stood aghast, peering
after her shadowy figure, and wondering what had
taken her. Then, in a minute or less, she came
quickly back to me, and I understood. She was
crying.
166 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
" M. de Barthe," she said, in a trembling voice,
which told me that the victory was won. " Is there
nothing else ? Have you no other penance for me ? "
" None, Mademoiselle."
She had drawn the shawl over her head, and I
no longer saw her face. "That is all you ask?"
she murmured.
" That is all I ask now," I answered.
" It is granted," she said slowly and firmly.
" Forgive me if I seem to speak lightly if I
seem to make little of your generosity or my
shame; but I can say no rnore now. I am so
deep in trouble and so gnawed by terror that I
cannot feel anything much to-night, either shame
or gratitude. I am in a dream ; God grant it
may pass as a dream ! We are sunk in trouble.
But for you and what you have done, M. de
Barthe I " she paused and I heard her
fighting with the sobs which choked her "for-
give me. ... I am overwrought. And my
my feet are cold," she added suddenly and irrel&
vantly. " Will you take me home ? "
"Ah, Mademoiselle," I cried remorsefully, "I
have been a beast ! You are barefoot, and I
have kept you here."
A MASTER STROKE. 167
" It is nothing," she said in a voice which
thrilled me. "My heart is warm, Monsieur
thanks to you. It is many hours since it has
been as warm."
She stepped out of the shadow as she spoke
and there, the thing was done. As I had
planned, so it had come about. Once more I
was crossing the meadow in the dark to be re>
ceived at Cocheforet a welcome guest. The
frogs croaked in the pool and a bat swooped
round us in circles ; and surely never never,
I thought, with a kind of exultation in my
breast had man been placed in a stranger
position.
Somewhere in the black wood behind us
probably in the outskirts of the village lurked
M. de Cocheforet. In the great house before
us, outlined by a score of lighted windows, were
the soldiers come from Auch to take him. Be-
tween the two, moving side by side in the dark-
ness, in a silence which each found to be eloquent,
were Mademoiselle and I : she who knew so much,
I who knew all all but one little thing!
We reached the house, and I suggested that
1 68 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
she should steal in first by the way she had come
out, and that I should wait a little and knock at
the door when she had had time to explain mat-
ters to Clon.
" They do not let me see Clon," she answered
slowly.
" Then your woman must tell him," I rejoined.
" Or he may say something and betray me."
" They will not let our woman come to us."
" What ? " I cried, astonished. " But this is
infamous. You are not prisoners ! "
Mademoiselle laughed harshly. "Are we not?
Well, I suppose not; for if we wanted company,
Captain Larolle said he would be delighted to
see us in the parlour."
"He has taken your parlour?" I said.
" He and his lieutenant sit there. But I sup-
pose we should be thankful," she added bitterly.
" We have still our bed-rooms left to us."
"Very well," I said. "Then I must deal with
Clon as I can. But I have still a favour to
ask, Mademoiselle. It is only that you and your
sister will descend to-morrow at your usual time.
I shall be in the parlour."
A MASTER STROKE. 169
" I would rather not," she said, pausing and
speaking in a troubled voice.
" Are you afraid ? "
"No, Monsieur; I am not afraid," she an-
swered proudly. " But "
" You will come ? " I said.
She sighed before she spoke. At length, " Yes,
I will come if you wish it," she answered; and
the next moment she was gone round the corner
of the house, while I laughed to think of the
excellent watch these gallant gentlemen were
keeping. M. de Cocheforet might have been
with her in the garden, might have talked with
her as I had talked, might have entered the house
even, and passed under their noses scot-free. But
that is the way of soldiers. They are always
ready for the enemy, with drums beating and
flags flying at ten o'clock in the morning.
But he does not always come at that hour.
I waited a little, and then I groped my way to
the door, and knocked on it with the hilt of my
sword. The dogs began to bark at the back, and
the chorus of a drinking-song, which came fitfully
from the east wing, ceased altogether. An inner
I/O UNDER THE RED ROBE.
door opened, and an angry voice, apparently ar,
officer's, began to rate some one for not coming.
Another moment, and a clamour of voices and
footsteps seemed to pour into the hall, and fill
it. I heard the bar jerked away, the door was
flung open, and in a twinkling a lanthorn, behind
which a dozen flushed visages were dimly seen,
was thrust into my face.
" Why, who the fiend is this ? " cried one, glar.
ing at me in astonishment.
" Morbleu ! It is the man!" another shrieked.
" Seize him ! "
In a moment half a dozen hands were laid on
my shoulders, but I only bowed politely. " The
officer, my friends," I said, " M. le Capitaine
Larolle. Where is he ? "
" Diable ! but who are you, first ? " the lanthorn-
bearer retorted bluntly. He was a tall, lanky
sergeant, with a sinister face.
"Well, I am not M. de Cocheforet," I replied;
"and that must satisfy you, my man. For the
rest, if you do not fetch Captain Larolle at once
and admit me, you will find the consequences
inconvenient"
A MASTER STROKE. 17 1
"Ho! ho!" he said, with a sneer. "You can
crow, it seems. Well, come in."
They made way, and I walked into the hall,
keeping my hat on. On the great hearth a fire
had been kindled, but it had gone out. Three
or four carbines stood against one wall, and beside
them lay a heap of haversacks and some straw.
A shattered stool, broken in a frolic, and half
a dozen empty wine-skins strewed the floor, and
helped to give the place an air of untidiness and
disorder. I looked round with eyes of disgust,
and my gorge rose. They had spilled oil, and
the place reeked foully.
" Ventre bleu!" I said. "Is this conduct in
a gentleman's house, you rascals ? Ma vie ! If
I had you, I would send half of you to the
wooden horse ! "
They gazed at me open-mouthed. My arro-
gance startled them. The sergeant alone scowled.
When he could find his voice for rage
" This way ! " he said. " We did not know
a general officer was coming, or we would have
been better prepared ! " And muttering oaths
under his breath, he led me down the well-known
1/2 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
passage. At the door of the parlour he stopped.
"Introduce yourself!" he said rudely. "And if
you find the air warm, don't blame me ! "
I raised the latch and went in. At a table in
front of the hearth, half covered with glasses and
bottles, sat two men playing hazard. The dice
rang sharply as I entered, and he who had just
thrown kept the box over them while he turned,
scowling, to see who came in. He was a fair-
haired, blonde man, large-framed and florid. He
had put off his cuirass and boots, and his doublet
showed frayed and stained where the armour had
pressed on it. But otherwise he was in the
extreme of last year's fashion. His deep cravat,
folded over so that the laced ends drooped a little
in front, was of the finest ; his great sash of blue
and silver was a foot wide. He had a little jewel
in one ear, and his tiny beard was peaked a F Es-
pagnole. Probably when he turned he expected
to see the sergeant, for at sight of me he rose
slowly, leaving the dice still covered.
" What folly is this ? " he cried wrathfully.
" Here, Sergeant ! Sergeant ! without there f
What the ! Who are you, Sir ? "
A MASTER STROKE.
"Captain Larolle," I said, uncovering politely,
"I believe?"
" Yes, I am Captain Larolle," he retorted.
" But who, in the fiend's name, are you ? You
are not the man we are after ! "
" I am not M. Cocheforet," I said coolly. " I
am merely a guest in the house, M. le Capitaine.
I have been enjoying Madame de Cocheforet's
hospitality for some time, but by an evil chance
I was away when you arrived." And with that
I .walked to the hearth, and, gently pushing aside
his great boots which stood there drying, kicked
the logs into a blaze.
" Mille diables!" he whispered. And never
did I see a man more confounded. But I affected
to be taken up with his companion, a sturdy,
white-mustachioed old veteran, who sat back in
his chair, eyeing me, with swollen cheeks and
eyes surcharged with surprise.
" Good evening, M. le Lieutenant," I said, bow-
ing gravely. " It is a fine night"
Then the storm burst.
" Fine night ! " the captain shrieked, finding
his voice again. " Mille diables ! Are you aware.
1/4 UNDER THE RED ROBE,
Sir, that I am in possession of this house, and
that no one harbours here without my permis-
sion ? Guest! Hospitality! Lieutenant call the
guard ! Call the guard ! " he continued passion-
ately. " Where is that ape of a sergeant ? "
The lieutenant rose to obey, but I lifted my hand.
" Gently, gently, Captain," I said. " Not so
fast ! You seem surprised to see me here. Be-
lieve me, I am much more surprised to see you."
" SacrSf" he cried, recoiling at this fresh imper-
tinence, while the lieutenant's eyes almost jumped
out of his head.
But nothing moved me.
"Is the door closed?" I said sweetly. "Thank
you ; it is, I see. Then permit me to say again,
gentlemen, that I am much more surprised to see
you than you can be to see me. When Mon-
seigneur the Cardinal honoured me by sending
me from Paris to conduct this matter, he gave
me the fullest the fullest powers, M. le Capi-
taine to see the affair to an end. I was not
led to expect that my plans would be spoiled on
the eve of success by the intrusion of half the
garrison from Auch ! "
A MASTER STROKE. l?$
" O ho ! " the captain said softly in a very
different tone and with a very different face. " So
you are the gentleman I heard of at Auch ? "
"Very likely," I said drily. "But I am from
Paris, not Auch."
" To be sure," he answered thoughtfully. " Eh,
Lieutenant?"
"Yes, M. le Capitaine, no doubt," the inferior
replied. And they both looked at one another,
and then at me, in a way I did not understand.
"I think," said I, to clinch the matter, "that
you have made a mistake, Captain; or the Com-
mandant has. And it occurs to me that the
Cardinal will not be best pleased."
" I hold the King's commission," he answered
rather stiffly.
"To be sure," I replied. "But you see the
Cardinal "
"Ah, but the Cardinal " he rejoined quickly;
and then he stopped and shrugged his shoulders.
And they both looked at me.
"Well?" I said.
"The King," he answered slowly.
" Tut-tut ! " I exclaimed, spreading out my
UNDER THE RED ROBE.
hands. "The Cardinal. Let us stick to him.
You were saying ? "
"Well, the Cardinal, you see " And then
again, after the same words, he stopped stopped
abruptly and shrugged his shoulders.
I began to suspect something. " If you have
anything to say against Monseigneur," I answered,
watching him narrowly, " say it. But take a word
of advice. Don't let it go beyond the door of
this room, my friend, and it will do you no
harm."
" Neither here nor outside," he retorted, look-
ing for a moment at his comrade. " Only I hold
the King's commission. That is all. And I
think enough. For the rest, will you throw a
main ? Good ! Lieutenant, find a glass, and the
gentleman a seat. And here, for my part, I will
give you a toast. The Cardinal whatever be-
tide ! "
I drank it, and sat down to play with him;
I had not heard the music of the dice for a
month, and the temptation was irresistible. But
I was not satisfied. I called the mains and
won his crowns, he was a mere baby at the
A MASTER STROKE. 177
game, but half my mind was elsewhere. There
was something here I did not understand ; some
influence at work on which I had not counted ;
something moving under the surface as unintel-
ligible to me as the soldiers' presence. Had the
captain repudiated my commission altogether, and
put me to the door or sent me to the guard-house,
I could have followed that. But these dubious
hints, this passive resistance, puzzled me. Had
they news from Paris, I wondered. Was the
King dead? or the Cardinal ill? I asked them.
But they said no, no, no to all, and gave me
guarded answers. And midnight found us still
playing ; and still fencing.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE QUESTION.
" SWEEP the room, Monsieur ? And remove
this medley ? But, M. le Capitaine "
"The captain is at the village," I replied
sternly. " And do you move ! move, man, and
the thing will be done while you are talking about
it. Set the door into the garden open so ! ''
" Certainly, it is a fine morning. And the
tobacco of M. le Lieutenant But M. le Capi-
taine did not "
" Give orders ? Well, I give them ! " I an-
swered. " First of all, remove these beds. And
bustle, man, bustle, or I will find something to
quicken you."
In a moment "And M. le Capitaine's riding-
boots?"
" Place them in the passage," I replied.
178
THE QUESTION. 179
" Oht! In the passage ? " He paused, look-
ing at them in doubt.
" Yes, booby ; in the passage'."
"And the cloaks, Monsieur?"
"There is a bush handy outside the window.
Let them air."
" O/i<f, the bush ? Well, to be sure they are
damp. But yes, yes, Monsieur, it is done.
And the holsters ? "
" There also ! " I said harshly. " Throw them
out. Faugh ! The place reeks of leather. Now,
a clean hearth. And set the table before the open
door, so that we may see the garden. So. And
tell the cook that we shall dine at eleven, and
that Madame and Mademoiselle will descend."
"OhJ / But M. le Capitaine ordered the dinner
for half past eleven ? "
" It must be advanced, then ; and, mark you,
my friend, if it is not ready when Madame comes
down, you will suffer, and the cook too."
When he was gone on his errand, I looked
round. What else was lacking ? The sun shone
cheerily on the polished floor; the air, freshened
by the rain which had fallen in the night, entered
N 2
180 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
freely through the open doorway. A few bees
lingering with the summer hummed outside. The
fire crackled bravely; an old hound, blind and
past work, lay warming its hide on the hearth.
I could think of nothing more, and I stood and
watched the man set out the table and spread
the cloth. " For how many, Monsieur ? " he
asked, in a scared tone.
" For five," I answered ; and I could not help
'jmiling at myself. What would Zaton's say could
it see Berault turned housewife ? There was a
white glazed cup an old-fashioned piece of the
second Henry's time standing on a shelf. I
took it down and put some late flowers in it, and
set it in the middle of the table, and stood off
myself to look at it. But a moment later, think-
ing I heard them coming, I hurried it away in a
kind of panic, feeling on a sudden ashamed of
the thing. The alarm proved to be false, how-
ever; and then again, taking another turn, I set
the piece back. I had done nothing so foolish
for for more years than I liked to count.
But when Madame and Mademoiselle came,
they had eyes neither for the flowers nor the
THE QUESTION. l8l
room. They had heard that the captain was out
beating the village and the woods for the fugitive,
and where I had looked for a comedy I found
a tragedy. Madame's face was so red with weep-
ing that all her beauty was gone. She started
and shook at the slightest sound, and, unable
to find any words to answer my greeting, could
only sink into a chair and sit crying silently.
Mademoiselle was in a mood scarcely more
cheerful. She did not weep, but her manner
was hard and fierce. She spoke absently and
answered fretfully. Her eyes glittered, and she
had the air of straining her ears continually to
catch' some dreaded sound. " There is no news,
Monsieur ? " she said, as she took her seat. And
she shot a swift look at me.
" None, Mademoiselle."
" They are searching the village ? "
" I believe so."
" Where is Clon ? " This in a lower voice,
and with a kind of shrinking in her face.
I shook my head. " I believe they have him
confined somewhere. And Louis, too," I said,
" But I have not seen either of them."
1 82 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
" And where are ? I thought these people
would be here," she muttered. And she glanced
askance at the two vacant places. The servant
had brought in the meal.
" They will be here presently," I said coolly.
"Let us make the most of the time. A little
wine and food will do Madame good."
She smiled rather sadly. " I think we have
changed places," she said ; " and that you have-
turned host, and we guests."
" Let it be so," I said cheerfully. " I recom-
mend some of this ragout. Come, Mademoiselle ;
fasting can aid no one. A full meal has saved
many a man's life."
It was clumsily said perhaps, for she shud-
dered and looked at me with a ghastly smile.
But she persuaded her sister to taste something ;
and she took something on her own plate and
raised her fork to her lips. But in a moment
she laid it down again. "I cannot," she mur-
mured. " I cannot swallow. Oh, my God, at
this moment they may be taking him ! "
I thought that she was about to burst into
a passion of tears, and I repented that I had
THE QUESTION. 183
induced her to descend. But her self-control
was not yet exhausted. By an effort painful
to see, she recovered her composure. She took
up her fork, and ate a few mouthfuls. Then
she looked at me with a fierce under-look. " I
want to see Clon," she whispered feverishly.
The man who waited on us had left the room.
" He knows ? " I said.
She nodded, her beautiful face strangely dis-
figured. Her closed teeth showed between her
lips. Two red spots burned in her white cheeks,
and she breathed quickly. I felt, as I looked
at her, a sudden pain at my heart; and a shud-
dering fear, such as a man awaking to find him-
self falling over a precipice, might feel. How
these women loved the man !
For a moment I could not speak. When I
found my voice it sounded dry and husky. " He
is a safe confidant," I muttered. " He can
neither speak nor write, Mademoiselle."
"No, but " and then her face became fixed.
"They are coming," she whispered. "Hush!"
She rose stiffly, and stood supporting herself by
the table. " Have they have they found
1 84 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
him ? " she muttered. The woman by her side
wept on, unconscious what was impending.
I heard the captain stumble far down the
passage, and swear loudly; and I touched
Mademoiselle's hand. " They have not ! " I
whispered. "All is well, Mademoiselle. Pray,
pray calm yourself. Sit down, and meet them
as if nothing were the matter. And your sister!
Madame, Madame," I cried, almost harshly,
"compose yourself. Remember that you have
a part to play."
My appeal did something. Madame stifled
her sobs. Mademoiselle drew a deep breath
and sat down ; and though she was still pale
and still trembled, the worst was past.
And just in time. The door flew open with
a crash. The captain stumbled into the room,
swearing afresh. " Sacrt now du Diable ! " he
cried, his face crimson with rage. " What fool
placed these things here? My boots? My "
His jaw fell. He stopped on the word,
stricken silent by the new aspect of the room,
by the sight of the little party at the table,
by all the changes I had worked. " Saint
THE QUESTION. 185
Siege!' 1 he muttered. "What is this?" The
lieutenant's grizzled face peering over his shoul-
der completed the picture.
"You are rather late, M. le Capitaine," I said
cheerfully. " Madame's hour is eleven. But
come, here are your seats waiting for you."
" Mille tonnerres ! " he muttered, advancing
into the room, and glaring at us.
" I am afraid the ragout is cold," I continued,
peering into the dish and affecting to see noth-
ing. " The soup, however, has been kept hot by
che fire. But I think you do not see Madame."
He opened his mouth to swear, but for the
moment thought better of it. " Who who put
my boots in the passage ? " he asked, his voice
thick with rage. He did not bow to the ladies,
or take any notice of their presence.
" One of the men, I suppose," I said indiffer-
ently. "Is anything missing?"
He' glared at me. Then his cloak, spread
outside, caught his eye He strode through the
door, saw his holsters lying on the grass, and
other things strewn about. He came back.
"Whose monkey game is this?" he snarled, and
1 86 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
his face was very ugly. " Who is at the bottom
of this? Speak, Sir, or I"
" Tut-tut ! the ladies ! " I said. " You forget
yourself, Monsieur."
" Forget myself ? " he hissed, and this time
he did not check his oath. " Don't talk to me
of the ladies ! Madame ? Bah ! Do you think,
fool, that we are put into rebels' houses to bow
and smile and take dancing lessons ? "
" In this case a lesson in politeness were more
to the point, Monsieur," I said sternly. And I
rose.
" Was it by your orders that this was done ? "
he retorted, his brow black with passion. "An-
swer, will you ? "
" It was ! " I replied outright.
" Then take that ! " he cried, dashing his hat
violently in my face. "And come outside."
"With pleasure, Monsieur," I answered, bow-
ing. " In one moment. Permit me to find my
sword. I think it is in the passage."
I went thither to get it. When I returned I
found that the two men were waiting for me in
the garden, while the ladies had risen from the
THE QUESTION. 1 87
table and were standing near it with blanched
faces. " You had better take your sister upstairs,
Mademoiselle," I said gently, pausing a moment
beside them. " Have no fear. All will be well."
" But what is it ? '' she answered, looking
troubled. " It was so sudden. I am I did not
understand. You quarrelled so quickly."
" It is very simple," I answered, smiling.
" M. le Capitaine insulted you yesterday ; he will
pay for it to-day. That is all. Or, not quite all,"
I continued, dropping my voice and speaking in
a different tone. " His removal may help you,
Mademoiselle. Do you understand ? I think
that there will be no more searching to-day."
She uttered an exclamation, grasping my arm
and peering into my face. " You will kill him ? "
she muttered.
I nodded. "Why not?" I said.
She caught her breath and stood with one hand
clasped to her bosom, gazing at me with parted
lips, the blood mounting to her cheeks. Gradually
the flush melted into a fierce smile. " Yes, yes,
why not?" she repeated, between her teeth.
"Why not?" She had her hand on my arm.
1 88 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
and I felt her fingers tighten until I could have
winced. " Why not ? So you planned this for
us, Monsieur?"
I nodded.
" But can you ? "
" Safely," I said ; then, muttering to her to take
her sister upstairs, I turned towards the garden.
My foot was already on the threshold, and I was
composing my face to meet the enemy, when I
heard a movement behind me. The next mo-
ment her hand was on my arm. " Wait ! Wait
a moment ! Come back ! " she panted. I turned.
The smile and flush had vanished ; her face was
pale. " No ! " she said abruptly. " I was wrong !
I will not have it. I will have no part in it !
You planned it last night, M. de Barthe. It is
murder."
" Mademoiselle ! " I exclaimed, wondering.
"Murder? Why? It is a duel."
" It is murder," she answered persistently.
" You planned it last night. You said so."
" But I risk my own life," I replied sharply.
" Nevertheless I will have no part in it,"
she answered more faintly. " It will bring no
THE QUESTION". 189
good." She was trembling with agitation. Her
eyes avoided mine.
"On my shoulders be it then!" ; -I replied
stoutly. " It is too late, Mademoiselle, to go
back. They are waiting for me. Only, before
I go, let me beg of you to retire."
And I turned from her, and went out, won-
dering and thinking. First, that women were
strange things. Secondly murder? Merely
because I had planned the duel and provoked
the quarrel ! Never had I heard anything so
preposterous. Grant it, and dub every man who
kept his honour with his hands a Cain and a
good many branded faces would be seen in some
streets. I laughed at the fancy, as I strode down
the garden walk.
And yet, perhaps, I was going to do a foolish
thing. The lieutenant would still be here : a hard,
bitter man, of stiffer stuff than his captain. And
the troopers. What if,- when I had killed their
leader, they made the place too hot for me, Mon-
seigneur's commission notwithstanding ? I should
look silly, indeed, if on the eve of success I T ::cre
driven from the place by a parcel of jack-boots.
190 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
I liked the thought so little that I hesitated
Yet it seemed too late to retreat. The captain
and the lieutenant were waiting in a little open
space fhv'y yards from the house, where a nar-
rower path crossed the broad walk, down which
I had first seen Mademoiselle and her sister pac-
ing. The captain had removed his doublet, and
stood in his shirt leaning against the sundial, his
head bare and his sinewy throat uncovered. He
had drawn his rapier and stood pricking the
ground impatiently. I marked his strong and
nervous frame and his sanguine air : and twenty
years earlier the sight might have damped me.
But no thought of the kind entered my head now,
and though I felt with each moment greater
reluctance to engage, doubt of the issue had no
place in my calculations.
I made ready slowly, and would gladly, to gain
time, have found some fault with the place. But
the sun was sufficiently high to give no advantage
to either. The ground was good, the spot well
chosen. I could find no excuse to put off the
man. and I was about to salute him and fall to
vork, when a thought crossed my mind.
THE QUESTION 1 . IQI
" One moment ! " I said. " Supposing I kill
you, M. le Capitaine, what becomes of your
errand here?"
" Don't trouble yourself," he answered, with a
sneer he had misread my slowness and hesita-
tion. " It will not happen, Monsieur. And in
any case the thought need not harass you. I
have a lieutenant."
" Yes, but what of my mission ? " I replied
bluntly. " I have no lieutenant."
"You should have thought of that before you
interfered with my boots," he retorted, with con-
tempt.
" True," I said, overlooking his manner. " But
better late than never. I am not sure, now I
think of it, that my duty to Monseigneur will let
me fight."
"You will swallow the blow?" he cried, spit-
ting on the ground offensively. " Diable /" And
the lieutenant, standing on one side with his hands
behind him and his shoulders squared, laughed
grimly.
" I have not made up my mind," I answered
irresolutely.
UNDER THE RED ROBE.
"Well, nom de Dieu ! make it up," the captain
replied, with an ugly sneer. He took a swagger-
ing step this way and that, playing his weapon.
" I am afraid, Lieutenant, there will be no sport
to-day," he continued, in a loud aside. " Our cock
has but a chicken heart."
" Well ! " I said coolly, " I do not know what to
do. Certainly it is a fine day, and a fair piece of
ground. And the sun stands well. But I have
not much to gain by killing you, M. le Capitaine,
and it might get me into an awkward fix. On
the other hand, it would not hurt me to let you
go-"
" Indeed ? " he said contemptuously, looking at
me as I should look at a lacquey.
" No ! " I replied. " For if you were to say
that you had struck Gil de Berault, and left the
ground with a whole skin, no one would believe
you."
" Gil de Berault ! " he exclaimed, frowning.
" Yes, Monsieur," I replied suavely. " At your
service. You did not know my name ? "
" I thought your name was De Barthe," he
said. His voice sounded queerly ; and he waited
J-HE QUESTION. IQ3
for the answer with parted lips, and a shadow in
his eyes which I had seen in men's eyes before.
"No," I said. "That was my mother's name,
I took it for this occasion only."
His florid cheek lost a shade of its colour, and
he bit his lips as he glanced at the lieutenant,
trouble in his eyes. I had seen these signs before,
and knew them, and I might have cried " Chicken-
heart ! " in my turn ; but I had not made a way
of escape for him before I declared myself
for nothing, and I held to my purpose. " I think
you will allow now," I said grimly, "that it will
not harm me even if I put up with a blow ! "
" M. de Berault's courage is known," he mut-
tered.
"And with reason," I said. "That being so,
suppose we say this day three months, M. le Capi-
taine ? The postponement to be for my conven-
ience."
He caught the lieutenant's eye, and looked
down sullenly, the conflict in his mind as plain as
daylight. He had only to insist, and I must fight;
and if by luck or skill he could master me, his
fame as a duellist would run, like a ripple over
194 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
water, through every garrison town in France and
make him a name even in Paris. On the other
side were the imminent peril of death, the gleam
of cold steel already in fancy at his breast, the
loss of life and sunshine, and the possibility of a
retreat with honour, if without glory. I read his
face, and knew before he spoke what he would
do.
" It appears to me that the burden is with
you," he said huskily ; " but for my part, I am
satisfied."
"Very well," I said, "I take the burden. Per-
mit me to apologize for having caused you to strip
unnecessarily. Fortunately the sun is shining."
" Yes," he said gloomily. And he took his
clothes from the sundial, and began to put them
on. He had expressed himself satisfied ; but I
knew that he was feeling very ill-satisfied with
himself, and I was not surprised when he pres-
ently said abruptly and almost rudely, " There is
one thing I think we must settle here."
"What is that?" I asked.
" Our positions," he blurted out. " Or we shalJ
cross one another again within the hour."
THE QUESTION. 195
" Umph ! I am not quite sure that I under-
stand," I said.
" That is precisely what I don't do under-
stand ! " he retorted, in a tone of surly triumph.
" Before I came on this duty, I was told that
there was a gentleman here, bearing sealed orders
from the Cardinal to arrest M. de Cocheforet ;
and I was instructed to avoid collision with him
so far as might be possible. At first I took
you for the gentleman. But the plague take
me if I understand the matter now."
"Why not?" I said coldly.
"Because well, the matter is in a nutshell!"
he answered impetuously. " Are you here on
behalf of Madame de Cocheforet to shield her
husband ? Or are you here to arrest him ? That
is what I don't understand, M. de Berault."
"If you mean, am I the Cardinal's agent
I am ! " I answered sternly.
"To arrest M. de Cocheforet?"
"To arrest M. de Cocheforet."
" Well you surprise me," he said.
Only that; but he spoke so drily that I felt
the blood rush to my face. "Take care, Mon-
o 2
196 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
sieur," I said severely. " Do not presume too
far on the inconvenience to which your death
might put me."
He shrugged his shoulders. " No offence ! "
he said. " But you do not seem, M. de Berault,
to comprehend the difficulty. If we do not set-
tle things now, we shall be bickering twenty
times a day ! "
" Well, what do you want ? " I asked impa-
tiently.
" Simply to know how you are going to pro-
ceed. So that our plans may not clash."
" But surely, M. le Capitaine, that is my
affair ! " I replied.
" The clashing ? " he answered bitterly. Then
he waved aside my wrath. " Pardon," he said,
" the point is simply this : How do you propose
to find him if he is here ? "
"That again is my affair," I answered.
He threw up his hands in despair; but in a
moment his place was taken by an unexpected
disputant. The lieutenant, who had stood by
all the time, listening and tugging at his grey
moustache, suddenly spoke. " Look here, M.
THE QUESTION, 197
de Berault," he said, confronting me roughly,
"I do not fight duels. I am from the ranks. I
proved my courage at Montauban in '21, and
my honour is good enough to take care of itself.
So I say what I like, and I ask you plainly
what M. le Capitaine doubtless has in his mind
but does not ask : Are you running with the
hare and hunting with the hounds in this mat-
ter? In other words, have you thrown up Mon-
seigneur's commission in all but name and become
Madame's ally ; or it is the only other alter-
native are you getting at the man through the
women ? "
" You villain ! " I cried, glaring at him in such
a rage and fury I could scarcely get the words
out. This was plain speaking with a vengeance !
"How dare you ! How dare you say that I am
false to the hand that pays me ? "
I thought he would blench, but he did not.
He stood up stiff as a poker. " I do not say ;
I ask ! " he replied, facing me squarely, and
slapping his fist into his open hand to drive
home his words the better. " I ask you whether
you are playing the traitor to the Cardinal?
198 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
Or to these two women ? It is a simple ques-
tion."
I fairly choked. " You impudent scoundrel,"
I said.
" Steady, steady ! " he replied. " Pitch sticks
where it belongs. But that is enough. I see
which it is, M. le Capitaine ; this way a moment,
by your leave."
And in a very cavalier way he took his officer
by the arm, and drew him into a side-walk,
leaving me to stand in the sun, bursting with
anger and spleen. The gutter-bred rascal ! That
such a man should insult me, and with impunity!
In Paris I might have made him fight, but here
it was impossible. I was still foaming with rage
when they returned.
"We have come to a determination," the lieu-
tenant said, tugging his grey mustachios and
standing like a ramrod. " We shall leave you
the house and Madame, and you can take your
line to find the man. For ourselves, we shall
draw off our men to the village, and we shall
take our line. That is all, M. le Capitaine, is
it not?"
THE QUESTION. 199
" I think so," the captain muttered, looking
anywhere but at me.
" Then we bid you good-day, Monsieur,' the
lieutenant added. And in a moment he turned
his companion round, and the two retired up the
walk to the house, leaving me to look after them
in a black fit of rage and incredulity. -At the
first flush there was something so offensive in
the manner of their going that anger had the
upper hand. I thought of the lieutenant's words,
and I cursed him to hell with a sickening con-
sciousness that I should not forget them in a
hurry : " Was I playing the traitor to the Car-
dinal or to these women which ? " Mon Dieu !
if ever question but .there ! some day I would
punish him. And the captain ? I could put
an end to his amusement, at any rate ; and I
would. Doubtless among the country bucks of
Auch he lorded it as a chief provincial bully,
but I would cut his comb for him some fine
morning behind the barracks.
And then, as I grew cooler I began to wondev
why they were going, and what they were going
to d<?- They might be already on the track, or
200, UNDER THE RED ROBE,
have the information they required under hand ;
in that case I could understand the movement.
But if they were still searching vaguely, uncer-
tain whether their quarry were in the neighbour-
hood or not, and uncertain how long they might
have to stay, it seemed incredible that soldiers
should move from good quarters to bad without
motive.
I wandered down the garden thinking sullenly
of this, and pettishly cutting off the heads of the
flowers with my sheathed sword. After all, if
they found and arrested the man, what then ?
I should have to make my peace with the Cardi-
nal as I best might. He would have gained his
point, but not through me, and I should have to
look to myself. On the other hand, if I antici-
pated them and, as a fact, I felt that I could
lay my hand on the fugitive within a few hours
there would come a time when I must face
Mademoiselle.
A little while back that had not seemed so
difficult a thing. From the day of our first
meeting and in a higher degree since that
afternoon when she had lashed me with her
THE QUESTION. 2OI
scorn my views of her, and my feelings towards
her, had been strangely made up of antagonism
and sympathy ; of repulsion, because in her past
and present she was so different from me; of
yearning, because she was a woman and friend-
less. Then I had duped her and bought her
confidence by returning the jewels, and in a
measure I had sated my vengeance ; and then,
as a consequence, sympathy had again begun to
get the better, until now I hardly knew my own
mind or what I intended. / did not know, in fact,
what I intended. I stood there in the garden
with that conviction suddenly new-born in my
mind ; and then, in a moment, I heard her step
and turned to find her behind me.
Her face was like April, smiles breaking
through her tears. As she stood' with a tall
hedge of sunflowers behind her, I started to see
how beautiful she was. " I am here in search of
you, M. de Barthe," she said, colouring slightly,
perhaps because my eyes betrayed my thought,
"to thank you. You have not fought, and yet
you have conquered. My woman has just been
with me, and she tells me that they are going ! "
202 UNDER THE RED ROBE,
"Going?" I. said. "Yes, Mademoiselle, they
are leaving the house."
She did not understand my reservation.
" What magic have you used ? " she said, almost
gaily it was wonderful how hope had changed
her. " Moreover, I am curious to learn how
you managed to avoid fighting."
"After taking a blow?" I said bitterly.
" Monsieur, I did not mean that," she said re-
proachfully. But her face clouded. I saw that,
viewed in this light in which I suppose she had
not seen it the matter perplexed her still more.
I took a sudden resolution. " Have you ever
heard, Mademoiselle," I said gravely, plucking
off while I spoke the dead leaves from a plant
beside me, " of a gentleman by name De Berault ?
Known in Paris, so I have heard, by the sobri-
quet of the Black Death?"
" The duellist ? " she answered, in wonder.
"Yes, I have heard of him. He killed a young
gentleman of this province at Nancy two years
back. It was a sad story," she continued, shud-
dering, "of a dreadful man. God keep our
friends from such ! "
THE QUESTION: 203
" Amen ! " I said quietly. But, in spite of
myself, I could not meet her eyes.
" Why ? " she answered, quickly taking alarm
at my silence. " What of him, M. de Barthe ?
Why have you mentioned him ? "
" Because he is here, Mademoiselle."
' Here ? " she exclaimed.
"Yes, Mademoiselle," I answered soberly.
" I am he. '
CHAPTER IX.
CLON.
" You ! " she cried, in a voice which pierced me,
" You M. de Berault ? Impossible ! " But,
glancing askance at her. I could not face her,
I saw that the blood had left her cheeks,
"yes, Mademoiselle," I answered, in a low
voice. " De Barthe was my mother's name.
When I came here, a stranger, I took it that I
might not be known; that I might again speak
to a good woman and not see her shrink. That
but why trouble you with all this ? " I con-
tinued proudly, rebelling against her silence, her
turned shoulder, her averted face. " You asked
me, Mademoiselle, how 1 could take a blow and
let the striker go. I have answered. It is the
one privilege M. de Berault possesses."
"Then," she replied quickly, but almost in a
20A
CLON. 205
whisper, " if I were M. de Berault, I would use it,
and never fight again."
" In that event, Mademoiselle," I answered cyni-
cally, " I should lose my men friends as well as
my women friends. Like Monseigneur, the Cardi-
nal, I rule by fe^r "
She shuddered, either at the name or at the
idea my words called up, and, for a moment, we
stood awkwardly silent. The shadow of the
sundial fell between us ; the garden was still ;
here and there a leaf fluttered slowly down,
or a seed fell. With each instant of silence I
felt the gulf between us growing wider, I felt
myself growing harder ; I mocked at her past,
which was so unlike mine; I mocked at mine,
and called it fate. I was on the point of turn-
ing from her with a bow and a furnace in my
breast when she spoke.
" There is a late rose lingering there," she
said, a slight tremor in her voice. " I cannot
reach it. Will you pluck it for me, M. de
Berault?"
I obeyed her, my hand trembling, my face
^n fire. She took the rose from me, and placed
206 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
it in the bosom of her dress. And I saw that
her hand trembled too, and that her cheek was
dark with blushes.
She turned at once, and began to walk toward.'
the house. Presently she spoke. " Heaven for-
bid that I should misjudge you a second time i ''
she said, in a low voice. " And, after all, who
am I that I should judge you at all ? An hour
ago, I would have killed that man had I pos-
sessed the power."
" You repented, Mademoiselle," I said huskily
I could scarcely speak.
" Do you never repent ? ''
"Yes. But too late, Mademoiselle."
" Perhaps it is never too late," she answered
softly.
"Alas, when a man is dead "
" You may rob a man of more than life ! " she
replied with energy, stopping me by a gesture.
" If you have never robbed a man or a woman-
of honour ! If you have never ruined boy or
girl, M. de Berault ! If you have never pushed
another into the pit and gone by it yourself !
If but for murder ? Listen. You may be a
CLOW. 207
Romanist, but I am a Huguenot, and have read.
' Thou shalt not kill ! ' it is written ; and the pen-
alty, 'By man shall thy blood be shed!' But,
' If you cause one of these little ones to offend, it
were better for you that a mill-stone were hanged
about your neck, and that you were cast into the
depths of the sea.' '
" Mademoiselle, you are too merciful," I
muttered.
" I need mercy myself," she answered, sighing.
"And I have had few temptations. How do I
know what you have suffered ? "
" Or done ! " I said, almost rudely.
" Where a man has not lied, nor betrayed, nor
sold himself or others," she answered firmly, but
in a low tone, " I think I can forgive all else.
I can better put up with force," she added,
smiling sadly, " than with fraud."
Ah, Dieu ! I turned away my face that she
might not see how it paled, how I winced ; that
she might not guess how her words, meant in
mercy, stabbed me to the heart. And yet, then,
for the first time, while viewing in all its depth
and width the gulf which separated us, I was
208 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
not hardened ; I was not cast back on myself.
Her gentleness, her pity, her humility, softened
me, while they convicted me. My God ! How
could I do that which I had come to do ?
How could I stab her in the tenderest part, how
could I inflict on her that rending pang, how
could I meet her eyes, and stand before her,
a Caliban, a Judas, the vilest, lowest, basest
thing she could conceive ?
I stood, a moment, speechless and disordered ;
stunned by her words, by my thoughts as I
have seen a man stand when he has lost his
all, his last, at the tables. Then I turned to
her; and for an instant I thought that my tale
was told already. I thought that she had pierced
my disguise, for her face was aghast, stricken
with sudden fear. Then I saw that she was not
looking at me, but beyond me, and I turned
quickly and saw a servant hurrying from the
house to us. It was Louis. His face, it was,
had frightened her. His eyes were staring, his
hair waved, his cheeks were flabby with dismay.
He breathed as if he had been running.
"What is it?" Mademoiselle cried, while he
CLOW. 209
was still some way off. " Speak, man. My
sister? Is she "
"Clon," he gasped.
The name changed her to stone. " Clon ? "
she muttered. "What of him?"
" In the village ! " Louis panted, his tongue
stuttering with terror. " They are flogging him !
They are killing him, Mademoiselle! To make
him tell ! "
Mademoiselle grasped the sundial and leant
against it, her face colourless, and, for an in-
stant, I thought that she was fainting. "Tell?"
I said mechanically. " But he cannot tell. He
is dumb, man."
"They will make him guide them," Louis
groaned, covering his ears with his shaking
hands, his face like paper. " And his cries !
Oh, Monsieur, go ! " he continued, suddenly ap-
pealing to me, in a thrilling tone. " Save him.
All through the wood I heard them. It was
horrible! horrible!"
Mademoiselle uttered a low moan, and I turned
to support her, thinking each second to see her
fall. But with a sudden movement she straight-
210 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
ened herself, and, slipping by me, with eyes
which seemed to see nothing, she started swiftly
down the walk towards the meadow gate.
I ran after her, but, taken by surprise as I
was, it was only by a great effort I reached the
gate before her, and, thrusting myself in the road,
barred the way. " Let me pass ! " she panted
fiercely, striving to thrust me on one side. " Out
of my way, Sir ! I am going to the village."
"You are not going to the village," I said
sternly. " Go back to the house, Mademoiselle,
and at once." '
" My servant! " she wailed. " Let me go ! Oh,
let me go ! Do you think I can rest here while
they torture him ? He cannot speak, and they
they "
" Go back, Mademoiselle," I said, cutting her
short, with decision. " You would only make
matters worse ! I will go myself, and what one
man can do against many, I will ! Louis, give
your mistress your arm and take her to the
house. Take her to Madame."
" But you will go ? " she cried. Before I could
stay her I swear I would have done so if I
CLON. 211
could she raised my hand and carried it to
her trembling lips. "You will go! Go and stop
them! Stop them," she continued, in a tone
which stirred my heart, " and Heaven reward
you, Monsieur ! "
I did not answer; nor did I once look back,
as I crossed the meadow ; but I did not look
forward either. Doubtless it was grass I trod ;
doubtless the wood was before me with the sun
shining aslant on it, and behind me the house
with a flame here and there on the windows. But
I went in a dream, among shadows ; with a racing
pulse, in a glow from head to heel ; conscious of
nothing but the touch of Mademoiselle's warm
lips, seeing neither meadows nor house, nor even
the dark fringe of wood before me, but only
Mademoiselle's passionate face. For the moment
I was drunk : drunk with that to which I had
been so long a stranger, with that which a man may
scorn for years, to find it at last beyond his reach
drunk with the touch of a good woman's lips.
I passed the bridge in this state ; and my feet
were among the brushwood before the heat and
fervour in which I moved found on a sudden
212 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
their direction. Something began to penetrate
to my veiled senses a hoarse inarticulate cry,
now deep, now shrilling horribly, which seemed
to fill the wood. It came at intervals of half a
minute or so, and made the flesh creep, it was
so full of dumb pain, of impotent wrestling, of
unspeakable agony. I am a man and have seen
things. I saw the Concini beheaded, and Chalais
ten years later they gave him thirty-four blows ;
and when I was a boy I escaped from the college
and viewed from a great distance Ravaillac torn
by horses that was in the year ten. But the
horrible cries I now heard filled me, perhaps be-
cause I was alone and fresh from the sight of
Mademoiselle, with loathing that was intense. The
very wood, though the sun wanted an hour of set-
ting, seemed to grow dark. I ran on through it,
cursing, until the hovels of the village at length
came in sight. Again the shriek rose, a pulsing
horror, and this time I could hear the lash fall
on the sodden flesh, I could see in fancy the
strong man, trembling, quivering, straining against
his bonds. And then, in a moment, I was in
the street, and, as the scream once more tore
CLON. 213
the air, I dashed round the corner by the inn,
and came upon them.
I did not look at him. I saw Captain Larolle
and the lieutenant, and a ring of troopers, and
one man, bare-armed, teasing out with his fingers
the thongs of a whip. The thongs dripped blood,
and the sight fired the mine. The rage I had
suppressed when the lieutenant bearded me ear-
lier in the afternoon, the passion with which
Mademoiselle's distress had filled my breast, at
last found vent. I sprang through the line of
soldiers, and striking the man with the whip a
buffet between the shoulders, which hurled him
breathless to the ground, I turned on the leaders.
" You devils ! " I cried. " Shame on you ! The
man , is dumb ! I tell you, if I had ten men with
me, I would sweep you and your scum out of the
village with broomsticks. Lay on another lash,"
I continued recklessly, "and I will see if you or
the Cardinal be the stronger."
The lieutenant glared at me, his grey moustache
bristling, his eyes almost starting from his head.
Some of the troopers laid their hands on their
swords, but no one moved, and only the captain
214 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
spoke. " Mille diables!" he swore. "What is
all this about ? Are you mad, Sir ? "
" Mad or sane ! " I cried, still in a fury. " Lay
on another lash, and you shall repent it"
" I ? "
" Yes, you ! "
For an instant there was a pause of astonish-
ment. Then to my surprise the captain laughed
laughed loudly. "Very heroic!" he said.
"Quite magnificent, M. le Chevalier-errant. But
you see, unfortunately, you come too late ! "
" Too late ! " I said incredulously.
"Yes, too late," he replied, with a mocking
smile. And the lieutenant grinned too. "You
see the man has just confessed. We have only
been giving him an extra touch or two, to impress
his memory, and save us the trouble of tying him
up again."
" I don't believe it," I said bluntly but I felt
the check, and fell to earth. "The man cannot
speak."
" No, but he has managed to tell us that he
will guide us to the place we want," the captain
answered drily. "The whip, if it cannot find a
CLON", 215
man a tongue, can find him wits. What is more,
I think, he will keep his word," he continued, with
a hideous smile. " For I warn him that if he does
not, all your heroics shall not save him ! He is a
rebel dog, and known to us of old, and I will flay
his back to the bones ay, until we can see his
heart beating through his ribs but I will have
what I want in your teeth, too, you d d med-
dler."
" Steady, steady ! " I said, somewhat sobered.
I saw that he was telling me the truth. "He is
going to take you to M. de Cocheforet's hiding-
place, is he ? "
" Yes, he is ! " the captain retorted offensively.
" Have you any objection to make to that, Master
Spy?"
" None," I replied. " But I shall go with you.
And if you live three months, I shall kill you for
that name behind the barracks at Auch, M. le
Capitaine."
He changed colour, but he answered me boldly
enough. " I don't know that you will go with us
That is as we please," he continued, with a snarl.
" I have the Cardinal's orders," I said sternly.
2l6 UNDER THE RED ROBE,
" The Cardinal ? " he exclaimed, stung to fury
by this repetition of the name. "The Cardinal
be "
But the lieutenant laid his hands on his lips,
and stopped him. " Hush ! " he said. Then more
quietly, " Your pardon, M. le Capitaine. Shall I
give orders to the men to fall in ? "
The captain nodded sullenly.
" Take him down ! " the lieutenant ordered, in
his harsh, monotonous voice. "Throw his blouse
over him, and tie his hands. And do you two,
Paul and Lebrun, guard him. Michel, bring the
whip, or he may forget how it tastes. Sergeant,
choose four good men and dismiss the rest to their
quarters."
" Shall we need the horses ? " the sergeant
asked.
" I don't know," the captain answered peev-
ishly. " What does the rogue say ? "
The lieutenant stepped up to him. " Listen ! "
he said grimly. " Nod if you mean yes, and shake
your head if you mean no. And have a care you
answer truly. Is it more than a mile to this
place ? The place you know of? "
CLOW. 21?
They had loosened the poor wretch's fasten-
ings, and covered his back. He stood leaning
against the wall, his mouth still panting, the
sweat running down his hollow cheeks ; his
sunken eyes were closed ; a quiver now and
again ran through his frame. The lieutenant
repeated his question, and, getting no answer,
looked round for orders. The captain met the
look, and crying savagely, " Answer, will you, you
mute!" struck the half -swooning miserable across
the back with his switch. The effect was magi-
cal. Covered, as his shoulders were, the man
sprang erect with a shriek of pain, raising his
chin, and hollowing his back ; and in that attitude
stood an instant with starting eyes, gasping for
breath. Then he sank back against the wall,
moving his mouth spasmodically. His face was
the colour of lead.
" Diable / I think we have gone too far with
him ! " the captain muttered.
" Bring some wine ! " the lieutenant replied.
" Quick with it ! "
I looked on, burning with indignation, and
wondering besides what would come of this. If
2l8 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
the man took them to the place, and they suc-
ceeded in seizing, Cocheforet, there was an end
of the matter as far as I was concerned. It was
off my shoulders, and I might leave the village
when I pleased ; nor was it likely since he
would have his man, though not through me
that the Cardinal would refuse me an amnesty.
On the whole, I thought that I would prefer that
things should take that course ; and assuming the
issue, I began to wonder whether in that event it
would be necessary that Madame should know the
truth. I had a kind of a vision of a reformed
Berault, dead to play and purging himself at a
distance from Zaton's, winning, perhaps, a name
In the Italian war, and finally but, pshaw ! I
was a fool.
However, be that as it might, it was essential
that I should see the arrest made ; and I waited
patiently while they revived the tortured man,
and made their dispositions. These took some
time ; so that the sun was down, and it was grow-
ing dusk, when we marched out, Clon going first,
supported by his two guards, the captain and I
following, abreast, and eyeing one another sus-
CLON. 219
pidously, the lieutenant, with the sergeant and
five troopers, bringing up the rear. Clon moved
slowly, moaning from time to time, and but for
the aid given him by the two men with him,
must have sunk down again and again.
He went out between two houses close to the
inn, and struck a narrow track, scarcely discern-
ible, which ran benind other houses, and then
plunged into the thickest part of the wood. A
single person, traversing the covert, might have
made such a track ; or pigs, or children. But it
was the first idea that occurred to us, and it put
us all on the alert. The captain carried a cocked
pistol, I held my sword drawn, and kept a watch-
ful eye on him ; and the deeper the dusk fell
in the wood, the more cautiously we went, until
at last we came out with a sort of jump into a
wider and lighter path.
I looked up and down it, and saw before me
a wooden bridge, and an open meadow, lying
cold and grey in the twilight; and I stood in
astonishment. It was the old path to the Cha-
teau ! I shivered at the thought that he was
going to take us there, to the house to Made-
moiselle !
220 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
The captain also recognised the place, and
swore aloud. But the dumb man went on un-
heeding, until he reached the wooden bridge.
There he paused as if in doubt, and looked
towards the dark outline of the building, which
was just visible, one faint light twinkling sadly in
the west wing. As the captain and I pressed up
behind him, he raised his hands and seemed to
wring them towards the house.
" Have a care ! " the captain growled. " Play
me no tricks, or " But he did not finish the
sentence ; for Clon turned back from the bridge,
and, entering the wood on the left hand, began
to ascend the bank of the stream. We had not
gone a hundred yards before the ground grew
rough, and the undergrowth thick; and yet
through all ran a kind of path which enabled
us to advance, dark as it was growing. Very
soon the bank on which we moved began to
rise above the water, and grew steep and rugged.
We turned a shoulder, where the stream swept
round a curve, and saw we were in the mouth
of a small ravine, dark and steep-walled. The
water brawled along the bottom, over boulders
CLON. 221
and through chasms. In front, the slope on
which we stood shaped itself into a low cliff;
but half-way between its summit and the water,
a ledge, or narrow terrace, running along the
face, was dimly visible.
" Ten to one, a cave ! " the captain muttered.
"It is a likely place."
" And an ugly one ! " I sneered. " Which one
to ten might safely hold for hours ! "
" If the ten had no pistols yes ! " he
answered viciously. " But you see we have.
Is he going that way?"
He was. " Lieutenant," Larolle said, turning
and speaking in a low voice, though the chafing
of the stream below us covered ordinary sounds,
" shall we light the lanthorns, or press on while
there is still a glimmering of day ? "
" On, I should say, M. le Capitaine," the lieu-
tenant answered. " Prick him in the back if he
falters. I will warrant he has a tender place or
two ! " the brute added, with a chuckle.
The captain gave the word, and we moved
forward ; it being very evident now that the
cliff-path was our destination. It was possible
222 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
for the eye to follow the track all the way to it
through rough stones and brushwood ; and though
Clon climbed feebly and with many groans, two
minutes saw us step on to it. It did not turn
out to be the perilous place it looked at a dis-
tance. The ledge, grassy and terrace-like, sloped
slightly downwards and outwards, and in parts
was slippery ; but it was as wide as a highway,
and the fall to the water did not exceed thirty
feet. Even in such a dim light as now displayed
it to us, and by increasing the depth and unseen
dangers of the gorge, gave a kind of impressive-
ness to our movements, a nervous woman need
not have feared to breast it. I wondered how
often Mademoiselle had passed along it with her
milk-pitcher.
" I think we have him now ! " Captain Larolle
muttered, twisting his mustachios, and looking
round to make his last dispositions. " Paul and
Lebrun, see that your man makes no noise. Ser-
geant, come forward with your carbine, but do
not fire without orders. Now, silence, all, and
close up, Lieutenant. Forward ! "
We advanced about a hundred paces, keeping
CLON. 223
the cliff on our left, then turned a shoulder, and
saw, a few paces in front of us, a black blotch
standing out from the grey duskiness of the cliff-
side. The prisoner stopped, and raising his
bound hands pointed to it.
" There ? " the captain whispered, pressing for-
ward. "Is that the place?"
Clon nodded. The captain's voice shook with
excitement. " You two remain here with him ! "
he muttered, in a low tone. " Sergeant, come
forward with me. Now, are you ready? For.
ward ! "
He and the sergeant passed quickly, one on
either side of Clon and his guards. The path
was narrow here, and the captain passed outside.
The eyes of all but one were on the black
blotch, the hollow in the cliff-side, and no one
saw exactly what happened. But somehow, as
the captain passed abreast of him, the prisoner
thrust back his guards, and springing sideways,
flung his unbound arms round Larolle's body,
and in an instant swept him, shouting, to the
verge of the precipice.
It was done in a moment. By the time the
224 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
lieutenant's startled wits and eyes were back,
the two were already tottering on the edge, look'
ing in the gloom like one dark form. The ser-
geant, who was the first to find his head, levelled
his carbine ; but as the wrestlers twirled and
twisted, the captain shrieking out oaths and
threats, the mute silent as death, it was impos-
sible to see which was which ; and the sergeant
lowered his gun again, while the men held back
nervously. The ledge sloped steeply there ; the
edge was vague ; already the two seemed to be
wrestling in mid-air, and the mute was a man
beyond hope or fear.
That moment of hesitation was fatal. Clon's
long arms were round the other's arms, crushing
them into his ribs ; Clon's skull-like face grinned
hate into the other's eyes ; his long limbs curled
round him like the folds of a snake. Suddenly
Larolle's strength gave way. " Damn you all !
Why don't you Mercy ! mercy ! " came in a
last scream from his lips ; and then, as the lieu-
tenant, taken aback before, sprang forward to
his aid, the two toppled over the edge, and in a
second hurtled out of sight.
CLON. 225
" Mon Dieu!" the lieutenant cried, in horror.
The answer was a dull splash in the depths
below.
He flung up his arms. " Water ! " he said.
" Quick, men, get down ! We may save him yet !
They have fallen into water ! "
But there was no path, and night was come,
and the men's nerves were shaken. The Ian-
thorns had to be lit, and the way to be retraced ;
and by the time we reached the dark pool which
lay below, the last bubbles were gone from the
surface, the last ripples had beaten themselves
out against the banks. True, the pool still rocked
sullenly, and the yellow light showed a man's
hat floating, and near it a glove three parts
submerged. But that was all. The mute's dying
grip had known no loosening, nor his hate any
fear. Later, I heard that when they dragged
the two out next day, his fingers were in the
other's eye-sockets, his teeth in his throat. If
ever man found death sweet, it was he.
As we turned slowly from the black water,
some shuddering, some crossing themselves, the
lieutenant looked vengefully at me. "Curse
r
226 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
you ! " he said, in sudden fury. " I believe you
are glad ! "
" He deserved his fate," I answered coldly.
" Why should I pretend to be sorry ? It was
now or in three months. And for the other poor
devil's sake I am glad."
He glared at me a moment, in speechless anger.
At last, " I should like to have you tied up ! "
he said, between his teeth.
" I should have thought that you had had
enough of tying up for one day ! " I retorted.
" But there ; it comes of making officers out of
the canaille. Dogs love blood. The teamster
must still lash something, if he can no longer
lash his horses."
We were back, a sombre little procession, at
the wooden bridge, when I said this. He stopped
suddenly. " Very well," he replied, nodding
viciously, " That decides me. Sergeant, light
me this way with a lanthorn. The rest of you
to the village. Now, Master Spy," he continued,
glancing at me with gloomy spite, " your road is
my road. I think I know how to cook your goose."
I shrugged my shoulders in disdain, and to-
CLOW. 227
gether, the sergeant leading the way with the
light, we crossed the meadow, and passed through
the gate where Mademoiselle had kissed my
hand, and up the ghostly walk between the rose-
bushes. I wondered uneasily what the lieu-
tenant would be at, and what he intended ; but
the lanthorn light which now fell on the ground
at our feet, and now showed one of us to the
other, high-lit in a frame of blackness, discov-
ered nothing in his grizzled face but settled hos-
tility. He wheeled at the end of the walk to
go to the main door; but as he did so, I saw
the flutter of a white skirt by the stone seat
against the house, and I stepped that way.
" Mademoiselle," I said softly, " is it you ? "
" Clon ? " she muttered, her voice quivering.
"What of him?"
" He is past pain," I answered gently. " He
is dead, but in his own way. Take comfort,
Mademoiselle." And then before I could say
more, the lieutenant with his sergeant and light
were at my elbow. He saluted Mademoiselle
roughly. She looked at him with shuddering
abhorrence.
228 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
" Are you come to flog me, Sir ? " she said
icily. " Is it not enough that you have murdered
my servant ? "
" On the contrary, it was he killed my captain,"
the lieutenant answered, in another tone than
I had expected. " If your servant is dead, so
is my comrade."
She looked with startled eyes, not at him, but
at me. "What! Captain Larolle ?" she muttered.
I nodded.
" How ? " she asked.
" Clon flung the captain and himself into the
river-pool," I explained, in a low voice. " The
pool above the bridge."
She uttered an exclamation of awe, and stood
silent. But her lips moved ; I think she was
praying for Clon, though she was a Huguenot.
Meanwhile I had a fright. The lanthorn, swing-
ing in the sergeant's hand, and now throwing its
smoky light on the stone seat, now on the rough
wall above it, showed me something else. On
the seat, doubtless where Mademoiselle's hand
had lain, as she sat in the dark, listening and
watching, stood a pitcher of food. Beside her, in
CLON. 229
that place, it was damning evidence. I trembled
lest the lieutenant's eye should fall upon it,
lest the sergeant should see it; I thought what
I could do to hide it; and then in a moment
I forgot all about it. The lieutenant was speak-
ing, and his voice was like doom. My throat
grew dry as I listened. My tongue stuck to my
mouth; I tried to look at Mademoiselle, but I
could not.
" It is true, the captain is gone," he said stiffly.
" But others are alive, and about one of them, a
word with you, by your leave, Mademoiselle.
I have listened to a good deal of talk from this
fine gentleman friend of yours. He has spent
the last twenty-four hours saying, ' You shall ! '
and ' You shall not ! ' He came from you, and
took a very high tone because we laid a little
whip-lash about that dumb devil of yours. He
called us brutes and beasts, and but for him
I am not sure that my friend would not be
alive. But when he said a few minutes ago
that he was glad, glad of it, damn him ! then
I fixed it in my mind that I would be even with
him. And I am going to be ! "
230 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
"What do you mean?" Mademoiselle asked,
wearily interrupting him. " If you think you
can prejudice me against that gentleman "
" That is precisely what I do think ! And I
am going to do it. And a little more than
that ! "
"You will be. only wasting your breath!" she
answered proudly.
" Wait ! wait, Mademoiselle, until you have
heard ! " he said. " If ever a black-hearted
scoundrel, a dastardly, sneaking spy, trod the
earth, it is this fellow ! This friend of yours !
And I am going to expose him. Your own eyes
and your own ears shall persuade you. Why,
I would not eat, I would not drink, I would not
sit down with him ! I would not ! I would
rather be beholden to the meanest trooper in
my squadron than to him ! Ay, I would, so
help me Heaven ! " And the lieutenant, turning
squarely on his heels, spat on the ground.
CHAPTER X.
THE ARREST.
So it had come ! And come in such a fashion
that I saw no way of escape. The sergeant was
between us, and I could not strike him. And
I found no words. A score of times I had
thought with shrinking how I should reveal my
secret to Mademoiselle, what I should say, and
how she would take it. But in my mind it had
always been a voluntary act, this disclosure. It
had been always I who had unmasked myself,
and she who listened alone ; and in this volun-
tariness and this privacy there had been some-
thing which seemed to take from the shame
of anticipation. But here here was no volun-
tary act on my part, no privacy, nothing but
shame. I stood mute, convicted, speechless
like the thing I was.
Vet if anything could have braced me, it was
231
232 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
Mademoiselle's voice, when she answered him.
" Go on, Monsieur," she said, with the perfect
calmness of scorn. "You will have done the
sooner."
" You do not believe me ? " he replied hotly.
" Then, I say, look at him ! Look at him ! If
ever shame "
" Monsieur ! " she said abruptly she did not
look at me. " I am ashamed myself ! "
" Why, his very name is not his own ! " the
lieutenant rejoined jerkily. " He is no Barthe at
all. He is Berault the gambler, the duellist, the
bully "
Again she interrupted him. " I know it," she
said coldly. " I know it all. And if you have
nothing more to tell me, go, Monsieur. Go ! "
she continued, in a tone of infinite scorn.
" Enough that you have earned my contempt as
well as my abhorrence ! "
He looked for a moment taken aback. Then,
" Ay, but I have more ! " he cried, his voice
stubbornly triumphant. " I forgot that you would
think little of that ! I forgot that a swordsman
has always the ladies' hearts. But I have more.
THE ARREST. 233
Do you knoiv, too, that he is in the Cardinal's
pay ? Do you know that he is here on the
same errand which brings us here, to arrest
M. de Cocheforet ? Do you know that while we
go about the business openly and in soldier
fashion, it is his part to worm himself into your
confidence, to sneak into Madame's intimacy, to
listen at your door, to follow your footsteps, to
hang on your lips, to track you track you
until you betray yourselves and the man ? Do
you know this, and that all his sympathy is a
lie, Mademoiselle ? His help, so much bait to
catch the secret ? His aim, blood-money blood-
money ? Why, morbleu!" the lieutenant con-
tinued, pointing his finger at me, and so carried
away by passion, so lifted out of himself by
wrath and indignation, that in spite of myself
I shrank before him, " you talk, lady, of con-
tempt and abhorrence in the same breath with
me ! But what have you for him ? What have
you for him, the spy, the informer, the hired
traitor? And if you doubt, if you want evi-
dence, look at him. Only look at him, I say!'
And he might well say it ! For I stood silent
234 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
still ; cowering and despairing, white with rage
and hate. But Mademoiselle did not look. She
gazed straight at the lieutenant. " Have you
done ? " she said.
" Done ? " he stammered. Her words, her air,
brought him to earth again. " Done ? Yes, if
you believe me."
" I do not," she answered proudly. " If that be
all, be satisfied, Monsieur. I do not believe you."
"Then tell me," he retorted, after a moment of
stunned surprise, " why, if he was not on our
side, do you think we let him remain here ?
Why did we suffer him to stay in a suspected
house bullying us, and taking your part from
hour to hour ? "
" He has a sword, Monsieur," she answered,
with fine contempt.
" Mille diables ! " he cried, snapping his fingers
in a rage. " That for his sword ! No. It was
because he held the Cardinal's commission ; be-
cause he had equal authority with us ; because
we had no choice."
"And that being so, Monsieur, why are you
now betraying him ? " she asked keenly.
THE ARREST. 23$
He swore at that, feeling the stroke go home.
"You must be mad," he said, glaring at her.
' Mad, if you cannot see that the man is what
I tell you he is. Look at him ! Listen to him \
Has he a word to say for himself ? "
Still she did not look. "It is late," she
replied, coldly and irrelevantly. " And I am
not very well. If you have quite done, perhaps
you will leave me, Monsieur."
" Mon Dieu / " he exclaimed, shrugging his
shoulders ; " you are mad ! I have told you the
truth, and you will not believe it. Well, on
your head be it then, Mademoiselle. I have no
more to say. But you will see."
He looked at her for a moment as if he
thought that she might still give way; then he
saluted her roughly, gave the word to the ser-
geant, turned, and went down the path. The
sergeant went after him, the lanthorn swaying
in his hand. We two were left alone in the
gloom. The frogs were croaking in the pool;
the house, the garden, the wood, all lay quiet
under the darkness, as on the night when I
first came to the Chateau.
236 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
And would to Heaven I had never come I
That was the cry in my heart. Would to Heaven
I had never seen this woman, whose nobility
and faith and singleness were a continual
shame to me ; a reproach, branding me every
hour I stood in her presence, with all vile and
hateful names. The man just gone, coarse, low-
bred, brutal soldier as he was, man-flogger, and
drilling-block, had yet found heart to feel my
baseness, and words in which to denounce it
What, then, would she say when the truth some
day came home to her? What shape should I
take in her eyes then ? How should I be remem-
bered through all the years then ?
Then ? But now ? What was she thinking,
now, as she stood, silent and absorbed, by the
stone seat, a shadowy figure with face turned
from me ? Was she recalling the man's words,
fitting them to the facts and the past, adding
this and that circumstance ? Was she, though
she had rebuffed him in the body, collating, now
he was gone, all he had said, and out of these
scraps piecing together the damning truth ?
The thought ,t irtured me. I could brook un~
THE ARREST.
certainty no longer. I went nearer to her and
touched her sleeve. " Mademoiselle," I said, in
a voice which sounded hoarse and forced even
in my own ears, " do you believe this of me ? "
She started violently and turned. " Pardon,
Monsieur," she answered. " I had forgotten
that you were here. Do I believe what?"
"What that man said of me," I muttered.
" That ! " she exclaimed ; and she stood a
moment gazing at me in a strange fashion.
" Do I believe what he said, Monsieur ! But
come, come," she continued, "and I will show
you if I believe it. But not here."
She led the way on the instant into the house,
going in through the parlour door, which stood
half open. The room inside was pitch dark,
but she took me fearlessly by the hand, and led
me quickly through it, and along the passage,
until we came to the cheerful lighted hall, where
a great fire burned on the hearth. All traces
of the soldiers' occupation had been swept away.
But the room was empty.
She led me to the fire, and there, in the full
light, no longer a shadowy creature, but red-
238 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
lipped, brilliant, throbbing with life, she stood
opposite me, her eyes shining, her colour high,
her breast heaving. " Do I believe it ? " she said.
" I will tell you. M. de Cocheforet's hiding-place
is in the hut behind the fern-stack, two furlongs
beyond the village, on the road to Auch. You
know now what no one else knows, he and I and
Madame excepted. You hold in your hands his
life and my honour ; and you know also, M. de
Berault, whether I believed that tale."
" My God ! " I cried. And I stood looking
at her, until something of the horror in my eyes
crept into hers, and she shuddered and stepped
back.
"What is it? What is it?" she whispered,
clasping her hands. And with all the colour
gone from her cheeks she peered trembling into
the corners and towards the door. " There is
no one here. Is there any one listening?"
I forced myself to speak, though I shook all
over, like a man in an ague. " No, Mademoiselle,
there is no one here," I muttered. And then I
let my head fall on my breast, and I stood before
her, the statue of despair. Had she felt a
THE ARREST. 239
grain of suspicion, a grain of doubt, my bearing
must have opened her eyes. But her mind was
cast in so noble a mould, that having once
thought ill of me and been converted, she could
feel no doubt again. It was her nature to trust
all in all. So, a little recovered from her fright,
she stood looking at me in great wonder ; and
at last she had a thought.
"You are not well?" she said suddenly.- "It
is your old wound, Monsieur."
" Yes, Mademoiselle," I muttered faintly. " It
is my old wound."
" I will call Clon ! " she cried impetuously.
And then, with a sob, " Ah. ! poor Clon ! He
is gone. But there is Louis. I will call him,
and he will get you something."
She was gone from the room before I could
stop her; and I was left leaning against the
table, possessor at last of the great secret which
I had come so far to win. Possessor of that
secret, and able in a momen' to open the door,
and go out into the night, and make use of it
and yet the most unhappy of men. The sweat
stood on my brow, my eyes wandered round the
240 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
room ; I even turned towards the door, with some
mad thought of flight flight from her, from
the house, from everything. And God knows
if I might not have chosen that course ; for I still
stood doubting, when on the door, that door,
there came a sudden hurried knocking which
jarred every nerve in my body. I started. I
stood in the middle of the floor, gazing at the
door, as at a ghost. Then glad of action, glad
of anything that might relieve the tension of
my feelings, I strode to it, and pulled it sharply
open.
On the threshold, his flushed face lit up by
the light behind me, stood one of the knaves I
had brought with me to Auch. He had been
running, and panted heavily, but he had kept his
wits. He grasped my sleeve instantly. " Ah !
Monsieur, the very man ! " he cried, tugging at
me. " Quick ! come this instant, and you may yet
be first. They have the secret. They have
found Monsieur."
"Found whom?' I echoed. " M. de Coche-
foret?"
" No ; but the place where he lies. It was
THE ARREST. 241
found by accident. The lieutenant was gather-
ing his men to go to it when I came away.
If we are quick, we may be there first"
" But the place ? " I said.
" I could not hear where it was," he answered
bluntly. "We can hang on their skirts, and at
the last moment strike in."
The pair of pistols I had taken from the
shock-headed man lay on a chest by the door.
I snatched them up, and my hat, and joined him
without another word ; and in a moment we were
running down the garden. I looked back once
before we passed the gate, and I saw the light
streaming out through the door which I had
left open ; and I fancied that for an instant a
figure darkened the gap. But the fancy only
strengthened the one single iron purpose which
had taken possession of me and all my thoughts.
I must be first. I must anticipate the lieu-
tenant, and make the arrest myself. I ran on
only the faster.
We seemed to be across the meadow and in
the wood in a moment. There, instead of keep-
ing along the common path, I boldly singled out
242 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
my senses seemed preternaturally keen the
smaller track by which Clon had brought us, and
ran unfaltering along it, avoiding logs and pitfalls
as by instinct, and following all its turns and
twists, until it brought us to the back of the inn,
and we could hear the murmur of subdued voices
in the village street, the sharp low words of com-
mand, and even the clink of weapons ; and could
see, above and between the houses, the dull glare
of lanthorns and torches.
I grasped my man's arm and crouched down,
listening. " Where is your mate ? " I said, in his
ear.
"With them," he muttered.
"Then come," I whispered, rising. "I have
seen enough. Let us go."
But he caught me by the arm and detained
me. " You don't know the way ! " he hissed.
" Steady, steady, Monsieur. You go too fast.
They are just moving. Let us join them, and
strike in when the time comes. We must let
them guide us."
" Fool ! " I said, shaking off his hand. " 1
tell you, I know where he is ! I know where
THE ARREST. 243
they are going. Come ; lose not a moment, and
we will pluck the fruit while they are on the
road to it."
His only answer was an exclamation of sur-
prise; at that moment the lights began to move.
The lieutenant was starting. The moon was not
yet up ; the sky was grey and cloudy ; to advance
where we were was to step into a wall of black-
ness. But we had lost too much time already,
and I did not hesitate. Bidding my companion
follow me, and use his legs, I sprang through
a low fence which rose before us, and stumbling
blindly over some broken ground in the rear of
the houses, came, with a fall or two, *t> a little
watercourse with steep sides. Through this I
plunged recklessly, and up the farther side, and,
breathless and panting, gained the road just be-
yond the village, and fifty yards in advance of
the lieutenant's troop.
They had only two lanthorns burning now, and
we were beyond the circle of light these cast ;
while the steady tramp of so many footsteps
covered the noise we made. We were unnoticed.
In a twinkling we turned our backs, and as fast
B ?
244 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
as we could ran down the road. Fortunately,
they were thinking more of secrecy than speed,
and in a minute we had doubled the distance
between us ; in two minutes their lights were
mere sparks shining in the gloom behind us. We
lost, at last, even the tramp of their feet. Then
I began to look out and go more slowly ; peering
into the shadows on either side for the fern-stack.
On one hand the hill rose steeply; on the
other it fell away to the stream. On neither side
was close wood, or my difficulties had been im-
mensely increased, but scattered oak-trees stood
here and there among gorse and bracken. This
helped me, and in a moment, on the upper side, I
came upon the dense substance of the stack loom-
ing black against the lighter hill.
My heart beat fast, but it was no time for
thought. Bidding the man in a whisper to follow
me and be ready to back me up, I climbed the
bank softly, and with a pistol in my hand, felt
my way to the rear of the stack ; thinking to find
a hut there, set against the fern, and M. de Coche-
fordt in it. But I found no hut. There was
none; and all was so dark that it came upon r\e
THE ARREST. 245
suddenly as I stood between the hill and the stack
that I had undertaken a very difficult thing. The
hut behind the fern-stack ? But how far behind ?
How far from it? The dark slope stretched
above us, infinite, immeasurable, shrouded in night.
To begin to climb it in search of a tiny hut,
probably well-hidden and hard to find in day-
light, seemed a task as impossible as to meet
with the needle in the hay! And now, while I
stood, chilled and doubting, the steps of the
troop in the road began to grow audible, began
to come nearer.
" Well, M. le Capitaine ? " the man beside me
muttered in wonder why I stood. " Which
way ? Or they will be before us yet."
I tried to think, to reason it out; to consider
where the hut would be ; while the wind sighed
through the oaks, and here and there I could
hear an acorn fall. But the thing pressed too
close on me : my thoughts would not be hur-
ried, and at last I said at a venture, " Up the
hill! Straight from the stack."
He did not demur, and we plunged at the
ascent, knee deep in bracken and furze, sweat-
246 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
ing at every pore with our exertions, and hearing
the troop come every moment nearer on the
road below. Doubtless they knew exactly whither
to go ! Forced to stop and take breath when
we had scrambled up fifty yards or so, I saw
their lanthorns shining like moving glow-worms ;
and could even hear the clink of steel. For all
I could tell, the hut might be down there, and
we two be moving from it! But it was too late
to go back now ; they were close to the fern-
stack : and in despair I turned to the hill again.
A dozen steps, and I stumbled. I rose and
plunged on again ; again I stumbled. Then I
found that I was no longer ascending. I was
treading level earth. And was it water I saw
before me, below me, a little in front of my feet,
or some mirage of the sky ?
Neither ; and I gripped my fellow's arm, as he
came abreast of me, and stopped him sharply.
Below us, in the centre of a steep hollow, a pit
in the hill-side, a light shone out through some
aperture and quivered on the mist, like the pale
lamp of a moorland hobgoblin. It made itself
visible, displaying nothing else ; a wisp of light
in the bottom of a bla^k bowl.
THE ARREST. 247
Yet my spirits rose with a great bound at sight
of it, for I knew that I had stumbled on the place
I sought. In the common run of things I should
have weighed my next step carefully, and gone
about it slowly. But here was no place for
thought, nor room for delay, and I slid down
the side of the hollow, and the moment my feet
touched the bottom, sprang to the door of the
little hut whence the light issued. A stone
turned under my foot in my rush, and I fell on my
knees on the threshold ; but the fall only brought
'ny face to a level with the startled eyes of the
man who lay inside on a bed of fern. He had
been reading. At the sound I made he dropped
his book, and stretched out his hand for a
weapon. But the muzzle of my pistol covered
him before he could reach his; he was not in a
posture from which he could spring, and at a
sharp word from me he dropped his hand. The
tigerish glare which had flickered for an instant
in his eyes, gave place to a languid smile ; and
he shrugged his shoulders. "Eh, bien?" he
said, with marvellous composure. "Taken at
last! Well, I was tired of it."
248 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
" You are my prisoner, M. de Cocheforet," I
answered.
" It seems so," he said.
" Move a hand, and I kill you," I answered.
" But you have still a choice."
" Truly ? " he said, raising his eyebrows.
"Yes. My orders are to take you to Paris
alive or dead. Give me your parole that you
will make no attempt to escape, and you shall
go thither at your ease and as a gentleman.
Refuse, and I shall disarm and bind you, and
you will go as a prisoner."
" What force have you ? " he asked curtly.
He had not moved. He still lay on his elbow,
his cloak covering him, the little Marot in which
he had been reading close to his hand. But his
quick, black eyes, which looked the keener for
the pallor and thinness of his face, roved cease-
lessly over me, probed the darkness behind me,
took note of everything.
" Enough to compel you, Monsieur," I replied
sternly. " But that is not all. There are thirty
dragoons coming up the hill to secure you, and
they will make you no such offer. Surrender
THE ARREST. 249
to me before they come and give me your parole,
and I will do all for your comfort. Delay, and
you will fall into their hands. There can be
no escape."
"You will take my word," he said slowly.
" Give it, and you may keep your pistols, M. de
Cocheforet," I replied.
" Tell me at least that you are not alone."
" I am not alone."
" Then I give it," he said, with a sigh. " And
for Heaven's sake get me something to eat and
a bed. I am tired of this pig-sty and this life
Arnidieu ! it is a fortnight since I slept between
sheets."
" You shall sleep to-night in your own house
if you please," I answered hurriedly. " But
here they come. Be good enough to stay where
you are a moment, and I will meet them."
I stepped out into the darkness, in the nick
of time. The lieutenant, after posting his men
round the hollow, had just slid down with a
couple of sergeants to make the arrest. The
place round the open door was pitch dark.
He had not espied my knave, who had lodged
250 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
himself in the deepest shadow of the hut; and
when he saw me come out across the light, he
took me for Cocheforet In a twinkling he
thrust a pistol into my face, and cried trium-
phantly, " You are my prisoner ! " At the same
instant one of the sergeants raised a lanthorn
and threw its light into my eyes.
" What folly is this ? " I said savagely.
The lieutenant's jaw fell, and he stood for
half a minute, paralyzed with astonishment.
Less than an hour before he had left me at
the Chateau. Thence he had come hither with
the briefest delay ; and yet he found me here be-
fore him ! He swore fearfully, his face dark, his
mustachios stiff with rage. " What is this ? What
is it?" he cried at last. "Where is the man?"
" What man ? " I said.
" This Cocheforet ! " he roared, carried away
by his passion. " Don't lie to me ! He is here,
and I will have him ! "
"You will not. You are too late!" I said,
watching him heedfully. " M. de Cocheforet is
here, but he has already surrendered to me, and
he is my prisoner."
THE ARREST. 25 1
" Your prisoner ? "
" Yes, my prisoner ! " I answered facing the
man with all the harshness I could muster. " I
have arrested him by virtue of the Cardinal's
special commission granted to me. And by
virtue of the same I shall keep him ! "
He glared at me for a moment in utter rage
and perplexity. Then on a sudden I saw his face
lighten. " It is a d d ruse ! " he shouted, bran-
dishing his pistol like a madman. " It is a cheat
and a fraud ! And by G d you have no commis-
sion ! I see through it ! I see through it all !
You have come here, and you have hocussed us !
You are of their side, and this is your last shift
to save him ! "
" What folly is this ? " I exclaimed.
" No folly at all ! " he answered, conviction in
his tone. " You have played upon us ! You
have fooled us ! But I see through it now !
An hour ago I exposed you to that fine Madame
at the house there, and I thought it a marvel
that she did not believe me. I thought it a
marvel that she did not see through you, when
you stood there before her, confounded, tongue-
2$2 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
tied, a rogue convicted ! But I understand it
now. She knew you ! By , she knew you !
She was in the plot, and you were in the plot;
and I, who thought I was opening her eyes,
was the only one fooled ! But it is my turn
now. You have played a bold part, and a clever
one, and I congratulate you ! But," he continued,
a sinister light in his little eyes, "it is at an
end now, Monsieur ! You took us in finely with
your tale of Monseigneur, and his commission,
and your commission, and the rest. But I am
not to be blinded any longer, or bullied ! You
have arrested him, have you ? You have arrested
him ! Well, by G d, I shall arrest him, and I
shall arrest you too ! "
"You are mad!" I said, staggered as much
by this new view of the matter as by his perfect
conviction of its truth. "Mad, Lieutenant!"
" I was ! " he snarled drily. "But I am sane
now. I was mad when you imposed upon us ;
when you persuaded me that you were fooling the
women to get the secret out of them, while all
the time you were sheltering them, protecting
them, aiding them, and hiding him then I was
THE ARREST. 253
mad ! But not now. However, I ask your par-
don, M. de Barthe, or M. de Berault, or whatever
your name really is. I ask your pardon. I
thought you the cleverest sneak and the dirtiest
hound heaven ever made, or hell refused ! I find
that you were cleverer than I thought, and an
honest traitor. Your pardon."
One of the men who stood about the rim of
the bowl above us laughed. I looked at the
lieutenant, and could willingly have killed him.
" Mon Dieu ! " I said, so furious in my turn that
I could scarcely speak. " Do you say that I am
an impostor that I do not hold the Cardinal's
commission ? "
" I do say that ! " he answered coolly. " And
shall abide by it."
"And that I belong to the rebel party?"
" I do," he replied, in the same tone. " In
fact," with a grin, " I say that you are an honest
man on the wrong side, M. de Berault. And you
say that you are a scoundrel on the right. The
advantage, however, is with me, and I shall back
my opinion by arresting you."
A ripple of coarse laughter ran round the
254 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
hollow.. The sergeant who held the lanthorn
grinned, and a trooper at a distance called out
of the darkness, "A bon chat bon rat 1 '" This
brought a fresh burst of laughter, while I stood
speechless, confounded by the stubbornness, the
crassness, the insolence, of the man. "You fool!"
I cried at last, " you fool ! " And then M. de
Cocheforet, who had come out of the hut, and
taken his stand at my elbow, interrupted me.
" Pardon me one moment," he said airily, look-
ing at the lieutenant, with raised eyebrows, and
pointing to me with his thumb. " But I am
puzzled between you. This gentleman's name?
Is it de Berault or de Barthe ? "
"I am M. de Berault," I said brusquely,
answering for myself.
"Of Paris?"
" Yes, Monsieur, of Paris."
" You are not then the gentleman who has been
honouring my poor house with his presence? "
" Oh, yes ! " the lieutenant struck in, grinning.
" He is that gentleman, too ! "
" But I thought I understood that that was
M. de Barthe."
THE ARREST. 2$$
"I am M. de Barthe, also," I retorted impa-
tiently. "What of that, Monsieur? It was my
mother's name. I took it when I came down
here."
" To er, to arrest me, may I ask ? "
" Yes," I answered doggedly. " To arrest you.
What of that?"
" Nothing," he replied slowly and with a steady
look at me, a look I could not meet. " Except
that, had I known this before, M. de Berault, I
should have thought long before I surrendered
to you."
The lieutenant laughed, and I felt my cheek
burn. But I affected to see nothing, and turned
to him again. " Now, Monsieur," I said sternly,
"are you satisfied?"
" No ! " he answered point blank. " I am not.
You two gentlemen may have rehearsed this
pretty scene a dozen times. The only word it
seems to me, is, Quick March, back to Quarters."
I found myself driven to play my last card
much against my will. " Not so," I said ; " I
have my commission."
" Produce it ! " he replied brusquely.
256 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
"Do you think that I carry it with me?" I
said, in scorn. " Do you think that when I came
here, alone, and not with fifty dragoons at my
back, I carried the Cardinal's seal in my pocket
for the first lackey to find ? But you shall have
it. Where is that knave of mine ? "
The words were scarcely out of my mouth
before his ready hand thrust a paper into my
fingers. I opened it slowly, glanced at it, and
amid a pause of surprise gave it to the lieuten-
ant. He looked for a moment confounded. He
stared at it, with his jaw fallen. Then with a
last instinct of suspicion he bade the sergeant
hold up the lanthorn, and by its light proceeded
to spell out the document.
" Umph ! " he ejaculated, after a moment's
silence ; and he cast an ugly look at me. " I
see." And he read it aloud.
"By these presents I command and empower Gilles de
Berault, sieitr de Berault, to seek for, hold, arrest, and deliver
to the Governor of the Bastile the body of Henri de Cocheforet,
and to do all such acts and things as shall be necessary to
effect such arrest and delivery, for which these shall be his
warrant.
" (Signed} RICHELIEU, Lieut.-Gen."
THE ARREST.
When he had done, and he read the signature
with a peculiar intonation, some one said softly,
" Vive le roi ! " and there was a moment's silence.
The sergeant lowered his lanthorn. " Is it
enough ? " I said hoarsely, glaring from face
to face.
The lieutenant bowed stiffly. "For me?"
he said. " Quite, Monsieur. I beg your pardon
again. I find that my first impressions were the-
correct ones. Sergeant, give the gentleman his
paper." And turning his shoulder rudely, he
tossed the commission towards the sergeant, who
picked it up, and gave it to me, grinning.
I knew that the clown would not fight, and
he had his men round him; and I had no choice
but to swallow the insult. As I put the paper
in my breast, with as much indifference as I
could assume, he gave a sharp order. The
troopers began to form on the edge above, the
men who had descended, to climb the bank. As
the group behind him began to open and melt
away, I caught sight of a white robe in the
middle of it. The next moment, appearing with
a suddenness which was like a blow on the cheek
258 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
to me, Mademoiselle de Cocheforet glided for-
ward, and came towards me. She had a hood
on her head, drawn low ; and for a moment I
could not see her face. I forgot her brother's
presence at my elbow ; from habit and impulse
rather than calculation, I took a step forward
to meet her- though my tongue cleaved to the
roof of my mouth, and I was dumb and trem-
bling.
But she recoiled with such a look of white
hate, of staring, frozen-eyed loathing, that I
stepped back as if she had indeed struck me. It
did not need the words which accompanied the
look, the " Do not touch me ! " which she hissed
at me as she drew her skirts together, to drive
me to the farther edge of the hollow ; there to
stand with clenched teeth and nails driven into
the flesh while she hung, sobbing tearless sobs,
on her brother's neck.
CHAPTER XL
THE ROAD TO PARIS.
2 REMEMBER hearing Marshal Bassompierre,
who, of all men within my knowledge, had the
widest experience, say that not dangers, but disr
comforts, prove a man, and show what he is;
and that the worst sores in life are caused by
crumpled rose-leaves and not by thorns.
I am inclined to agree with this. For I remem-
ber that when I came from my room on the
morning after the arrest, and found hall and
parlour and passage empty, and all the common
rooms of the house deserted, and no meal laid,
and when I divined anew from this discovery
the feeling of the house towards me, however
natural and to be expected, I felt as sharp a
pang as when, the night before, I had had to
face discovery and open rage and scorn. I stood
in the silent, empty parlour, and looked round
259 f j
260 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
me with a sense of desolation ; of something lost
and gone, which I could not replace. The morn-
ing was grey and cloudy, the air sharp ; a shower
was falling. The rose-bushes at the window
swayed in the wind, and where I could remember
the hot sunshine lying on floor and table, the
rain beat in and stained the boards. The main
door flapped and creaked to and fro. I thought
of other days and meals I had taken there, and
of the scent of flowers, and I fled to the hall
in despair.
But here, too, was no sign of life or company,
no comfort, no attendance. The ashes of the
logs, by whose blaze Mademoiselle had told me
the secret, lay on the hearth white and cold ;
and now and then a drop of moisture, sliding
down the great chimney, pattered among them.
The great door stood open as if the house had
no longer anything to guard. The only living
thing to be seen was a hound which roamed
about restlessly, now gazing at the empty hearth,
now lying down with pricked ears and watchful
eyes. Some leaves which had been blown in
rustled in a corner.
THE ROAD TO PARIS. 26 1
I went out moodily into the garden, and wan-
dered down one path, and up another, looking
at the dripping woods and remembering things,
until I came to the stone seat. On it, against
the wall, trickling with rain-drops, arid with a dead
leaf half filling its narrow neck, stood the pitcher
of food. I thought how much had happened
since Mademoiselle took her hand off it and
the sergeant's lanthorn disclosed it to me. And
sighing grimly, I went in again through the par-
lour door.
A woman was on her knees, kindling the be-
lated fire. I stood a moment, looking at her
doubtfully, wondering how she would bear her-
self, and what she would say to me: and then
she turned, an.d I cried out her name in horror ;
for it was Madame !
She was very plainly dressed ; her childish
face was wan, and piteous with weeping. But
either the night had worn out her passion and
drained her tears, or this great exigency gave
her temporary calmness; for she was perfectly
composed. She shivered as her eyes met mine,
and she blinked as if a light had been suddenly
262 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
thrust before her. But she turned again to her
task, without speaking.
" Madame ! Madame ! " I cried, in a frenzy of
distress. " What is this ? "
"The servants would not do it," she answered,
in a low but steady voice. "You are still our
guest, Monsieur, and it must be done.' 5
"But I cannot suffer it!" I cried, in misery.
" Madame de Cocheforet, I will I would
rather do it myself! "
She raised her hand, with a strange, patient
expression on her face. " Hush, please," she
said. " Hush ! you trouble me."
The fire took light and blazed up as she spoke,
and she rose slowly from it, and, with a lingering
look at it, went out ; leaving me to stand and
stare and listen in the middle of the floor. Pres-
ently I heard her coming back along the pas-
sage, and she entered, bearing a tray with wine
and meat and bread. She set it down on the
table, and with the same wan face, trembling
always on the verge of tears, she began to lay
out the things. The glasses clinked pitifully
against the plates as she handled them; the
THE ROAD TO PARIS. 263
knives jarred with one another; and I stood by,
trembling myself, and endured this strange, this
awful penance.
She signed to me at last to sit down and eat;
and she went herself, and stood in the garden
doorway, with her back to me. I obeyed. I sat
down ; but though I had eaten nothing since the
afternoon of the day before, and a little earlier
had had appetite enough, I could not swallow.
I fumbled with my knife, and munched and
drank; and grew hot and angry at this farce;
and then looked through the window at the drip-
ping bushes, and the rain, and the distant sun-
dial, and grew cold again.
Suddenly she turned round and came to my
side. "You do not eat," she said.
I threw down my knife, and sprang up in a
frenzy of passion. " Mon Dieu ! Madame!" I
cried. " Do you think I have no heart ? "
And then in a moment I knew what I had
done. In a moment she was on her knees on
the floor, clasping my knees, pressing her wet
cheeks to my rough clothes, crying to me for
mercy for life! life! life! his life! Oh, it
264 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
was horrible ! It was horrible to see her fair
hair falling over my mud-stained boots, to see
her slender little form convulsed with sobs, to
feel that this was a woman, a gentlewoman, who
thus abased herself at my feet.
" Oh, Madame ! Madame ! " I cried, in my agony.
" I beg you to rise. Rise, or I must go ! You
will drive me out ! "
" Grant me his life ! " she moaned passionately.
" Only his life ! What had he done to you, that
you should hunt him down ? What had we done
to you, that you should slay us ? Ah, Sir, have
mercy ! Let him go, and we will pray for you ; I
and my sister will pray for you every morning and
night of our lives."
I was in terror lest some one should come and
see her lying there, and I stooped and tried to
raise her. But she would not rise ; she only sank
the lower until her tender hands clasped my spurs,
and I dared not move. Then I took a sudden
resolution. " Listen then, Madame," I said, almost
sternly, " if you will not rise. When you ask what
you do, you forget how I stand, and how small my
power is ! You forget that were I to release your
THE ROAD TO PARIS, 26$
husband to-day, he would be seized within the
hour by those who are still in the village, and who
are watching every road who have not ceased
to suspect my movements and my intentions.
You forget, I say, my circumstances "
She cut me short on that word. She sprang
abruptly to her feet and faced me. One moment,
and I should have said something to the purpose.
But at that word she was before me, white, breath-
less, dishevelled, struggling for speech. " Oh
yes, yes," she panted eagerly, "I know! I under-
stand ! " And she thrust her hand into her bosom
and plucked something out and gave it to me
forced it upon me into my hands. " I know ! I
know ! " she said again. " Take it, and God re-
ward you, Monsieur! We give it freely freely
and thankfully ! And may God bless you ! "
I stood and looked at her, and looked at it, and
slowly froze. She had given me the packet the
packet I had restored to Mademoiselle, the parcel
of jewels. I weighed it in my hands, and my
heart grew hard again, for I knew that this was
Mademoiselle's doing ; that it was she who, mis-
trusting the effect of Madame's tears and prayers,
266 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
had armed her with this last weapon this dirty
bribe, I flung it down on the table among the
plates, all my pity changed to anger. "Madame,"
I cried ruthlessly, "you mistake me altogether.
I have heard hard words enough in the last
twenty-four hours, and I know what you think
of me ! But you have yet to learn that I have
never turned traitor to the hand that employed
me, nor sold my own side ! When I do so for a
treasure ten times the worth of that, may my hand
rot off!"
She sank into a seat, with a moan of despair,
and at that moment the door opened, and M. de
Cocheforet came in. Over his shoulder I had a
glimpse of Mademoiselle's proud face, a little
whiter to-day, with dark marks under the eyes.
but still firm and cold. " What is this ? " he said,
frowning and stopping short as his eyes lighted
on Madame.
"It is that we start at eleven o'clock, Mon-
sieur," I answered, bowing curtly. " Those, I
fancy, are your property." And pointing to the
jewels, I went out by the other door.
THE ROAD TO PARIS. 267
That I might not be present at their parting, I
remained in the garden until the hour I had ap-
pointed was well passed ; then without entering
the house I went to the stable entrance. Here I
found all ready, the two troopers (whose company
I had requisitioned as far as Auch) already in the
saddle, my own two knaves waiting with my sorrel
and M. de Cocheforet's chestnut. Another horse
was being led up and down by Louis, and, alas,
my heart winced at the sight. For it bore a lady's
saddle, and I saw that we were to have company.
Was it Madame who meant to come with us ? or
Mademoiselle? And how far? To Auch? or
farther ?
I suppose that they had set some kind of a
watch on me ; for, as I walked up, M. de Coche-
foret and his sister came out of the house, he
looking white, with bright eyes and a twitching
in his cheek, though through all he affected a
jaunty bearing ; she wearing a black mask.
"Mademoiselle accompanies us?" I said for-
mally.
"With your permission, Monsieur," he an-
swered, with grim politeness. But I saw that
268 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
he was choking with emotion. I guessed that he
had just parted from his wife, and I turned away.
When we were all mounted, he looked at me.
" Perhaps, as you have my parole, you will permit
me to ride alone," he said, with a little hesitation,
"and "
" Without me! " I rejoined keenly. " Assuredly,
so far as is possible." I directed the troopers
to ride in front and keep out of ear-shot; my
two men followed the prisoner at a like distance,
with their carbines on their knees. Last of all
I rode myself, with my eyes open and a pisto 1
loose in my holster. M. de Cocheforet, I saw,
was inclined to sneer at so many precautions,
and the mountain made of his request; but I
had not done so much and come so far, I had
not faced scorn and insults, to be cheated of my
prize at last. Aware that until we were beyond
Auch there must be hourly and pressing danger
of a rescue, I was determined that he who would
wrest my prisoner from me should pay dearly
for it. Only pride, and, perhaps, in a degree
also, appetite for a fight, had prevented me
borrowing ten troopers instead of two.
THE ROAD TO PARIS. 26$
We started, and I looked with a lingering eye
and many memories at the little bridge, the nar-
row woodland path, the first roofs of the village, ;
all now familiar, all seen for the last time. Up
the brook a party of soldiers were dragging for
the captain's body. A furlong farther on, a
cottage, burned by some carelessness in the
night, lay a heap of black ashes. Louis ran
beside us, weeping ; the last brown leaves flut-
tered down in showers. And between my eyes
and all, the slow, steady rain fell and fell and
fell. And so I left Cocheforet
Louis went with us to a point a mile beyond
the village, and there stood and saw us go, curs-
ing me furiously as I passed. Looking back
when we had ridden on, I still saw him standing ;
and after a moment's hesitation I rode back 1o
him. "Listen, fool," I said, cutting him shoil
in the midst of his mowing and snarling, "and
give this message to your mistress. Tell her
from me that it will be with her husband as
it was with M. de Regnier, when he fell into
the hands of his enemy no better and no
worse."
270 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
"You want to kill her, too, I suppose?" he
answered, glowering at me.
" No, fool ! I want to save her ! " I retorted
wrathfully. "Tell her that, just that and no
more, and you will see the result."
" I shall not," he said sullenly. " I shall not
tell her. A message from you, indeed ! " And
he spat on the ground.
"Then on your head be it!" I answered sol-
emnly. And I turned my horse's head and gal-
loped fast after the others. For, in spite of his
refusal, I felt sure that he would report what I
had said if it were only out of curiosity; and
it would be strange if Madame did not understand
the reference.
And so we began our journey; sadly, under
dripping trees and a leaden sky. The country
we had to traverse was the same I had trodden
on the last day of my march southwards, but the
passage of a month had changed the face of
everything. Green dells, where springs welling
out of the chalk had made of the leafy bottom
a fairies' home, strewn with delicate ferns and
hung with mosses these were now swamps into
THE ROAD TO PARIS. 2? I
which our horses sank to the fetlock. Sunny
brows, whence I had viewed the champaign and
traced my forward path, had become bare, wind-
swept ridges. The beech woods, which had
glowed with ruddy light, were naked now ; mere
black trunks and rigid arms pointing to heaven.
An earthy smell filled the air; a hundred paces
away a wall of mist closed the view. We plodded
on sadly, up hill and down hill ; now fording
brooks already stained with flood-water, now
crossing barren heaths.
But up hill or down hill, whatever the outlook,
I was never permitted to forget that I was the
jailer, the ogre, the villain ; that I, riding behind
in my loneliness, was the blight on all, the death-
spot. True, I was behind the others ; I escaped
their eyes. But there was not a line of Mademoi-
selle's drooping figure that did not speak scorn to
me, not a turn of her head that did not seem to
say, " Oh God, that such a thing should breathe ! "
I had only speech with her once during the
day, and that was on the last ridge before we
went down into the valley to climb up again to
Auch. The rain had ceased; the sun, near its
2/2 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
setting, shone faintly ; and for a few moments we
stood on the brow and looked southwards while
we breathed the horses. The mist lay like a
pall on all the country we had traversed; but
beyond it and above it, gleaming pearl-like in
the level rays, the line of the mountains stood
up like a land of enchantment, soft, radiant, won-
derful, or like one of those castles on the Hill
of Glass of which the old romances tell us.
I forgot, for an instant, how we were placed,
and I cried to my neighbour that it was the
fairest pageant I had ever seen.
She it was Mademoiselle, and she had taken
off her mask cast one look at me; only one,
but it conveyed disgust and loathing so unspeak-
able that scorn beside them would have been
a gift. I reined in my horse as if she had struck
me, and felt myself go first hot and then cold
under her eyes. Then she looked another way.
I did not forget the lesson ; after that I avoided
her more sedulously than before. We lay that
night at Auch, and I gave M. de Cocheforet the
utmost liberty ; even permitting him to go out
and return at his will. In the morning, believing
THE ROAD TO PARIS. 273
that on the farther side of Auch we ran less risk
of attack, I dismissed the two dragoons, and
an hour after sunrise we set out again. The
day was dry and cold, the weather more prom-
ising. I planned to go by way of Lectoure,
crossing the Garonne at Agen ; and I thought
with roads continually improving as we moved
northwards, we should be able to make good
progress before night. My two men rode first ;
I came last by myself.
Our way lay for some hours down the valley
of the Gers, under poplars and by long rows of
willows ; and presently the sun came out and
warmed us. Unfortunately, the rain of the day
before had swollen the brooks which crossed our
path, and we more than once had a difficulty
in fording them. Noon, therefore, found us lit-
tle more than half-way to Lectoure, and I was
growing each minute more impatient, when our
road, which had for a little while left the river
bank, dropped down to it again, and I saw before
us another crossing, half ford, half slough. My
men tried it gingerly, and gave back, and tried
it again in another place and finally, just as
274 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
Mademoiselle and Monsieur came up to them,
floundered through and sprang slantwise up the
farther bank.
The delay had been long enough to bring me,
with no good will of my own, close up to the
Cocheforets. Mademoiselle's horse made a little
business of the place; this delayed them still
longer, and in the result, we entered the water
almost together, and I crossed close on her heels.
The bank on either side was steep ; while cross-
ing we could see neither before nor behind. At
the moment, however, I thought nothing of this,
nor of her delay, and I was following her quite
at my leisure, when the sudden report of a car-
bine, a second report, and a yell of alarm in
front, thrilled me through.
On the instant, while the sound was still in my
ears, I saw it all. Like a hot iron piercing my
brain, the truth flashed into my mind. We were
attacked ! We were attacked, ana I was here
helpless in this pit, this trap ! The loss of a
second while I fumbled here, Mademoiselle's
horse barring the way, might be fatal.
There was but one way. I turned my horse
THE ROAD TO PARIS. 275
straight at the steep bank, and he breasted it.
One moment he hung as if he must fall back.
Then, with a snort of terror and a desperate
bound, he topped it, and gained the level, trem-
bling and snorting.
It was as I had guessed. Seventy paces away
on the road lay one of my men. He had fallen,
horse and man, and lay still. Near him, with
his back against a bank, stood his fellow, on foot,
pressed by four horsemen, and shouting. As
my eye lighted on the scene, he let fly with a
carbine and dropped one.
I snatched a pistol from my holster, cocked it,
and seized my horse by the head I might save
the man yet. I shouted to encourage him, and
in another second should have charged into the
fight, when a sudden vicious blow, swift and
unexpected, struck the pistol from my hand.
I made a snatch at it as it fell, but missed it ;
and before I could recover myself, Mademoiselle
thrust her horse furiously against mine, and with
her riding-whip, lashed the sorrel across the ears.
As my horse reared madly up, I had a glimpse
of her eyes flashing hate through her mask; of
T 2
276 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
her hand again uplifted ; the next moment, I was
down in the road, ingloriously unhorsed, the
sorrel was galloping away, and her horse, scared
in its turn, was plunging unmanageably a score
of paces from me.
I don't doubt that but for that she would have
trampled on me. As it was, I was free to draw ;
and in a twinkling I was running towards the
fighters. All I have described had happened in
a few seconds. My man was still defending
himself; the smoke of the carbine had scarcely
risen. I sprang with a shout across a fallen tree
that intervened ; at the same moment, two of the
men detached themselves, and rode to meet me.
One, whom I took to be the leader, was masked.
He came furiously at me, trying to ride me down;
but I leaped aside nimbly, and evading him,
rushed at the other, and scaring his horse, so
that he dropped his point, cut him across the
shoulder before he could guard himself. He
plunged away, cursing, and trying to hold in his
horse, and I turned to meet the masked man.
" You double-dyed villain ! : ' he cried, riding al.
me again. And this time he manoeuvred hi>i
THE ROAD TO PARIS. 277
horse so skilfully that I was hard put to it to
prevent him knocking me down ; and could not
with all my efforts reach him to hurt him. " Sur-
render, will you ! " he continued, " you blood-
hound ! "
I wounded him slightly in the knee for answer;
but before I could do more his companion came
back, and the two set upon me with a will, slash-
ing at my head so furiously and towering above
me with so great an advantage that it was all I
could do to guard myself. I was soon glad to
fall back against the bank as my man had
done before me. In such a conflict my rapier
would have been of little use, but fortunately I
had armed myself before I left Paris with a cut-
and-thrust sword for the road ; and though my
mastery of the weapon was not on a par with
my rapier-play, I was able to fend off their cuts,
and by an occasional prick keep the horses at a
distance. Still they swore and cut at me, trying
to wear me out ; and it was trying work. A little
delay, the least accident, might enable the other
man to come to their help, or Mademoiselle, for
all I knew, might shoot me with my own pistol;
2/8 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
and I confess, I was unfeignedly glad when a
lucky parade sent the masked man's sword flying
across the road. He was no coward ; for unarmed
as he was, he pushed his horse at me, spurring
it recklessly ; but the animal, which I had several
times touched, reared up instead and threw him
at the very moment that I wounded his compan-
ion a second time in the arm, and made him
give back.
This quite changed the scene. The man in the
mask staggered to his feet, and felt stupidly for
a pistol. But he could not find one, and was, I
saw, in no state to use it if he had. He reeled
helplessly to the bank, and leaned against it. He
would give no further trouble. The man I had
wounded was in scarcely better condition. He
retreated before me for some paces, but then
losing courage, he dropped his sword, and, wheel-
ing round, cantered off down the road, clinging to
his pommel. There remained only the fellow
engaged with my man, and I turned to see how
they were getting on. They were standing to
take breath, so I ran towards them; but, seeing
me coming, this rascal, too, whipped round his
THE ROAD TO PARIS. 279
horse, and disappeared in the wood, and left us
masters of the field. The first thing I did and
I remember it to this day with pleasure was to
plunge my hand into my pocket, take out half the
money I had in the world, and press it on the man
who had fought for me so stoutly, and who had
certainly saved me from disaster. In my joy I
could have kissed him ! It was not only that I had
escaped defeat by the skin of my teeth, and his
good sword, but I knew, and thrilled with the
knowledge, that the fight had altered the whole
position. He was wounded in two places, and I
had a scratch or two, and had lost my horse ; and
my other poor fellow was dead as a herring. But
speaking for myself, I would have spent half the
blood in my body to purchase the feeling with
which I turned back to speak to M. de Cocheforet
and his sister. / had fought before them.
Mademoiselle had dismounted, and with her
face averted and her mask pushed on one side, was
openly weeping. Her brother, who had scrupu-
lously kept his place by the ford from the begin-
ning of the fight to the end, met me with raised
eyebrows and a peculiar smile. "Acknowledge
280 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
my virtue," he said airily. " I am here, M. d4
Berault which is more than can be said of the
two gentlemen who have just ridden off."
" Yes," I answered, with a touch of bitterness.
" I wish they had not shot my poor man before
they went."
He shrugged his shoulders. "They were my
friends," he said. " You must not expect me to
blame them. But that is not all."
" No," I said, wiping my sword. " There i?
this gentleman in the mask." And I turned to go
towards him.
" M. de Berault ! " There was something abrupt
in the way in which Cocheforet called my name
after me.
I stood. " Pardon ? " I said, turning.
" That gentleman ? " he answered, hesitating,
and looking at me doubtfully. " Have you con-
sidered what will happen to him, if you give
him up to the authorities ? "
" Who is he ? " I said sharply.
" That is rather a delicate question," he
answered, frowning, and still looking at me
fixedly.
THE ROAD TO PARIS. 281
" Not from me," I replied brutally, " since he
is in my power. If he will take off his mask,
I shall know better what I intend to do with
him."
The stranger had lost his hat in his fall, and
his fair hair, stained with dust, hung in curls
on his shoulders. He was a tall man, of a slen-
der, handsome presence, and though his dress
was plain and almost rough, I espied a splendid
jewel on his hand, and fancied I detected other
signs of high quality. He still lay against the
bank in a half-swooning condition, and seemed
unconscious of my scrutiny. " Should I know
him if he unmasked ? " I said suddenly, a new
idea in my head.
"You would," M. de Cocheforet answered
simply.
"And?"
" It would be bad for every one."
" Ho, ho ! " I said softly, looking hard, first
at my old prisoner, and then at my new one.
" Then, what do you wish me to do ? "
'' Leave him here," M. de Cocheforet answered
glibly, his face flushed, the pulse in his cheek
282 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
beating. I had known him for a man of perfect
honour before, and trusted him. But this evident
earnest anxiety on behalf of his friend touched
me. Besides, I knew that I was treading on
slippery ground ; that it behoved me to be care-
ful. " I will do it," I said, after a moment's
reflection. " He will play me no tricks, I sup-
pose ? A letter of "
" Mon Dieti, no ! He will understand," Coche-
foret answered eagerly. "You will not repent
it, I swear. Let us be going."
" Well, but my horse ? " I said, somewhat
taken aback by this extreme haste.
"We shall overtake it," he replied urgently.
" It will have kept to the road. Lectoure is
no more than a league from here, and we can
give orders there to have these two fetched in
and buried."
I had nothing to gain by demurring, and so
it was arranged. After that we did not linger.
We picked up what we had dropped, M. de Coche-
foret mounted his sister, and within five minutes
we were gone. Casting a glance back from the
skirts of the wood, as we entered it, I fancied
THE ROAD TO PARIS. 283
chat I saw the masked man straighten himself
and turn to look after us ; but the leaves were
beginning to intervene, the distance was great
and perhaps cheated me. And yet I was not
disinclined to think the unknown a little less
severely injured and a trifle more observant
thaii he seemed.
CHAPTER XII.
AT THE FINGER-POST.
THROUGH all, it will have been noticed, Mad-
emoiselle had not spoken to me, nor said one word,
good or bad. She had played her part grimly;
had taken her defeat in silence, if with tears ; had
tried neither prayer, nor defence, nor apology.
And the fact that the fight was now over, the
scene left behind, made no difference in her con-
duct to my surprise and discomfiture. She
kept her face averted from me ; she rode as
before ; she affected to ignore my presence. I
caught my horse feeding by the road-side, a fur-
long forward, and mounted, and fell into place
behind the two, as in the morning. And just as
we had plodded on then in silence, we plodded on
now, while I wondered at the unfathomable ways
of women, and knowing that I had borne myself
well, marvelled that she could take part in such an
incident and remain unchanged.
AT THE FINGER-POST. 285
Yet it had made a change in her. Though her
mask screened her well, it could not entirely hide
her emotions, and by-and-bye I marked that her
head drooped, that she rode sadly and listlessly,
that the lines of her figure were altered. I noticed
that she had flung away, or furtively dropped, her
riding-whip, and I understood that to the old
hatred of me were now added shame and vexa-
tion ; shame that she had so lowered herself, even
to save her brother, vexation that defeat had been
her only reward.
Of this I saw a sign at Lectoure, where the inn
had bui one common room, and we must all dine
in company. I secured for them a table by the
fire, and leaving them standing by it, retired my-
self to a smaller one, near the door. There were
no other guests, and this made the separation
between us more marked. M. de Cocheforet
seemed to feel this. He shrugged his shoulders
and looked at me with a smile half sad, half
comical. But Mademoiselle was implacable. She
had taken off her mask, and he/ face was like
stone. Once, only once, during the meal I saw a
change come over her. She coloured, I suppose
286 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
at her thoughts, until her face flamed from brow
to chin. I watched the blush spread and spread,
and then she slowly and proudly turned her
shoulder to me, and looked through the window
at the shabby street.
I suppose that she and her brother had both
built on this attempt, Which must have been
arranged at Auch. For when we went on in the
afternoon, I saw a more marked change. They
rode now like people resigned to the worst. The
grey realities of the brother's position, the dreary,
hopeless future, began to hang like a mist before
their eyes ; began to tinge the landscape with sad-
ness ; robbed even the sunset of its colours. With
each hour their spirits flagged and their speech
became less frequent, until presently, when the
light was nearly gone and the dusk was round us,
the brother and sister rode hand in hand, silent,
gloomy, one at least of them weeping. The cold
shadow of the Cardinal, of Paris, of the scaffold,
was beginning to make itself felt ; was beginning
to chill them. As the mountains which they had
known all their lives sank and faded behind us, and
we entered on the wide, low valley of the Garonne*
AT THE FINGER-POST. 287
their hopes sank and faded also sank to the
dead-level of despair. Surrounded by guards, a
mark for curious glances, with pride for a com-
panion, M. de Cocheforet could doubtless have
borne himself bravely ; doubtless he would bear
himself bravely still when the end came. But
almost alone, moving forward through the grey
evening to a prison, with so many measured days
before him, and nothing to exhilarate or anger,
in this condition it was little wonder if he felt, and
betrayed that he felt, the blood run slow in his
veins ; if he thought more of the weeping wife
and ruined home, which he left behind him, than
of the cause in which he had spent himself.
But God knows, they had no monopoly of gloom.
I felt almost as sad myself. Long before sunset
the flush of triumph, the heat of the battle, which
had warmed my heart at noon, were gone ; giving
place to a chill dissatisfaction, a nausea, a de-
spondency, such as I have known follow a long
night at the tables. Hitherto there had been
difficulties to be overcome, risks to be run, doubts
about the end. Now the end was certain, and
very near ; so near that it filled all the prospect
288 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
One hour of triumph I might still have ; I hugged
the thought of it as a gambler hugs his last stake.
I planned the place and time and mode, and tried
to occupy myself wholly with it. But the price ?
Alas, that would intrude too, and more as the
evening waned ; so that as I passed this or that
thing by the road, which I could recall passing
on my journey south, with thoughts so different,
with plans that now seemed so very, very old, I
asked myself grimly if this were really I, if this
were Gil de Berault, known as Zaton's premier
joueur ; or some Don Quichotte from Castile,
tilting at windmills, and taking barbers' bowls
for gold.
We reached Agen very late in the evening,
after groping through a by-way near the river,
set with holes and willow-stools and frog-spawns
a place no better than a slough. After it
the great fire and the lights at the Blue Maid
seemed like a glimpse of a new world, and in a
twinkling put something of life and spirits into
two at least of us. There was queer talk round
the hearth here of doings in Paris, of a stir
against the Cardinal, with the Queen-mother at
AT THE FINGER-POST. 289
bottom, and of grounded expectations that some-
thing might this time come of it. But the land^
lord pooh-poohed the idea, and I more than
agreed with him. Even M. de Cocheforet, who
was for a moment inclined to build on it, gave
up hope when he heard that it came only by way
of Montauban ; whence, since its reduction the
year before, all sorts of canards against the Car-
dinal were always on the wing.
"They kill him about once a month," our
host said, with a grin. "Sometimes it is Mon-
sieur who is to prove a match for him, sometimes
Char Monsieur the Duke of Venddme, you
understand, and sometimes the Queen-mother.
But since M. de Chalais and the Marshal made
a mess of it, and paid forfeit, I pin my faith to
His Eminence that is his new title, they tell
me."
" Things are quiet round here ? " I asked.
" Perfectly. Since the Languedoc business
came to an end, all goes well," he answered.
Mademoiselle had retired on our arrival, so
that her brother and I were for an hour or two
thrown together. I left him at liberty to separate
290 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
himself if he pleased, but he did not use the
opportunity. A kind of comradeship, rendered
piquant by our peculiar relations, had begun to
spring up between us. He seemed to take pleas-
ure in my company, more than once rallied me
on my post of jailer, would ask humorously if
he might do this or that, and once even inquired
what I should do if he broke his parole.
" Or take it this way," he continued flippantly
" Suppose I had stuck you in the back this even-
ing, in that cursed swamp by the river, M. de
Berault ? What then ? Pardieu ! I am astonished
at myself that I did not do it. I could have
been in Montauban within twenty-four hours, and
found fifty hiding-places, and no one the wiser."
" Except your sister," I said quietly.
He laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
" Yes," he said, " I am afraid I must have put
her out of the way too, to preserve my self-
respect. You are right." And on that he fell
into a reverie which held him for a few minutes.
Then I found him looking at me with a kind of
frank perplexity that invited question.
"What is it?" I said.
AT THE FINGER-POST. 29 1
" You have fought a great many duels ? "
"Yes," I said.
" Did you never strike a foul blow in one of
them ? "
" Never. Why do you ask ? "
" Well, I wanted to confirm an impression,"
he said. "To be frank, M. de Berault, I seem to
see in you two men."
" Two men ? "
" Yes, two men," he answered. " One, the
man who captured me ; the other, the man who
let my friend go free to-day."
" It surprised you that I let him go ? That
was prudence, M. de Cocheforet," I replied,
"nothing more. I am an old gambler I
know when the stakes are too high for me. The
man who caught a lion in his wolf-pit had no
great catch."
" No, that is true," he answered, smiling.
"And yet I find two men in your skin."
" I dare say that there are two in most men's
skins," I answered, with a sigh, " but not always
together. Sometimes one is there, and sometimes
the other."
292 UNDER THE RED ROSE.
" How does the one like taking up the other's
work ? " he asked keenly.
I shrugged my shoulders. "That is as may
be," I said. " You do not take an estate with-
out the debts."
He did not answer for a moment, and I fancied
that his thoughts had reverted to his own case.
But on a sudden he looked at me again. " Will
you answer me a question, M. de Berault ? " he
said, with a winning smile.
"Perhaps," I said.
" Then tell me it is a tale that is, I am sure,
worth the telling. What was it that, in a very
evil hour for me, sent you in search of me ? "
" The Cardinal," I answered.
" I did not ask who," he replied drily. " I
asked, what. You had no grudge against me ? "
" No."
" No knowledge of me ? "
"No."
" Then what on earth induced you to do it ?
Heavens, man," he continued bluntly, rising and
speaking with greater freedom than he had
before used, "nature never intended you for a tip
staff! What was it, then?"
AT THE FINGER-POST. 293
I rose too. It was very late, and the room
was empty, the fire low. " I will tell you to-
morrow ! " I said. " I shall have something to
say to you then, of which that will be part."
He looked at me in great astonishment ; with
a little suspicion, too. But I put him off, and
called for a light, and by going at once to bed,
cut short his questions.
Those who know the great south road to Agen,
and how the vineyards rise in terraces north of
the town, one level of red earth above another,
green in summer, but in late autumn bare and
stony, will remember a particular place where
the road two leagues from the town runs up a
long hill. At the top of the hill four ways
meet; and there, plain to be seen against the
sky is a finger-post, indicating which way leads
to Bordeaux, and which to Montauban, and which
to Perigueux.
This hill had impressed me on my journey
down; perhaps, because I had from it my first
view of the Garonne valley, and there felt myself
on the verge of the south country where my
mission lay. It had taken root in my memory ;
294 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
I had come to look upon its bare, bleak brow,
with the finger-post and the four roads, as the
first outpost of Paris, as the first sign of return
to the old life.
Now for two days I had been looking forward
to seeing it again. That long stretch of road
would do admirably for something I had in my
mind. That sign-post, with the roads pointing
north, south, east, and west, could there be a
better place for meetings and partings ?
We came to the bottom of the ascent about
an hour before noon M. de Cocheforet, Made-
moiselle, and I. We had reversed the order of
yesterday, and I rode ahead. They came after
me at their leisure. At the foot of the hill, how-
ever, I stopped and, letting Mademoiselle pass
on, detained M. de Cocheforet by a gesture.
" Pardon me, one moment," I said. " I want to
ask a favour."
He looked at me somewhat fretfully, with a
gleam of wildness in his eyes that betrayed how
the iron was eating into his heart. He had
started after breakfast as gaily as a bridegroom,
but gradually he had sunk below himself ; and
AT THE FINGER-POST. 295
now he had much ado to curb his impatience.
The bonhomie of last night was quite gone. " Of
me ? " he said. " What is it ? "
" I wish to have a few words with Mademoi-
selle alone," I explained.
" Alone ? " he answered, frowning.
"Yes," I replied, without blenching, though
his face grew dark. " For the matter of that,
you can be within call all the time, if you
please. But I have a reason for wishing to ride
a little way with her."
" To tell her something ? "
" Yes."
"Then you can tell it to me," he retorted
suspiciously. " Mademoiselle, I will answer for
it, has no desire to "
" See me, or speak to me ! " I said, taking
him up. " I can understand that Yet I want
to speak to her."
"Very well, you can speak to her before me,"
he answered rudely. " Let us ride on and join
her." And he made a movement as if to do
so.
"That will not do, M. de Cocheforet," I said
296 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
firmly, stopping him with my hand. " Let me
beg you to be more complaisant. It is a small
thing I ask ; but I swear to you, if Mademoiselle
does not grant it, she will repent it all her
life."
He looked at me, his face growing darker
and darker. "Fine words!" he said presently,
with a sneer. " Yet I fancy I understand them."
Then with a passionate oath he broke out in
a fresh tone. " But I will not have it. I have
not been blind, M. de Berault, and I understand.
But I will not have it! I will have no such
Judas bargain made. Pardien ! do you think
I could suffer it and show my face again ? "
" I don't know what you mean ! " I said, re-
straining myself with difficulty. I could have
struck the fool.
" But I know what you mean," he replied, in
?. tone of repressed rage. "You would have
her sell herself : sell herself body and soul to
you to save me ! And you would have me stand
by and see the thing done ! Well, my answer
is never! though I go to the wheel! I wil/
die a gentleman, if I have lived a fool ! "
AT THE FINGER-POST. 297
" I think you will do the one as certainly as
you have done the other," I retorted, in my
exasperation. And yet I admired him.
" Oh, I am not such a fool," he cried, scowl-
ing at me, " as you have perhaps thought. I
have used my eyes."
" Then be good enough now to favour me with
your ears," I answered drily. " And listen when
I say that no such bargain has ever crossed my
mind. You were kind enough to think well of
me last night, M. de Cocheforet. Why should
the mention of Mademoiselle in a moment change
your opinion ? I wish simply to speak to her.
I have nothing to ask from her; neither favour
nor anything else. And what I say she will
doubtless tell you afterwards. del, man ! " I
continued angrily, "what harm can I do to
her, in the road, in your sight ? "
He looked at me sullenly, his face still flushed,
his eyes suspicious. " What do you want to say
to her?" he asked jealously. He was quite
unlike himself. His airy nonchalance, his care-
less gaiety, were gone.
" You know what I do not want to say to her,
298 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
M. de Cocheforet," I answered. " That should
be enough."
He glowered at me for a moment, still ill con-
tent. Then, without a word, he made me a ges-
ture to go to her.
She had halted a score of paces away, won-
dering doubtless what was on foot. I rode
towards her. She wore her mask, so that I lost
the expression of her face as I approached, but
the manner in which she turned her horse's
head uncompromisingly towards her brother, and
looked past me as if I were merely a log in
the road was full of meaning. I felt the ground
suddenly cut from under me. I saluted her, trem-
bling. " Mademoiselle," I said, " will you grant
me the privilege of your company for a few min-
utes, as we ride."
"To what purpose, Sir?" she answered, in the
coldest voice in which I think a woman ever
spoke to a man.
" That I may explain to you a great many
things you do not understand," I murmured.
" I prefer to be in the dark," she replied. And
her manner said more than her words.
AT THE FINGER-POST. 299
' But, Mademoiselle," I pleaded, I would not
be discouraged, " you told me one day that you
would never judge me hastily again."
" Facts judge you, not I, Sir," she answered
icily. " I am not sufficiently on a level with you
to be able to judge you I thank God."
I shivered though the sun was on me, and the
hollow where we stood was warm. " Still once
before you thought the same ! " I exclaimed.
"Afterwards you found that you had been wrong.
It may be so again, Mademoiselle."
" Impossible," she said.
That stung me. " No ! " I said fiercely. " It
is not impossible. It is you who are impossible !
It is you who are heartless, Mademoiselle. I
have done much, very much, in the last three
days to make things lighter for you. I ask you
now to do something for me which can cost you
nothing."
" Nothing ? " she answered slowly ; and her
scornful voice cut me as if it had been a knife.
' Do you think, Monsieur, it costs me nothing
to lose my self-respect, as I do with every word
( speak to you ? Do you think it costs me noth-
300 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
ing to be here, where I feel every look you cast
on me an insult, every breath I take in your
presence a contamination. Nothing, Monsieur ? "
She laughed in bitter irony. " Oh, be sure, some-
thing ! But something which I despair of making
clear to you."
I sat for a moment in my saddle, shaken and
quivering with pain. It had been one thing to
feel that she hated and scorned me, to know
that the trust and confidence which she had
begun to place in me were changed to loathing.
It was another to listen to her hard, pitiless words,
to change colour under the lash of her gibing
tongue. For a moment I could not find voice
to answer her. Then I pointed to M. de Coche-
foret. " Do you love him ? " I said, hoarsely,
roughly. The gibing tone had passed from her
voice to mine.
She did not answer.
" Because, if you do," I continued, " you will
let me tell my tale. Say no but once more,
Mademoiselle, I am only human, and I go.
And you will repent it all your life."
I had done better had I taken that tone from
AT THE FINGER-POST. 3OI
the beginning. She winced, her head drooped,
she seemed to grow smaller. All in a moment,
as it were, her pride collapsed. " I will hear
you," she answered feebly.
"Then we will ride on, if you please," I said,
keeping the advantage I had gained. " You
need not fear. Your brother will follow."
I caught hold of her rein and turned her
horse, and she suffered it without demur. In a
moment we were pacing side by side, the long,
straight road before us. At the end where it
topped the hill, I could see the finger-post, two
faint black lines against the sky. When we
reached that, involuntarily I checked my horse
and made it move more slowly.
"Well, Sir," she said impatiently. And her
figure shook as if with cold.
" It is a tale I desire to tell you, Made-
moiselle," I answered, speaking with effort.
" Perhaps I may seem to begin a long way off,
but before I end, I promise to interest you. Two
months ago there was living in Paris a man,
perhaps a bad man, at any rate, by commor
report, a hard man."
302 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
She turned to me suddenly, her eyes gleaming
through her mask. " Oh, Monsieur, spare me
this ! " she said, quietly scornful. " I will take
it for granted."
"Very well," I replied steadfastly. "Good
or bad, this man, one day, in defiance of the
Cardinal's edict against duelling, fought with a
young Englishman behind St. Jacques Church.
The Englishman had influence, the person of
whom I speak had none, and an indifferent
name ; he was arrested, thrown into the Chatelet,
cast for death, left for days to face death. At
the last an offer was made to him. If he
would seek out and deliver up another man, an
outlaw with a price upon his head, he should
himself go free."
I paused and drew a deep breath. Then I
continued, looking not at her, but into the dis-
tance : " Mademoiselle, it seems easy now to say
what course he should have chosen. It seems
hard now to find excuses for him. But there
was one thing which I plead for him. The task
he was asked to undertake was a dangerous
one. He risked, he knew he must risk, and the
AT THE FINGER-POST. 303
event proved him right, his life against the life
of this unknown man. And one thing more
there was time before him. The outlaw might
be taken by another, might be killed, might die,
might . But there, Mademoiselle, we know
what answer this person made. He took the
baser course, and on his honour, on his parole,
with money supplied to him, went free, free
on the condition that he delivered up this other
man."
I paused again, but I did not dare to look
at her, and after a moment of silence I resumed.
" Some portion of the second half of this story
you know, Mademoiselle ; but not all. Suffice
it that this man came down to a remote village,
and there at a risk, but Heaven knows, basely
enough, found his way into his victim's home.
Once there, his heart began to fail him. Had
he found the house garrisoned by men, he
might have pressed on to his end with little
remorse. But he found there only two helpless,
loyal women ; and I say again that from the
first hour of his entrance he sickened of the
work he had in hand. Still he pursued it. He
304 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
had given his word, and if there was one tradi-
tion of his race which this man had never broken,
it was that of fidelity to his side ; to the man
that paid him. But he pursued it with only
half his mind, in great misery sometimes, if
you will believe me, in agonies of shame. Grad-
ually, however, almost against his will, the drama
worked itself out before him, until he needed
only one thing."
I looked at Mademoiselle. But her head was
averted ; I could gather nothing from the out-
lines of her form. And I went on. " Do not
misunderstand me," I said, in a lower voice. " Do
not misunderstand what I am going to say next.
This is no love story, and can have no ending
such as romancers love to set to their tales. But
I am bound to mention, Mademoiselle, that this
man, who had lived about inns and eating-houses,
and at the gaming-tables almost all his days, met
here for the first time for years a good woman ;
and learned by the light of her loyalty and
devotion to see what his life had been, and
what was the real nature of the work he was
doing. I think, nay, I know that it added a
AT THE FINGER-POST. 305
hundredfold to his misery, that when J he learned
at last the secret he had come to surprise, he
learned it from her lips, and in such a way
that had he felt no shame, hell could have
been no place for him. But in one thing she
misjudged him. She thought, and had reason
to think, that the moment he knew her secret
he went out, not even closing the door, and used
it. But the truth was that, while her words
were still in his ears, news came to him that
others had the secret; and had he not gone
out on the instant, and done what he did, and
forestalled them, M. de Cocheforet would have
been taken, but by others."
Mademoiselle broke her long silence so sud-
denly that her horse sprang forward. " Would
to Heaven he had ! " she wailed.
" Been taken by others ? " I exclaimed, startled
out of my false composure.
" Oh, yes, yes ! " she answered passionately.
" Why did you not tell me ? Why did you not
confess to me even then ? I oh, no more !
No more ! " she continued, in a piteous voice.
" I have heard enough. You are racking my
306 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
heart, M. de Berault. Some day I will ask God
to give me strength to forgive you."
" But you have not heard me out," I replied.
" I want to hear no more," she answered, in
a voice she vainly strove to render steady. " To
what end ? Can I say more than I have said ?
Did you think I could forgive you now with
him behind us going to his death ? Oh, no,
no ! " she continued. " Leave me ! I implore you
to leave me. I am not well."
She drooped over her horse's neck as she
spoke and began to weep so passionately that
the tears ran down her cheeks under her mask,
and fell and sparkled like dew on the mane before
her; while her sobs shook her so painfully that
I thought she must fall. I stretched out my
hand instinctively to give her help ; but she
shrank from me. " No ! " she gasped, between
her sobs. " Do not touch me. There is too
much between us."
"Yet there must be one thing more between
us," I answered firmly. "You must listen to
me a little longer, whether you will or no, Mad-
emoiselle, for the love you bear to your brother.
AT THE FINGER-POST. 307
There is one course still open to me by which
I may redeem my honour; it has been in my
mind for some time back to take that course.
To-day, I am thankful to say, I can take it
cheerfully, if not without regret; with a stead-
fast heart, if with no light one. Mademoiselle,"
I continued earnestly, feeling none of the tri-
umph, none of the vanity, I had foreseen, but
only joy in the joy I could give her, " I thank
God that it is still in my power to undo what
I have done; that it is still in my power to go
back to him who sent me, and telling him that
I have changed my mind and will bear my own
burdens, to pay the penalty."
We were within a hundred paces of the brow
of the hill and the finger-post now. She cried
out wildly that she did not understand. " What
is it you have just said?" she murmured. "I
cannot hear." And she began to fumble with
the ribbon of her mask.
" Only this, Mademoiselle," I answered gently.
" I give back to your brother his word and his
parole. From this moment he is free to go
whither he pleases. You shall tell him so from
X 2
308 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
me. Here, where we stand, four roads meet.
That to the right goes to Montauban, where you
have doubtless friends, and can lie hid for a time ;
or that to the left leads to Bordeaux, where you
can take ship if you please. And in a word
Mademoiselle," I continued, ending a little feebly,
" I hope that your troubles are now over."
She turned her face to me we had both
come to a standstill and plucked at the fasten-
ings of her mask. But her trembling fingers
had knotted the string, and in a moment she
dropped her hands with a cry of despair. " And
you ? You ? " she said, in a voice so changed I
should not have known it for hers. "What will
you do ? I do not understand. This mask ! I
cannot hear."
" There is a third road," I answered. " It leads
to Paris. That is my road, Mademoiselle. We
part here."
"But why? Why?" she cried wildly.
" Because from to-day I would fain begin to be
honourable," I answered, in a low voice. " Be-
cause I dare not be generous at another's cost
I must go back to the Chatelet."
AT THE FINGER-POST. 3O9
She tried feverishly to raise her mask with
her hand. "I am not well," she stammered.
" I cannot breathe."
She swayed so violently in her saddle as she
spoke, that I sprang down, and running round
her horse's head, was just in time to catch her
as she fell. She was not quite unconscious then,
for, as I supported her, she murmured, " Leave
me ! Leave me ! I am not worthy that you
should touch me."
Those words made me happy. I carried her
to the bank, my heart on fire, and laid her against
it just as M. de Cocheforet rode up. He sprang
from his horse, his eyes blazing with anger.
" What is this ? " he cried harshly. " What have
you been saying to her, man ? "
" She will tell you," I answered drily, my com-
posure returning under his eye, " amongst othei
things, that you are free. From this moment,
M. de Cocheforet, I give you back your parole,
and I take my own honour. Farewell."
He cried out something as I mounted, but I
did not stay to hear or answer. I dashed the
spurs into my horse, and rode away past the cross-
310 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
roads, past the finger-post ; away with the level
upland stretching before me, dry, bare, almost
treeless and behind me all I loved. Once, when
I had gone a hundred yards, I looked back and
saw him standing upright against the sky, staring
after me across her body. And again I looked
back. This time I saw only the slender wooden
cross, and below it a dark blurred mass.
CHAPTER XIII.
ST. MARTIN'S EVE.
IT was late evening on the last day but one
of November, when I rode into Paris through
the Orleans gate. The wind was in the north-
east, and a great cloud of vapour hung in the
eye of an angry sunset. The air seemed to be
full of wood smoke, the kennels reeked, my
gorge rose at the city's smell ; and with all my
heart I envied the man who had gone out of it
by the same gate nearly two months before, with
his face to the south, and the prospect of riding
Jay after day across heath and moor and pasture.
At least he had had some weeks of life before
him, and freedom, and the open air, and hope and
uncertainty, while I came back under doom ; and
in the pall of smoke that hung over the huddle
of innumerable roofs, saw a gloomy shadowing
of my own fate.
3"
312 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
For make no mistake. A man in middle life
does not strip himself of the worldly habit with
which experience has clothed him, does not run
counter to all the cynical saws and instances by
which he has governed his course so long, with-
out shiverings and doubts and horrible misgiv-
ings and struggles of heart. At least a dozen
times between the Loire and Paris, I asked my-
self what honour was; and what good it would
do me when I lay rotting and forgotten ; if I
was not a fool following a Jack-o'-lanthorn ; and
whether, of all the men in the world, the relent-
less man to whom I was. returning, would not be
the first to gibe at my folly.
However, shame kept me straight; shame and
the memory of Mademoiselle's looks and words.
I dared not be false to her again ; I could not,
after speaking so loftily, fall so low. And there-
fore though not without many a secret struggle
and quaking I came, on this last evening but
one of November, to the Orleans gate, and rode
slowly and sadly through the streets by the Lux-
embourg, on my way to the Pont au Change.
The struggle had sapped my last strength,
ST. MARTINIS EVE. 313
however; and with the first whiff of the gutters,
the first rush of barefooted gamins under my
horse's hoofs, the first babel of street cries, the
first breath, in a word, of Paris, there came a
new temptation to go for one last night to
Zaton's to see the tables again and the faces of
surprise ; to be, for an hour or two, the old Berault.
That could be no breach of honour; for in any
case I could not reach the Cardinal before to-
morrow. And it could do no harm. It could
make no change in anything. It would not have
been a thing worth struggling about only I
had in my inmost heart suspicions that the stout-
est resolutions might lose their force in that
atmosphere ; that even such a talisman as the
memory of a woman's looks and words might
lose its virtue there.
Still I think I should have succumbed in the
end, if I had not received at the corner of the
Luxembourg a shock which sobered me effec-
tually. As I passed the gates, a coach followed
by two outriders swept out of the palace court-
yard ; it was going at a great pace, and I reined
my jaded horse on one side to give it room. As
314 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
it whirled by me, one of the leather curtains
flapped back, and I saw for a second, by the
waning light, the nearer wheels were no more
than two feet from my boot, a face ir^ide.
A face, and no more, and that only for a sec-
ond! But it froze me. It was Richelieu's, the
Cardinal's ; but not as I had been wont to see it,
keen, cold, acute, with intellect and indomitable
will in every feature. This face was distorted
with rage and impatience ; with the fever of haste
and the fear of death. The eyes burned under
the pale brow, the mustachios bristled, the teeth
showed through the beard ; I could fancy the
man crying "Faster! Faster!" and gnawing
his nails in the impatience of passion ; and I
shrank back as if I had been struck. The next
moment the galloping outriders splashed me, the
coach was a hundred paces ahead, and I was
left chilled and wondering, foreseeing the worst,
and no longer in any mood for the gaming-table.
Such a revelation of such a man was enough to
appall me. Conscience cried out that he must have
heard that Cocheforet had escaped, and through
me ! But I dismissed the idea as soon as formed.
ST. MARTINA EVE. 315
In the vast meshes of the Cardinal's schemes,
Cocheforet could be only a small fish ; and to
account for the face in the coach I needed a
cataclysm, a catastrophe, a misfortune, as far
above ordinary mishaps, as this man's intellect
rose above the common run of minds.
It was almost dark when I crossed the bridges,
and crept despondently to the Rue Savonnerie.
After stabling my horse, I took my bag and
holsters, and climbing the stairs to my old lanu-
lord's, the place seemed to have grown strangely
mean and small and ill-smelling in my absence,
I knocked at the door. It was opened by the
little tailor himself, who threw up his arms at
the sight of me. " By St. Genevieve ! " he said.
"If it is not M. de Berault!"
" No other," I said. It touched me a little,
after my lonely journey, to find him so glad to
see me though I had never done him a greater
benefit than sometimes to unbend with him and
borrow his money. " You look surprised, little
man ! " I continued, as he made way for me to
enter. " I'll be sworn you have been pawning
my goods and letting my room, you knave ! "
316 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
" Never, your excellency ! " he answered, beam-
ing on me. " On the contrary, I have been
expecting you."
" How ? " I said. "To-day?"
" To-day or to-morrow," he answered, following
me in and closing the door. "The first thing I
said, when I heard the news this morning, was,
Now we shall have M. de Berault back again.
Your excellency will pardon the children," he
continued, as I took the old seat on the three-
legged stool before the hearth. " The night is
cold, and there is no fire in your room."
While he ran to and fro with my cloak and
bags, little Gil, to whom I had stood at St. Sul-
pice's borrowing ten crowns the same day, I
remember came shyly to play with my sword-
hilt " So you expected me back when you heard
the news, Frison, did you?" I said, taking the
lad on my knee.
"To be sure, your excellency," he answered,
peeping into the black pot before he lifted it to
the hook.
"Very good. Then, now, let us hear what the
news was," I said drily.
ST. MARTINIS EVE. 3 1/
" Of the Cardinal, M. de Berault."
" Ah ? And what ? "
He looked at me, holding the heavy pot sus-
pended in his hands. "You have not heard?"
he exclaimed, his jaw falling.
" Not a tittle. Tell it me, my good fellow."
"You have not heard that His Eminence is
disgraced ? "
I stared at him. "Not a word," I said.
He set down the pot. " Your excellency must
have made a very long journey indeed, then," he
said, with conviction. " For it has been in the air
a week or more, and I thought it had brought you
back. A week? A month, I dare say. They
whisper that it is the old Queen's doing. At any
rate, it is certain that they have cancelled his
commissions and displaced his officers. There
are rumours of immediate peace with Spain. His
enemies are lifting up their heads, and I hear
that he has relays of horses set all the way to the
coast, that he may fly at any moment For what
I know he may be gone already."
" But, man," I said " the King ! You forget
the King. Let the Cardinal once pipe to him, and
3l8 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
he will dance. And they will dance, too ! " I
added grimly.
"Yes," Prison answered eagerly. ''True, your
excellency, but the King will not see him. Three
times to-day, as I am told, the Cardinal has driven
to the Luxembourg, and stood like any common
man in the ante-chamber, so that I hear it was
pitiful to see him. But His Majesty would not
admit him. And when he went away the last
time, I am told that his face was like death !
Well, he was a great man, and we may be worse
ruled, M. de Berault, saving your presence. If
the nobles did not like him, he was good to the
traders, and the bourgeoisie, and equal to all."
" Silence, man ! Silence, and let me think," I
said, much excited. And while he bustled to and
fro, getting my supper, and the firelight played
about the snug, sorry little room, and the child
toyed with his plaything, I fell to digesting this
great news, and pondering how I stood now and
what I ought to do. At first sight, 1 know, it
seemed that I had nothing to do but sit still. In
a few hours the man who held my bond would be
powerless, and I should be free. In a few hours
ST. MARTINIS EVE. 319
I might smile at him. To all appearance, the
dice had fallen well for me. I had done a great
thing, run a great risk, won a woman's love, and
after all was not to pay the penalty !
But a word which fell from Prison as he flut-
tered round me, pouring out the broth, and cutting
the bread, dropped into my mind and spoiled my
satisfaction. "Yes, your excellency," he ex-
claimed, confirming something he had said before,
and which I had missed, " and I am told that the
last time he came into the gallery, there was not
a man of all the scores who attended his levte
last Monday would speak to him. They fell off
like rats, just like rats, until he was left standing
all alone. And I have seen him ! " Prison lifted
up his eyes and his hands and drew in his breath.
"Ah, I have seen the King look shabby beside
him ! And his eye ! I would not like to meet it
now."
" Pish ! " I growled. " Some one has fooled
you. Men are wiser than that."
" So ? Well, your excellency understands. But
there are no cats on a cold hearth."
I told' him again that he was a fool. But withal
320 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
I felt uncomfortable. This was a great man
if ever a great man lived, and they were all leav-
ing him ; and I well, I had no cause to love him.
But I had taken his money, I had accepted his
commission, and I had betrayed him. Those
three things being so, if he fell before I could
with the best will in the world set myself right
with him, so much the better for me. That was
my gain, the fortune of war. But if I lay hid,
and took time for my ally, and being here while
he stood still, though tottering, waited until he
fell, what of my honour then ? What of the
grand words I had said to Mademoiselle at Agen?
I should be like the recreant in the old romance,
who, lying in the ditch while the battle raged,
came out afterwards and boasted of his courage.
And yet the flesh was weak. A day, twenty-
four hours, two days, might make the difference
between life and death. At last I settled what
I would do. At noon the next day, the time
at which I should have presented myself, if I
had not heard this news, at that time I would
still present myself. Not earlier ; I owed myself
the chance. Not later; that was due to him.
ST. MARTINIS EVE. 321
Having so settled it, I thought to rest in
peace. But with the first light I was awake ;
and it was all I could do to keep myself quiet
until I heard Prison stirring. I called to him
then to know if there was any news, and lay
waiting and listening while he went down to the
street to learn. It seemed an endless time before
he came back; an age, after he came back,
before he spoke.
"Well, he has not set off?" I cried at last,
unable to control my eagerness.
Of course he had not At nine o'clock I sent
Prison out again ; and at ten, and at eleven
always with the same result. I was like a man
waiting, and looking, and, above all, listening
for a reprieve, and as sick as any craven. But
when he came back at eleven, I gave up hope,
and dressed myself carefully. I suppose I still
had an odd look, however ; for Prison stopped
me at the door and asked me, with evident alarm,
whither I was going.
I put the little man aside gently. " To the
tables," I said. "To make a big throw, my
friend."
322 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
It was a fine morning; sunny, keen, pleasant.
Even the streets smelled fresh. But I scarcely
noticed it. All my thoughts were where I was
going. It seemed but a step from my threshold
to the Hotel Richelieu. I was no sooner gone
from the one than I found myself at the other.
As on the memorable evening, when I had
crossed the street in a drizzling rain, and looked
that way with foreboding, there were two or
three guards in the Cardinal's livery, loitering
before the gates. But this was not all. Coming
nearer, I found the opposite pavement under the
Louvre thronged with people; not moving about
their business, but standing all silent, all look-
ing across furtively, all with the air of persons
who wished to be thought passing by. Their
silence and their keen looks had in some way
an air of menace. Looking back after I had
turned in towards the gates, I found them devour-
ing me with their eyes.
Certainly they had little else to look at. In
the courtyard, where some mornings when the
court was in Paris I had seen a score of coaches
waiting and thrice as many servants, were now
ST. MARTIN'S EVE. 323
emptiness and sunshine and stillness. The offi-
cer, who stood twisting his mustachios, on guard,
looked at me in wonder as I passed. The lack-
eys lounging in the portico, and all too much
taken up with whispering to make a pretence
of being of service, grinned at my appearance.
But that which happened when I had mounted
the stairs, and come to the door of the ante-
chamber, outdid all. The man on guard there
would have opened the door ; but when I went
to take advantage of the offer, and enter, a major-
domo, who was standing near, muttering with
two or three of his kind, hastened forward and
stopped me.
" Your business, Monsieur, if you please ? "
he said inquisitively. And I wondered why the
others looked at me so strangely.
" I am M. de Berault," I answered sharply.
" I have the entrte."
He bowed politely enough. " Yes, M. de
Berault, I have the honour to know your face,"
he said. " But pardon me. Have you business
with His Eminence ? "
"I have the common business," I answered
v 2
324 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
bluntly, "by which many of us live, sirrah! to
wait on him."
"But by appointment, Monsieur?" he per-
sisted.
"No," I said, astonished. "It is the usual
hour. For the matter of that, however, I have
business with him."
The man looked at me for a moment, in
apparent embarrassment. Then he stood reluct-
antly aside, and signed to the door-keeper to
open the door. I passed in, uncovering, with an
assured face, ready to meet all eyes. Then in a
moment, on the threshold, the mystery was
explained.
The room was empty.
CHAPTER XIV,
sr, MARTIN'S SUMMER.
YES, at the great Cardinal's levte I was the
only client. I stared round the room, a long
narrow gallery, through which it was his custom
to walk every morning, after receiving his more
important visitors. I stared, I say, round this
room, in a state of stupefaction. The seats
against either wall were empty, the recesses of
the windows empty too. The hat, sculptured
and painted here and there, the staring R, the
blazoned arms, looked down on a vacant floor.
Only, on a little stool by the main door, sat a
quiet-faced man in black, who read, or pretended
to read, in a little book, and never looked up.
One of those men, blind, deaf, secretive, who fatten
in the shadow of the great
At length, while I stood confounded and full
of shamed thought, for I had seen the ante-
325
326 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
chamber of Richelieu's old hotel so crowded that
he could not walk through it, this man closed
his book, rose, and came noiselessly towards me.
" M. de Berault ? " he said.
"Yes," I answered.
" His Eminence awaits you. Be good enough
to follow me."
I did so, in a deeper stupor than before. For
how could the Cardinal know that I was here ?
How could he have known when he gave the
order? But I had short time to think of these
things. We passed through two rooms, in one
of which some secretaries were writing ; we
stopped at a third door. Over all brooded a
silence which could be felt. The usher knocked,
opened, and with his finger on his lip, pushed
aside a curtain, and signed to me to enter. I did
so, and found myself standing behind a screen.
" Is that M. de Berault ? " asked a thin, high-
pitched voice.
"Yes, Monseigneur," I answered, trembjing.
"Then come, my friend, and talk to me."
I went round the screen ; and I know not how
it was, the watching crowd outside, the vacant
ST. MARTINIS SUMMER. 327
antechamber in which I had stood, the stillness,
all seemed concentrated here, and gave to the
man I saw before me, a dignity which he had
never possessed for me when the world passed
through his doors, and the proudest fawned on
him for a smile. He sat in a great chair on the
farther side of the hearth, a little red skull-cap on
his head, his fine hands lying motionless in his lap.
The collar of lawn which fell over his red cape
was quite plain, but the skirts of his red robe
were covered with rich lace, and the order of the
Holy Ghost shone on his breast. Among the
multitudinous papers on the great table near him
I saw a sword and pistols lying ; and some tapes-
try that covered a little table behind him failed
to hide a pair of spurred riding-boots. But he
in spite of these signs of trouble looked
towards me as I advanced, with a face mild and
almost benign; a face in which I strove in vain
to find traces of last night's passion. So that it
flashed across me that if this man really stood
and afterwards I knew he did on the thin
razor-edge between life and death, between the
supreme of earthly power, lord of France, and
328 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
arbiter of Europe, and the nothingness of the
clod, he justified his fame. He gave weaker
natures no room for triumph.
The thought was no sooner entertained than
it was gone. "And so you are back at last,
M. de Berault?" he said, gently. "I have been
expecting to see you since nine this morning."
"Your Eminence knew then " I muttered.
"That you returned to Paris by the Orleans
gate last evening, alone?" He fitted together
the ends of his fingers, and looked at me over
them with inscrutable eyes. " Yes, I knew all
that last night. And now of your mission ? You
have been faithful, and dDigent, I am sure.
Where is he ? "
I stared at him, and was dumb. Somehow the
strange things I had seen since I left my lodg-
ing, the surprises I had found awaiting me here,
had driven my own fortunes, my own peril, out
of my head, until this moment Now, at his
question, all returned with a rush. My heart
heaved suddenly in my breast. I strove for a
savour of the old hardihood ; but for the moment
I could not find a word.
ST. MARTINIS SUMMER. 329
"Well?" he said lightly, a faint smile lifting
his mustache. "* You do not speak. You left
Auch with him on the twenty-fourth, M. de
Berault. So much I know. And you reached
Paris without him last night. He has not given
you the slip ? " with sudden animation.
"No, Monseigneur," I muttered.
'" Hal That is good," he answered, sinking
back again in his chair. " For the moment
but I knew I could depend on you. And now
where is he ? " he continued. " What have you
done with him ? He knows much, and the sooner
I know it, the better. Are your people bringing
him, M. de Berault?"
" No, Monseigneur," I stammered, with dry
lips. His very good humour, his benignity,
appalled me. I knew how terrible would be the
change, how fearful his rage, when I should tell
him the truth. And yet that I, Gii de Berault,
should tremble before any man ! I spurred my-
self, as it were, to the task. "No, Your Emi*
nence," I said, with the courage of <?e$rjiir. "1
have not brought him, because I have $*- bin?
free."
330 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
"Because you have what?" he exclaimed.
He leaned forward, his hands on the arm of his
chair; and his glittering eyes, growing each
instant smaller, seemed to read my soul.
" Because I have let him go," I repeated.
" And why ? " he said, in a voice like the
rasping of a file.
" Because I took him unfairly," I answered
desperately. " Because, Monseigneur, I am a
gentleman, and this task should have been given
to one who was not. I took him, if you must
know," I continued impatiently, the fence once
crossed, I was growing bolder, " by dogging a
woman's steps, and winning her confidence, and
betraying it. And, whatever I have done ill in
my life, of which you were good enough to
throw something in my teeth when I was last
here, I have never done that, and I will not ! "
" And so you set him free ? "
" Yes."
" After you had brought him to Auch ? "
"Yes."
"And in point of fact saved him from falling
into the hands of the commandant at Auch?"
ST. MARTINIS SUMMER. 331
"Yes," I answered desperately.
" Then what of the trust I placed in you,
sirrah ? " he rejoined, in a terrible voice ; and
stooping still farther forward, he probed me
with his eyes. "You who prate of trust and
confidence, who received your life on parole,
and but for your promise to me would have been
carrion this month past, answer me that ! What
of the trust I placed in you ? "
" The answer is simple," I said, shrugging my
shoulders with a touch of my old self. " I am
here to pay the penalty."
" And do you think that I do not know why ? "
he retorted, striking his one hand on the arm
of the chair with a force which startled me.
" Because you have heard, Sir, that my power
is gone ! That I, who was yesterday the King's
right hand, am to-day dried up, withered, and
paralyzed ! Because but have a care ! Have
a care ! " he continued not loudly, but in a voice
like a dog's snarl. "You, and those others!
Have a care I say, or you may find yourselves
mistaken yet ! "
" As Heaven shall judge me," I answered
332 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
solemnly, "that is not true. Until I reached
Paris last night I knew nothing of this report.
I came here with a single mind, to redeem my
honour by placing again in Your Eminence's
hands that which you ga\e me on trust"
For a moment he remained in the same atti-
tude, staring at me fixedly. Then his face some-
what relaxed. " Be good enough to ring that
bell," he said.
It stood on a table near me. I rang it, and
a velvet-footed man in black came in, and gliding
up to the Cardinal placed a paper in his hand.
The Cardinal looked at it while the man stood
with his head obsequiously bent ; my heart beat
furiously. "Very good," the Cardinal said, after
a pause, which seemed to me to be endless.
" Let the doors be thrown open."
The man bowed low, and retired behind the
screen. I heard a little bell ring, somewhere in
the silence, and in a moment the Cardinal stood
up. " Follow me 1 " he said, with a strange flash
of his keen eyes.
Astonished, I stood aside while he passed to
the screen; then I followed him. Outside the
ST. MARTIN'S SUMMER. 333
first door, which stood open, we found eight
or nine persons, pages, a monk, the major-domo,
and several guards waiting like mutes. These
signed to me to precede them, and fell in behind
us, and in that order we passed through the first
room and the second, where the clerks stood
with bent heads to receive us. The last door,
the door of the antechamber, flew open as we
approached ; a score of voices cried, " Place !
Place for His Eminence ! " We passed without
pause through two lines of bowing lackeys, and
entered an empty room !
The ushers did not know how to look at one
another. The lackeys trembled in their shoes.
But the Cardinal walked on, apparently unmoved,
until he had passed slowly half the^length of
the chamber. Then he turned himself about,
looking first to one side; and then to another,
with a low laugh of derision. " Father," he said,
in his thin voice, "what does the psalmist say?
' I am become like a pelican in the wilderness,
and like an owl that is in the desert ! ' "
The monk mumbled assent.
"And later, in the same psalm is it not writ-
334 UNDER THE RED ROBL.
ten, ' They shall perish, but thou shalt en-
dure!'"
"It is so," the father answered. "Amen."
" Doubtless that refers to another life," the
Cardinal continued, with his slow, wintry smile.
" In the meantime we will go back to our book?
and our prayers, and serve God and the King
in small things, if not in great. Come, father,
this is no longer a place for us. Vanitas vani-
tatum ; omnia vanitas ! We will retire."
So, as solemnly as we had come, we marched
back through the first and second and third
doors, until we stood again in the silence of the
Cardinal's chamber; he and I and the velvet-
footed man in black. For a while Richelieu
seemed to forget me. He stood brooding on
the hearth, with his eye's on the embers. Once
I heard him laugh; and twice he uttered in a
tone of bitter mockery, the words, " Fools !
Fools! Fools!"
At last he looked up, saw me, and started.
"Ah!" he said. "I had forgotten you. Well,
you are fortunate, M. de Berault. Yesterday
I had a hundred clients. To-day I have only
ST. MARTINIS SUMMER, 335
one, and I cannot afford to hang him. But for
your liberty that is another matter."
I would have said something, but he turned
abruptly to the table, and sitting down wrote a
few lines on a piece of paper. Then he rang
his bell, while I stood waiting and confounded.
The man in black came from behind the screen.
"Take that letter and this gentleman to the
upper guard-room," His Eminence said sharply.
" I can hear no more," he continued wearily,
raising his hand to forbid interruption. "The
matter is ended, M. de Berault. Be thankful."
And in a moment I was outside the door, my
head in a whirl, my heart divided between grati-
tude and resentment. Along several passages
I followed my guide ; everywhere finding the
same silence, the same monastic stillness. At
length, when I had begun to consider whether
the Bastile or the Chatelet would be my fate,
he stopped at a door, gave me the letter, and,
lifting the latch, signed to me to enter.
I went in in amazement, and stopped in con-
fusion. Before me, alone, just risen from a
chair, with her face one moment pale, the next
336 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
red with blushes, stood Mademoiselle de Coche*
foret. I cried out her name.
" M. de Berault ! " she said, visibly trembling.
" You did not expect to see me ? "
" I expected to see no one so little, Made-
moiselle," I answered, striving to recover my
composure.
"Yet you might have thought that we should
not utterly desert you," she replied, with a
reproachful humility which went to my heart.
"We should have been base indeed, if we had
not made some attempt to save you. I thank
Heaven that it has so far succeeded that that
strange man has promised me your life. You
have seen him ? " she continued eagerly, and in
another tone, while her eyes grew suddenly large
with fear.
" Yes, Mademoiselle, I have seen him," I said.
"And he has given me my life."
" And ? "
"And sent me to imprisonment."
41 For how long ? " she whispered.
" I do not know," I answered. " I expect, dur=
ing the King's pleasure."
ST. MARTINS SUMMER. 337
She shuddered. " I may have done more harm
than good," she murmured, looking at me pite-
ously. " But I did it for the best. I told him
all, and yes, perhaps I did harm."
But to hear her accuse herself thus, when she
had made this long and lonely journey to save
me ; when she had forced herself into her enemy's
presence, and had, as I was sure she had, abased
herself for me, was more than I could bear.
" Hush, Mademoiselle, hush ! " I said, almost
roughly. "You hurt me. You have made me
happy : and yet I wish that you were not here,
where I fear you have few friends, but back
at Cocheforet. You have done more than I
expected, and a hundred times more than I de-
served. But I was a ruined man before this
happened. I am no /more now, but I am still
that; and I would not have your name pinned
to mine on Paris lips. Therefore, good-bye. God
forbid I should say more to you, or let you stay
'.vhere foul tongues would scon malign you."
She looked at me in a kind of wonder; then
with a growing smile, "It is too late," she said
gently.
338 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
" Too late ? " I exclaimed. " How, Mademoi-
selle?"
"Because do you remember, M. de Berault,
what you told me of your love story, by Agen ?
That it could have no happy ending ? For the
same reason I was not ashamed to tell mine to the
Cardinal. By this time it is common property."
I looked at her as she stood facing me. Her
eyes shone, but they were downcast. Her figure
drooped, and yet a smile trembled on her lips.
" What did you tell him, Mademoiselle ? " I
whispered, my breath coming quickly.
"That I loved," she answered boldly, raising
her clear eyes to mine. " And therefore that I
was not ashamed to beg, even on my knees. Nor
ashamed to be with my lover, even in prison."
I fell on my knees, and caught her hand before
the last word passed her lips. For the moment
I forgot King and Cardinal, prison and the future,
all all except that this woman, so pure and
so beautiful, so far above me in all things, loved
me. For the moment, I say. Then I remem
bered myself. I stood up and thrust her from
me, in a sudden revulsion of feeling. "You do
.ST. MARTINIS SUMMER. 339
not know me," I said. "You do not know me.
You do not know what I have done."
" That is what I do know," she answered, look-
ing at me with a wondrous smile.
" Ah, but you do not," I cried. " And besides,
there is this this between us." And I picked
up the Cardinal's letter. It had fallen on the
floor.
She turned a shade paler. Then she said,
" Open it ! Open it ! It is not sealed, nor
closed."
I obeyed mechanically, dreading what I might
see. Even when I had it open I looked at the
finely scrawled characters with eyes askance. But
at last I made it out. 1'c^an thus:
"The King's pleasure is, that M. de Berault, having mixed
himself up with aftairs of state, retire forthwith to the manor
of Cocheforet, and confine himself within its limits, until
the King's pleasure be further known.
" RICHELIEU."
On the next day we were married. The same
evening we left Paris, and I retraced, in her com-
pany, the road which I had twice traversed alone
and in heaviness.
z 2
340 UNDER THE RED ROBE.
A fortnight later we were at Cocheforet, in the
brown woods under the southern mountains ; and
the great Cardinal, once more triumphant over
his enemies, saw, with cold, smiling eyes, the
world pass through his chamber. The flood-tide,
which then set in, lasted thirteen years; in brief,
until his death. For the world had learned its
lesson, and was not to be deceived a second time.
To this hour they call that day, which saw me
stand for all his friends, "The day of Dupes.''
THE END
.
COUNT HANNIBAL
SORORI
SUA CAUSSX CARAE
PIO ERGA MATREM AMORE
ETIAM CARIORI
HOC PRATER
CONTENTS
CHAPTEk PAGE
I. URIMSON FAVOURS ... ... ... ... 1
II. HANNIBAL DE SAULX, COMTE DE TAVANNES 14
III. THE HOUSE NEXT THE GOLDEN MAID ... 28
IV. THE EVE OP THE FEAST ... ... 36
V. A ROUGH WOOING ... ... ... ... 47
VI. " WHO TOUCHES TAVANNES ?" ... ... 58
VII. IN THE AMPHITHEATRE ... ... ... 6y
VIII. Two HENS AND AN EGO
IX. UNSTABLE ...
X. MADAME ST. Lo
XI. A BARGAIN ... ... ... /..
XII. IN THE HALL OP THE LOUVRE ... .../ 124
XIII. DIPLOMACY ... ... ... ... 138
XIV. Too SHORT A SPOON ... ... ... 152
XV. THE BROTHER OF ST. MAG LOIRE ... ... 163
XVI. AT CLOSE QUARTERS ... ... ... 173
XVII. THE DUEL ... ... ... 180
XVIII. ANDROMEDA, PERSEUS BEING ABSENT ... 194
XIX. IN THE ORLEANNAIS ... ... ... 205
XX. ON THE CASTLE HILL ... ... ... 216
XXI. SHE WOULD AND WOULD NOT ... .. 226
vi CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
XXII. PLAYING WITH FIKE ... ... ... 236
XXIII. A MIND AND NOT A MIND ... ... 247
XXIV. AT THE KCNG'S INN ... 259
XXV. THE COMPANY OF THE BLEEDING HEART 271
XXVI. TEMPER ... ... 280
XXVII. THE BLACK TOWN 288
XXVIII. IN THE LITTLE CHAPTER HOUSE ... 304
XXIX. THE ESCAPE 315
XXX. SACRILEGE! ... ... ... ... 330
XXXI. THE FLIGHT FROM ANGERS ... ... ... 338
XXXII. ORDEAL BY STEEL ... ... ... 350
XXXIII. THE AMBUSH 357
XXXIV. "WHICH 'WILL YOU, MADAME?" 372
XXXV. AGAINST THE WALL ... ... ... 384
XXXVI. His KINGDOM 396
COUNT HANNIBAL.
CHAPTEE L
CRIMSON FAVOURS.
M. DE TAVANTSTES smiled. Mademoiselle averted her
eyes, and shivered; as if the air, even of that close
summer night, entering by the door at her elbow,
chilled her. And then came a welcome interrup-
tion.
"Tavannes!"
"Sire!"
Count Hannibal rose slowly. The King had called,
and he had no choice but to obey and go. Yet he
hung a last moment over his companion, his hateful
breath stirring her hair. "Our pleasure is cut short
too soon, Mademoiselle," he said, in the tone and
with the look she loathed. "But for a few hours
only. We shall meet to-morrow. Or, it may be
earlier."
She did not answer, and "Tavannes!" the King
repeated with violence. " Tavannes ! Mordieu ! " his
Majesty continued, looking round furiously. "Will
no one fetch him? Sacre nom, am I King, or a dog
of a "
" I come, sire ! " Count Hannibal cried in haste.
1
2 COUNT HANKTBAL.
For Charles, King of France, Xinth of the name, was
none of the most patient ; and scarce another in the
Court would have ventured to keep him waiting so
long. "I come, sire; I come!" Tavaunes repeated,
as he moved from her side.
He shouldered his way through the circle of cour-
tiers, who barred the road to the presence, and in
part hid Mademoiselle from observation. He pushed
past the table at which Charles and the Comte de
Kochefoucauld had been playing primero, and at
which the latter still sat, trifling idly with the cards.
Three more paces, and he reached the King, who
stood in the ruellc with Kambouillet and the Italian
Marshal. It was the latter who, a moment before,
had summoned his Majesty from his game.
Mademoiselle, watching him go, saw so much ; so
much, and the King's roving eyes and haggard face,
and the four figures, posed apart in the fuller light of
the upper half of the Chamber. Then the circle 01
courtiers came together before her, and she sat back
on her stool. A fluttering, long-drawn sigh escaped
her. Xow, if she could slip out and make her escape !
Xow she looked round. She was not far from the
door; to withdraw seemed easy. But a staring, whis-
pering knot of gentlemen and pages blocked the way;"
and the girl, ignorant of the etiquette of the Court
and with no more than a week's experience of Paris,
had not the courage to rise and pass alone through
the group.
She had come to the Louvre this Saturday evening
under the wing of Madame d'Yverue, her fiance's
cousin. By ill hap Madame had been summoned to
the Princess Dowager's closet, and perforce had left
her. Still, Mademoiselle had her betrothed, and iu
CRIMSON FAVOURS. 3
his charge had sat herself down to wait, uoihing loth,
in the great gallery, where all was bustle and gaiety
and entertainment. For this, the seventh day of the
fetes, held to celebrate the marriage of the King of
Navarre and Charles's sister a marriage which was
to reconcile the two factions of the Huguenots and the
Catholics, so long at war saw the Louvre as gay, as
full, and as lively as the first of the fete days had
found it ; and in the humours of the throng, in the
ceaseless passage of masks and maids of honour,
guards and bishops, Swiss in the black, white and
green of Anjou, and Huguenot nobles in more som-
bre habits, the country -bred girl had found recreation
and to spare. Until gradually the evening had worn
away and she had begun to feel nervous ; and IVLde-
Tignonville, her betrothed, placing her in the emora-
sure of a wii;dow, had gone to seek Madame, i
She had waited for a time without much misgiyin|
expecting each moment to see him return. He would
be back before she could count a hundred ; he would
be back before she could u unite, 1 the leagues that
separated her from her beloved province, and the
home by the Biscay Sea, to which even in that bril-
liant scene her thoughts turned fondly. But the min-
utes had passed, and passed, and he had not returned.
Worse, in his place Tavannes not the Marshal, but
his brother Count Hannibal had found her; he,
whose odious court, at once a menace and an insult,
had subtly enveloped her for a week past. He had
sat down beside her, he had taken possession of her,
and, profiting by her inexperience, had played on her
fears and smiled at her dislike. Finally, whether she
would or no, he had swept her with him into the
Chamber. The rest had been an obsession, a night-
4 COUNT HANNIBAL.
mare, from which only the King's voice summoning
Tavannes to his side had relieved her.
Her aim now was to escape before he returned,
and before another, seeing her alone, adopted his rdle
and was rude to her. Already the courtiers about
her were beginning to stare, the pages to turn and
titter and whisper. Direct her gaze as she might,
she met some eye watching her, some couple enjoying
her confusion. To make matters worse, she presently
discovered that she was the only woman in the Cham-
ber; and she conceived the notion that she had no
right to be there at that hour. At the thought her
cheeks burned, her eyes dropped ; the room seemed
to buzz with her name, with gross words and jests,
and gibes at her expense.
At last, when the situation had grown nearly un-
bearable, the group before the door parted, and Tig-
nonville appeared. The girl rose with a cry of relief,
and he came to her. The courtiers glanced at the
two and smiled.
He did not conceal his astonishment at finding her
there. "But, Mademoiselle, how is this?" he asked
in a low voice. He was as conscious of the attention
they attracted as she was, and as uncertain on the
point of her right to be there. "I left you in the gal-
lery. I came back, missed you, and "
She stopped him by a gesture. " Not here ! " she
muttered, with suppressed impatience. "I will tell
you outside. Take me take me out, if you please,
Monsieur, at once ! "
He was as glad to be gone as she was to go. The
group by the doorway parted ; she passed through it,
he followed. In a moment the two stood in the great
gallery, above the Salle des Caryatides. The crowd
CEIMSON FAVOURS. 5
which had paraded here an hour before was gone,
and the vast echoing apartment, used at that date as
a guard-room, was well-nigh empty. Only at rare
intervals, in the embrasure of a window or the recess
of a door, a couple talked softly. At the farther end,
near the head of the staircase which led to the hall
below, and the courtyard, a group of armed Swiss
lounged on guard. Mademoiselle shot a keen glance
up and down, then she turned to her lover, her face
hot with indignation.
"Why did you leave me?" she asked. "Why did
you leave me, if you could not come back at once ?
Do you understand, sir," she continued, "that it was
at your instance I came to Paris, that I came to this
Court, and that I look to you for protection!? "
" Surely, " he said. " And "
"And do you think Carlat and his wife fit guar-
dians for me? Should I have come or thought of
coming to this wedding, but for your promise, liml
Madame your cousin's? If I had not deemed myself
almost your wife," she continued warmly, "and se-
cure of your protection, should I have come within
a hundred miles of this dreadful city? To which,
had I my will, none of our people should have come. "
"Dreadful? Pardieu, not so dreadful," he an-
swered, smiling, and striving to give the dispute a
playful turn. "You have seen more in a week than
you would have seen at Vrillac in a lifetime, Made-
moiselle. "
"And I choke!" she retorted; "I choke! Do you
not see how they look at us, at us Huguenots, in the
street? How they, who live here, point at us and
eurse us ? How the very dogs scent us out and snarl
at our heels, and the babes cross themselves when we
6 COUNT HANNIBAL.
go by? Can you see the Place des Gastines arid not
think what stood there? Can you pass the Greve at
night and not fill the air above the river with screams
and wailings aud horrible cries the cries of our peo-
ple murdered on that spot ? " She paused for breath,
recovered herself a little, and in a lower tone, "For
me," she said, "I think of Philippine de Lims by day
and by night ! The eaves are a threat to me ; the tiles
would fall on us had they their will ; the houses nod
to to "
"To what, Mademoiselle? " he asked, shrugging his
shoulders and assuming a tone of cynicism.
"To crush us! Yes, Monsieur, to crush us!"
"And all this because I left you for a moment? "
"For an hour or well-nigh an hour," she answered
more soberly.
"But if I could not help it? "
"You should have thought of that before you
brought me to Paris, Monsieur. In these troublous
times. "
He coloured warmly. "You are unjust, Mademoi-
selle," he said. " There are things you forget; in a
Court one is not always master of oneself. "
"I know it," she answered drily, thinking of that
through which she had gone.
"But you do not know what happened!" he re-
turned with impatience. "You do not understand
that I am not to blame. Madame d'Yverne, when I
reached the Princess Dowager's closet, had left to go
to the Queen of Navarre. I hurried after her, and
found a score of gentlemen in the King of Navarre's
chamber. They were holding a council, and they
begged, nay, they compelled me to remain."
"And it was that which detained you so long?"
CKIMSON FAVOURS. 7
"To be sure, Mademoiselle."
"And not Madame St. Lo? "
M. de Tiguonville's face turned scarlet. The thrust
in tierce was unexpected. This then was the key to
Mademoiselle's spirt of temper. "I do not under-
stand you," he stammered.
"How long were you in the King of Navarre's
chamber, and how long with Madame St. Lo ? " she
asked with fine irony. "Or no, I will not tempt
you," she went on quickly, seeing him hesitate. "I
heard you talking to Madame St. Lo in the gallery
while I sat within. And I know how long you were
with her."
"I met Madame as I returned," he stammered, his
face still hot, "and I asked her where you were. I
did not know, Mademoiselle, that I was, not to speak
to ladies of my acquaintance. "
"I was alone, and I was waiting."
"I could not know that for certain," he answered,
making the best of it. " You were not where I left
you. I thought, I confess that you had gone. That
you had gone home."
"With whom? With whom?" she repeated piti-
lessly. "Was it likely? With whom was I to go?
And yet it is true, I might have gone home had I
pleased with M. de Tavannes ! Yes, " she continued,
in a tone of keen reproach and with the blood mount-
ing to her forehead, "it is to that, Monsieur, you ex-
pose me! To be pursued, molested, harassed by a
man whose look terrifies me, and whose touch I I
detest! To be addressed wherever I go by a man
whose every word proves that he thinks me game for
the hunter, and you a thing he may neglect. You
are a man and you do not know, you cannot know
8 COUNT HANNIBAL.
what I suffer ! What I have suffered this week past
whenever you have left my side ! "
Tignonville looked gloomy. " What has he said to
you 1 ? " he asked, between his teeth.
"Nothing I can tell you," she answered with a
shudder. "It was he who took me into the Cham-
ber."
"Why did you go?"
"Wait until he bids you do something," she an-
swered. "His manner, his smile, his tone, all fright-
en me. And to-night, in all these there was a some-
thing worse, a hundred times worse than when I saw
him last on Thursday ! He seemed to to gloat on
me," the girl stammered, with a flush of shame, "as
if I were his ! Oh, Monsieur, I wish we had not left
our Poitou ! Shall we ever see Vrillac again, and the
fishers' huts about the port, and the sea beating blue
against the long brown causeway ? "
He had listened darkly, almost sullenly; but at
this, seeing the tears gather in her eyes, he forced a
laugh. "Why, you are as bad as M. de Rosny and
the Vidame ! " he said. " And they are as full of
fears as an egg is of meat ! Since the Admiral was
wounded by that scoundrel on Friday, they think all
Paris is in a league against us."
"And why not! " she asked, her cheek grown pale,
her eyes reading his eyes.
"Why not? Why, because it is a monstrous thing
even to think of ! " Tignonville answered, with the
confidence of one who did not use the argument for
the first time. "Could they insult the King more
deeply than by such a suspicion ? A Borgia may kill
his guests, but it was never a practice of the Kings of
France! Pardieu, I have no patience with them!
CRIMSON FAVOURS. 9
They may lodge where they please, across th^ river,
or without the walls if they choose, the Rue de
1'Arbre Sec is good enough for me, and the King's
name sufficient surety ! "
"I know you are not apt to be fearful, " she an-
swered, smiling ; and she looked at him with a wo-
man's pride in her lover. "All the same, you will
not desert me again, sir, will you ? "
He vowed he would not, kissed her hand, looked
into her eyes ; then melting to her, stammering, blun-
dering, he named Madame St. Lo. She stopped him.
"There is no need," she said, answering his look\
with kind eyes, and refusing to hear his protestations.
"In a fortnight will you not be my husband? How
should I distrust you? It was only that while she
talked, I waited I waited; and and that Madame
St. Lo is Count Hannibal's cousin. For a moment/I
was mad enough to dream that she held you oirpui-
pose. You do not think it was so ? "
" She ! " he cried sharply ; and he winced, as if the
thought hurt him. "Absurd! The truth is, Made-
moiselle, " he continued with a little heat, " you are
like so many of our people ! You think a Catholic
capable of the worst."
"We have long thought so at Vrillac," she an-
swered gravely.
"That's over now, if people would only under-
stand. This wedding has put an end to all that.
But I'm harking back," he continued awkwardly;
and he stopped. "Instead, let me take you home."
"If you please. Carlat and the servants should
be below."
He took her left hand in his right after the wont
of the day, and with his other hand touching his
10 COUNT HANNIBAL.
sword-hilt, lie led her down the staircase, that by a
single turn reached the courtyard of the palace.
Here a mob of armed servants, of lacqueys, and
foot-boys, some bearing torches, and some carrying
their masters' cloaks and galoshes, loitered to and fro.
Had M. de Tignonville been a little more observant,
or a trifle less occupied with his own importance, he
might have noted more than one face which looked
darkly on him ; he might have caught more than one
overt sneer at his expense. But in the business of
summoning Carlat Mademoiselle de Vrillac's stew-
ard and major-domo he lost the contemptuous
" Christaudins ! " that hissed from a footboy's lips,
and the "Southern dogs!" that died in the rnous-
tachios of a bully in the livery of the King's brother.
He was engaged in finding the steward, and in aiding
him to cloak his mistress ; then with a ruffling air, a
new acquirement, which he had picked up since he
came to Paris, he made a way for her through the
crowd. A moment, and the three, followed by half
a dozen armed servants, bearing pikes and torches,
detached themselves from the throng, and crossing
the courtyard, with its rows of lighted windows,
passed out by the gate between the Tennis Courts,
and so into the Eue des Fosses de St. Germain.
Before them, against a sky in which the last faint
glow of evening still contended with the stars, the
spire and pointed arches of the church of St. Germain
rose darkly graceful. It was something after nine ;
the heat of the August day brooded over the crowded
city, and dulled the faint distant ring of arms and
armour that yet would make itself heard above the
hush; a hush which was not silence so much as a sub-
dued hum. As Mademoiselle passed the closed house
CRIMSON FAVOURS. 11
beside the Cloister of St. Germain where only the day
before Admiral Coligny, the leader of the Huguenots,
had been wounded, she pressed her escort's hand, and
involuntarily drew nearer to him. But he laughed at
her.
"It was a private blow," lie said, answering her
unspoken thought. "It is like enough the Guises
sped it. But they know now what is the King's
will, and they have taken the hint and withdrawn
themselves. It will not happen again, Mademoiselle.
For proof, see the guards" they were passing the
end of the Rue Bethizy, in the corner house of which,
abutting on the Rue de 1'Arbre Sec, Coligny had his
lodgings "whom the King has placed for his secu-
rity. Fifty pikes under Cosseins."
"Cosseins 1 ?" she repeated. "But I thought Cos-
seins "
" Was not wont to love us ! " Tignonville answered
with a confident chuckle. " He was not. But the
dogs lick where the master wills, Mademoiselle. He
was not, but he does. This marriage has altered all."
"I hope it may not prove an unlucky one!" she
murmured. She felt impelled to say it.
"Xot it! " he answered confidently. "Why should
it?"
They stopped, as he spoke, before the last house,
at the corner of the Rue St. Houore opposite the
Croix du Tiroir ; which rose shadowy in the middle of
the four ways. He hammered on the door.
"But," she said softly, looking in his face, "the
change is sudden, is it not 1 The King was not wont
to be so good to us ! "
"The King was not King until now," he answered
" That is what I am trying to persuade our
12 COUNT HANNIBAL.
people. Believe me, Mademoiselle, you may sleep
without fear ; and early in the morning I will be with
you. Carlat, have a care of your mistress until morn-
ing, and let Madame lie in her chamber. She is ner-
vous to-night. There, sweet, until morning! God
keep you, and pleasant dreams ! "
He uncovered, and bowing over her hand, kissed
it ; and the door being open he would have turned
away. But she lingered as if unwilling to enter.
"There is do you hear it a stir in that quarter?"
she said, pointing across the Rue St. Honore". "What
lies there ? "
"Northward? The markets," he answered. "'Tis
nothing. They say, you know, that Paris never
sleeps. Good-night, sweet, and a fair awakening ! "
She shivered as she had shivered under Tavannes'
eye. And still she lingered, keeping him. "Are
you going to your lodging at once ? " she asked for
the sake, it seemed, of saying something.
"'I?" he answered a little hurriedly. "No, I was
thinking of paying Eochefoucauld the compliment
of seeing him home. He has taken a new lodging to
be near the Admiral ; a horrid bare place in the Eue
Bethizy, without furniture, but he would go into it
to-day. And he has a sort of claim on my family,
you know. "
"Yes," she said simply. "Of course. Then I
must not detain you. God keep you safe, " she con-
tinued, with a faint quiver in her tone ; and her lip
trembled. "Good-night, and fair dreams, Monsieur."
He echoed the words gallantly. " Of you, sweet ! "
he cried ; and turning away with a gesture of fare-
well, he set off on his return.
He walked briskly, nor did he look back, though
CRIMSON FAYOUES. 13
she stood awhile gazing after him. She was not
aware that she gave thought to this ; nor that it hurt
her. Yet when bolt and bar had shot behind her,
and she had mounted the cold, bare staircase of that
day when she had heard the dull echoing footsteps
of her attendants as they withdrew to their lairs and
sleeping-places, and still more when she had crossed
the threshold of her chamber, and signed to Madame
Carlat and her woman to listen it is certain she felt
a lack of something.
Perhaps the chill that possessed her came of that
lack, which she neither defined nor acknowledged.
Or possibly it came of the night air, August though
it was; or of sheer nervousness, or of the remem-
brance of Count Hannibal's smile. Whatever its
origin, she took it to bed with her ; and long after the
house slept round her, long after the crowded quarter
of the Halles had begun to heave and the Sorbonne t6
vomit a black-frocked band, long after the tall houses^
in the gabled streets, from St. Antoine to Montmartre V
and from St. Denis on the north to St. Jacques on the
south, had burst into rows of twinkling lights nay,
long after the Quarter of the Louvre alone remained
dark, girdled by this strange midnight brightness she
lay awake. At length she too slept, and dreamed of
home and the wide skies of Poitou, and her castle of
Vrillac washed day and night by the Biscay tides.
CHAPTEE II.
HANNIBAL DE SAULX, COMTE DE TAVANNES.
"TAVANNES!"
"Sire."
Tavannes, we know, had been slow to obey the
summons. Emerging from the crowd he found that
the King, with Eetz and Eambouillet, his Marshal
des Logis, had retired to the farther end of the
Chamber; apparently Charles had forgotten that he
had called. His head a littls bent he was tall and
had a natural stoop the King seemed to be listening
to a low but continuous murmur of voices which pro-
ceeded from the door of his closet. One voice fre-
quently raised was beyond doubt a woman's ; a foreign
accent, smooth and silky, marked another; a third,
that from time to time broke in, wilful and impetuous,
was the voice of Monsieur, the King's brother, Cathe-
rine de Medicis' favourite son. Tavannes, waiting
respectfully two paces behind the King, could catch
little that was said; but Charles, something more,
it seemed, for on a sudden he laughed, a violent,
mirthless laugh. And he clapped Eambouillet on the
shoulder.
-There! "he said, with one of his horrible oaths,
"'tis settled! 'Tis settled! Go, man, and take your
orders ! And you, M. de Eetz, " he continued, in a tone
of savage mockery, "go, my lord, and give them!"
"I, sire*" the Italian Marshal answered in accents
HANNIBAL DE SAULX. 15
of deprecation. There were times when the young
King would show his impatience of the Italian ring,
the Retzs and Biragues, the Strozzis and Gondys, with
whom his mother surrounded him.
"Yes, you!" Charles answered. "You and my
lady mother ! And in God's name answer for it at the
day! " he continued vehemently. "You will have it!
You will not let me rest till you have it ! Then have
it, only see to it, it be done thoroughly! There shall
not be one left to cast it in the King's teeth and cry,
' Et tu, Carole! ' Swim, swim in blood if you will,"
he continued with growing wildness. "Oh, 'twall be
a merry night ! And it's true so far, you may kill
fleas all day, but burn the coat, and there's an end.
So burn it, burn it, and " He broke off with a
start as he discovered Tavannes at his elbow. " God's
death, man! " he cried roughly, "who sent for you? "
"Your Majesty called me," Tavannes answered;
while, partly urged by the King's hand, and pa;
anxious to escape, the others slipped into the closet
and left them together.
" I sent for you ? I called your brother, the Mar-
shal ! "
"He is within, sire," Tavannes answered, indicat-
ing the closet. "A moment ago I heard his voice."
Charles passed his shaking hand across his eyes.
"Is he?" he muttered. "So he is! I heard it too.
And and a man cannot be in two places^at once ! "
Then while his haggard gaze, passing by ' Tavauues,
roved round the Chamber, he laid his hand on Count
Hannibal's breast. "They give me no peace, Ma-
dame and the Guises, " he whispered, his face hectic
with excitement. "They will have it. They say that
Coliguy ~ they say that he beards me in my own pa-
16 COUNT HANNIBAL.
lace. And and, mordieu," with sudden violence,
"it's true! It's true enough! It was but to-day he
was for making terms with me ! With me, the King !
Making terms! So it shall be, by God and Devil,
it shall ! But not six or seven ! No, no. All ! All !
There shall not be one left to say to me, 'You did
it!'"
"Softly, sire," Tavannes answered; for Charles
had gradually raised his voice. "You will be ob-
served. "
For the first time the young King he was but
twenty-two years old, God pity him! looked at his
companion. "To be sure," he whispered; and his
eyes grew cunning. "Besides, and after all, there's
another way, if I choose. Oh, I've thought and
thought, I'd have you know." And shrugging his
shoulders, almost to his ears, he raised and lowered his
open hands alternately, while his back hid the move-
ment from the Chamber. "See-saw! See-saw!" he
muttered. "And the King between the two, you see.
That's Madame's king-craft. She's shown me that a
hundred times. But look you, it is as easy to lower
the one as the other, " with a cunning glance at Tavan-
nes' face, " or to cut off the right as the left. And
and the Admiral's an old man and will pass; and for
the matter of that I like to hear him talk. He talks
well. "While the others, Guise and his kind, are young,
and I've thought, oh, yes, I've thought but there,"
with a sudden harsh laugh, "my lady mother will
have it her own way. And for this time she shall,
but, All! All! Even Foucauld, there! Do you
mark him? He's sorting the cards. Do you see him
as he will be to-morrow, with the slit in his throat
and his teeth showing 1 Why, God ! " his voice rising
HASTOTBAL DE SAULX. 17
almost to a scream, "the candles by him are burning
blue ! " And with a shaking hand, his face con-
vulsed, the young King clutched his companion's
arm, and pinched it.
Count Hannibal shrugged his shoulders, but an-
swered nothing.
"D'you think we shall see them afterwards?"
Charles resumed, in a sharp, eager whisper. "In our
dreams, man 1 ? Or when the watchman cries, and we
awake, and the monks are singing lauds at St. Ger-
main, and and the taper is low ? "
Tavannes' lip curled. "I don't dream, sire, "he
answered coldly, "and I seldom wake. For the rest,
I fear my enemies neither alive nor dead."
"Don't you? By G d, I wish I didn't," the young
man exclaimed. His brow was wet with sweat. "I
wish I didn't. But there, it's settled. They've set-
tled it, and I would it were done! What do you
think of of it, man? What do you think of it,
yourself?"
Count Hannibal's face was inscrutable. "I think
nothing, sire," he said drily. "It is for your Majesty
and your council to think. It is enough for me that
it is the King's will."
"But you'll not flinch?" Charles muttered, with a
quick look of suspicion. "But there," with a mon-
strous oath, "I know you'll not! I believe you'd as
soon kill a monk though, thank God," and he
crossed himself devoutly, "there is no question of
that as a man. And sooner than a maiden."
"Much sooner, sire," Tavannes answered grimly.
" If you have any orders in the monkish direction
no ? Then your Majesty must not talk to me longer.
M. de Bochefoucauld is beginning to wonder what is
2
18 COUNT HANNIBAL.
keeping your Majesty from your game. And others
are marking you, sire."
" By the Lord ! " Charles exclaimed, a ring of wonder
mingled with horror in his tone, " if they knew what
was in our minds they'd mark us more! Yet, see
Nangay there beside the door? He is unmoved. He
looks to-day as he looked yesterday. Yet he has
charge of the work in the palace "
For the first time Tavannes allowed a movement of
surprise to escape him. "In the palace?" he mut-
tered. "Is it to be done here, too, sire? "
" Would you let some escape, to return by-and-by
and cut our throats ? " the King retorted with a
strange spirt of fury; an incapacity to maintain
the same attitude of mind for two minutes together
was the most fatal weakness of his ill -balanced na-
ture. "No. All! All!" he repeated with vehe-
mence. "Didn't Noah people the earth with eight?
But I'll not leave eight! My cousins, for they are
blood-royal, shall live if they will recant. And my
old nurse whether or no. And Pare, for no one else
understands my complexion. And '
" And llochef oucauld, doubtless, sire?"
The King, whose eye had sought his favourite
companion, withdrew it. He darted a glance at
Tavanues. "Foucauld? Who said so ?" he muttered
jealously. " Not I ! But we shall see. We shall see !
And do you see that you spare no one, M. le Conite,
without an order. That is your business. "
"I understand, sire," Tavannes answered coolly.
And after a moment's silence, seeing that the King had
done with him, he bowed low and withdrew ; watched
by the circle, as all about a King were watched in the
days wheu a King's breath meant life or death, and
HANNIBAL DE SAULX. 19
his smile made the fortunes of men. As he passed
Rochefoucauld, the latter looked up and nodded.
"What keeps brother Charles?" he muttered.
"He's madder than ever to-night. Is it a masque or
a murder he is planning ? "
"The vapours, " Tavanues answered with a sneer.
"Old tales his old nurse has stuffed him withal.
He'll come by-and-by, and 'twill be well if you can
divert him."
"I will if he come," Eochefoucauld answered, shuf-
fling the cards. "If not 'tis Chicot's business and he
should attend to it. I'm tired and shall to bed."
"He will come, " Tavannes answered, and moved,
as if to go on. Then he paused for a last word.
"He will come," he muttered, stooping and speaking
under his breath, his eyes on the other's face. "But
play him lightly. He is in an ugly mood. Please
him, if you can, and it may serve. "
The eyes of the two met an instant, and those of
Foucauld so the King called his Huguenot favourite
betrayed some surprise ; for Count Hannibal and he
were not intimate. But seeing that the other was in
earnest, he raised his brows in acknowledgment. Ta-
vanues nodded carelessly in return, looked an instant
at the cards on the table, and passed on, pushed his
way through the circle, and reached the door. He
was lifting the curtain to go out, when Kaucay, the
Captain of the Guard, plucked his sleeve.
" What have you been saying to Foucauld, M. de
Tavannes? " he muttered.
" j? "
"Yes," with a jealous glance., "you, M. le Cointe."
Count Hannibal looked at him with the sudden
ferocity that made the man a proverb at Court.
20 COUNT HANNIBAL.
"What I chose, M. le Capitaine des Suissesi" he
hissed. And his hand closed like a vice on the
other's wrist. "What I chose, look you! And re-
member, another time, that I am not a Huguenot,
and say what I please. "
"But there is great need of care," Nancay pro-
tested, stammering and flinching. "And and I have
orders, M. le Comte."
" Your orders are not for me, " Tavannes answered,
releasing his arm with a contemptuous gesture.
" And look you, man, do not cross my path to-night.
You know our motto 1 ? Who touches my brother,
touches Tavannes ! Be warned by it. "
Nanyay scowled. "But the priests say, 'If your
hand offend you, cut it off ! ' " he muttered.
Tavannes laughed, a sinister laugh. "If you
offend me I'll cut your throat," he said; and with no
ceremony he went out, and dropped the curtain be-
hind him.
Nancay looked after him, his face pale with rage.
"Curse him! "he whispered, rubbing his wrist. "If
he were anyone else I would teach him! But he
would as soon run you through in the presence as in
the Pr6 anx Clercs ! And his brother, the Marshal,
has the King's ear! And Madame Catherine's too,
which is worse ! "
He was still fuming when an officer in the colours
of Monsieur, the King's brother, entered hurriedly,
and keeping his hand on the curtain, looked anxiously
round the Chamber. As soon as his eye found Nan-
gay, his face cleared. "Have you the reckoning?"
he muttered
"There are seventeen Huguenots in the palace be-
sides their Highnesses, " Nancay replied, in the same
HANNIBAL DE SAULX. 21
cautious tone. " Not counting two or three who are
neither the one thing nor the other. In addition,
there are the two Montmorencies ; but they are to go
safe for fear of their brother, who is not in the trap.
He is too like his father, the old Bench -burner, to be
lightly wronged ! And besides, there is Pare, who is
to go to his Majesty's closet as soon as the gates are
shut. If the King decides to save anyone else, he
will send him to his closet. So 'tis all clear and ar-
ranged here. If you are as forward outside, it will be
well ! Who deals with the gentleman with the tooth-
pick?"
"The Admiral? Monsieur, Guise, and the Grand
Prior ; Cosseins and Besme have charge. 'Tis to be
done first. Then the Provost will raise the town.
He will have a body of stout fellows ready at three or
four rendezvous, so that the fire may blaze up every-
where at once. Marcel, the ex-provost, has the same
commission south of the river. Orders to light the
town as for a frolic have been given, and the Halles
will be ready."
Nancay nodded, reflected a moment, and then with
an involuntary shudder, " God ! " he exclaimed, " it
will shake the world ! "
"You think so?"
"Ay, will it not!" His next words showed that
he bore Tavannes' warning in mind. "Forme, my
friend, I go in mail to-night," he said. "There will
be many a score paid before morning, besides his
Majesty's. And many a left-handed blow will be
struck in the melee ! "
The other crossed himself. "Grant none light
here ! " he said devoutly. And with a last look he
nodded and went out.
22 COUNT HANNIBAL.
In the doorway he jostled a person who was in the
act of entering. It was M. de Tignonville, who, see-
ing Nangay at his elbow, saluted him, and stood look-
ing round. The young man's face was flushed, his
eyes were bright with unwonted excitement. "M. de
Eochefoucauld ? " he asked eagerly. "He has not left
yet?"
Nauyay caught the thrill in his voice, and marked
the young man's flushed face, and altered bearing.
He noted, too, the crumpled paper he carried half-
hidden in his hand; and the Captain's countenance
grew dark. He drew a step nearer and his hand
reached softly for his dagger. But his voice when he
spoke was smooth as the surface of the pleasure-lov-
ing Court, smooth as the externals of all things in
Paris that summer evening. "He is here still," he
said. "Have you news, M. de Tiguonville? "
"News?"
"For M. de Eochefoucauld? "
Tignonville laughed. "No, "he said. "I am hero
to see him to his lodging, that is all. News, Cap
tain? What made you think so? "
"That which you have in your haud," Naucay an
swered, his fears relieved.
The young man blushed to the roots of his hail
"It is not for him," he said.
"I can see that, Monsieur," Nancay answered po
litely. "He has his successes, but all the billets-douM
do not go one way. "
The young man laughed, a conscious, flattered
laugh. He was handsome, with such a face as wo
men love, but there was a lack of ease in the way he
wore his Court suit. It was a trifle finer, too, than ac-
corded with Huguenot taste ; or it looked the finer for
HANNIBAL DE SAULX. . 23
the way he wore it, even as Teliguy's and Foucanld's
velvet capes and stiff brocades lost their richness and
became but the adjuncts, fitting and graceful, of the
men. Odder still, as Tignonville laughed, half hid-
ing and half revealing the dainty, scented paper in
his hand, his' clothes seemed smarter and he more
awkward than usual. "It is from a lady," he admit-
ted. "But a bit of badinage, I assure you, nothing
more."
"Understood!" M. de Nancay murmured politely.
"I congratulate you."
"But "
" I say I congratulate you! "
" But it is nothing. "
"Oh, I understand. And see, the King is about to
rise. Go forward, Monsieur," he continued benevo-
lently. "A young man should show himself. Be-
sides his Majesty likes you well," he added with a
leer. He had an unpleasant sense of humour, had
his Majesty's Captain of the Guard ; and this evening
somewhat more than ordinary on which to exer-
cise it.
Tignonville held too good an opinion of himself to
suspect the other of badinage ; and thus encouraged
he pushed his way to the front of the circle. During
his absence with his betrothed, the crowd in the
Chamber had grown thin, the caudles had burned an
inch shorter in the sconces. But though many who
had been there, had left, the more select remained, and
the King's return to his seat had given the company a
fillip. An air of feverish gaiety, common in the un-
healthy life of the Court, prevailed. At a table
abreast of the King, Montpensier and Marshal Cosse
were dicing and disputing, with now a yell of glee,
24 COUNT HANNIBAL.
and now an oath, that betrayed which way fortune
inclined. At the back of the King's chair, Chicot,
his gentleman -jester, hung over Charles's shoulder,
now scanning his cards, and now making hideous
faces that threw the onlookers into fits of laughter.
Farther up the Chamber, at the end of the alcove,
Marshal Tavannes our Hannibal's brother occupied
a low stool, which was set opposite the open door of
the closet. Through this doorway a slender foot,
silk-clad, shot now and again into sight; it came, it
vanished, it came again, the gallant Marshal striving
at each appearance to rob it of its slipper, a dainty
jewelled thing of crimson velvet. He failed thrice, a
peal of laughter greeting each failure. At the fourth
essay, he upset his stool and fell to the floor, but held
the slipper. And not the slipper only, but the foot.
Amid a flutter of silken skirts and dainty laces
while the hidden beauty shrilly protested he dragged
first the ankle, and then a shapely leg into sight. The
circle applauded ; the lady, feeling herself still drawn
on, screamed loudly and more loudly. All save the
King and his opponent turned to look. And then
the sport came to a sudden end. A sinewy hand
appeared, interposed, released; for an instant the
dark, handsome face of Guise looked through the
doorway. It was gone as soon as seen ; it was there a
second only. But more than one recognised it, and
wondered. For was not the young Duke in evil
odour with the King by reason of the attack on the
Admiral? And had he not been chased from Paris
only that morning and forbidden to return ?
They were still wondering, still gazing, when ab-
ruptly as he did all things Charles thrust back his
chair. "Foucauld, you owe me ten pieces! " he cried
HANNIBAL DE SAULX. 25
with glee, and he slapped the table. "Pay, my
friend ; pay ! "
"To-morrow, little master; to-morrow!" Bochefou-
cauld answered in the same tone. And he rose to his
feet.
"To-morrow!" Charles repeated. "To-morrow?"
And on the word his jaw fell. He looked wildly
round. His face was ghastly.
"Well, sire, and why not?" Eochefoucauld an-
swered in astonishment. And in his turn he looked
round, wondering; and a chill fell on him. "Why
not ? " he repeated.
For a moment no one answered him : the silence in
the Chamber was intense. Where he looked, wher-
ever he looked, he met solemn, wondering eyes, such
eyes as gaze on men in their coffins. "What has
come to you all ? " he cried with an effort. " What is
the jest, for faith, sire, I don't see it? "
The King seemed incapable of speech, and it was
Chicot who filled the gap. "It is pretty apparent,"
he said with a rude laugh. " The cock will lay and
Foucauld will pay to-morrow! "
The young nobleman's colour rose; between him
and the Gascon gentleman was no love lost. " There
are some debts I pay to-day," he cried haughtily.
" For the rest, farewell my little master ! When one
does not understand the jest it is time to be gone. "
He was half-way to the door, watched by all, when
the King spoke. " Foucauld ! " he cried in an odd,
strangled voice. " Foucauld ! " And the Huguenot
favourite turned back, wondering.
" One minute ! " the King continued in the same
forced voice. "Stay till morning in my closet. It
is late now. We'll play away the rest of the night! "
26 COUNT HANNIBAL.
"Your Majesty must excuse me," Rochefoucauld
answered frankly. "I am dead asleep."
"You can sleep in the Garde-Robe," the King per-
sisted.
"Thank you. for nothing, sire!" was the gay an-
swer. "I know that bed! I shall sleep longer and
better in my own."
The King shuddered, but strove to hide the move-
ment under a shrug of his shoulders. He turned
away. "It is God's will! "he muttered. He was
white to the lips.
Rochefoucauld did not catch the words. "Good
night, sire," he cried. "Farewell, little master."
And with a nod here and there, he passed to the
door, followed by Mergey and Chamont, two gentle-
men of his suite.
Nancay raised the curtain with an obsequious ges-
ture. "Pardon me, M. le Comte," he said, "do you
go to his Highuess's? "
"For a few minutes, Nangay."
" Permit me to go with you. The guards may be
set."
"Do so, my friend," Rochefoucauld answered.
"Ah, Tiguouville, is it you! "
"I am come to attend you to your lodging," the
young man said. And he ranged up beside the other,
as, the curtain fallen behind them, they walked along
the gallery.
Rochefoucauld stopped and laid his hand on Tig-
uonville's sleeve. "Thanks, dear lad," he said, "but
I am going to the Princess Dowager's. Afterwards
to his Highuess's. I may be detained an hour or
more. You will not like to wait so long. "
M. de Tignonville's face fell ludicrously. "Well,
HANNIBAL DE SAULX. 27
no," he said. "I I don't think I could wait so long
to-night."
"Then coine to-morrow night," Eochefoucauld an-
swered with good nature.
"With pleasure," the other cried heartily, his re-
lief evident. "Certainly. With pleasure." And,
nodding good-night, they parted. While Rochefou-
cauld, with Nancay at his side and his gentlemen
attending him, passed along the echoing and now
empty gallery, the younger man bounded down the
stairs to the great hall of the Caryatides, his face
radiant. He for one was not sleepy.
CHAPTEE III.
THE HOUSE NEXT THE "GOLDEN MAID."
WE have it on record that before the Comte de la
Eochefoucauld left the Louvre that night he received
the strongest hints of the peril which threatened
him; and at least one written warning was handed
to him by a stranger in black, and by him in turn was
communicated to the King of Navarre. We are told
further that when he took his final leave, about the
hour of eleven, he found the courtyard brilliantly
lighted, and the three companies of guards Swiss,
Scotch, and French drawn up in ranked array from
the door of the great hall to the gate which opened on
the street. But, the chronicler adds, neither this pre-
caution, sinister as it appeared to some of his suite,
nor the grave farewell which Rambouillet, from his
post at the gate, took of one of his gentlemen, shook
that chivalrous soul or sapped its generous confidence.
M. de Tignonville was young and less versed in
danger than the Governor of Rochelle ; with him, had
he seen so much, it might have been different. But
he left the Louvre an hour earlier at a time when
the precincts of the palace, gloomy-seeming to us in
the light cast by coming events, wore their wonted
aspect. His thoughts, moreover, as he crossed the
courtyard, were otherwise employed. So much so, in-
deed, that though he signed to his two servants to
follow him, he seemed barely conscious what he was
THE HOUSE NEXT THE "GOLDEN MAID." 29
doing ; nor did he shake off his reverie until he reached
the corner of the Eue Baillet. Here the voices of the
Swiss who stood on guard opposite Coligny's lodgings,
at the end of the Rue Bethizy, could be plainly heard.
They had kindled a fire in an iron basket set in the
middle of the road, and knots of them were visible in
the distance, moving to and fro about their piled
arms.
Tignonville paused before he came within the radius
of the firelight, and turning, bade his servants take
their way home. " I shall follow, but I have business
first," he added curtly.
The elder of the two demurred. "The streets are
not too safe," he said. "In two hours or less, my
lord, it will be midnight. And then "
"Go, booby; do you think I am a child? " his mas-
ter retorted angrily. "I've my sword and can use it.
I shall not be long. And do you hear, men, keep a
still tongue, will you ? "
The men, country fellows, obeyed reluctantly, and
with a full intention of sneaking after him the mo-
ment he had turned his back. But he suspected
them of this, and stood where he was until they
had passed the fire, and could no longer detect his
movements. Then he plunged quickly into the Hue
Baillet, gained through it the Eue du Eoule, and
traversing that also turned to the right into the Eue
Ferronerie, the main thoroughfare, east and west, of
Paris. Here he halted in front of the long, dark outer
wall of the Cemetery of the Innocents, in which, across
the tombstones and among the sepulchres of dead
Paris, the living Paris of that day, bought and sold,
walked, gossiped, and made love.
About him things were to be seen that would have
30 COUNT HANNIBAL.
seemed stranger to him had he been less strange to
the city. From the quarter of the markets north of
him, a quarter whicn fenced in the cemetery on two
sides, the same dull murmur proceeded, which Ma-
demoiselle de Vrillac had remarked an hour earlier.
The sky above the cemetery glowed with reflected
light, the cause of which was not far to seek, for
every window of the tall houses that overlooked it,
and the huddle of booths about it, contributed a
share of the illumination. At an hour late even for
Paris, an hour when honest men should have been
sunk in slumber, this strange brilliance did for a mo-
ment perplex him; but the past week had been so
full of fetes, of masques and frolics, often devised on
the moment and dependent on the King's whim, that
he set this also down to such a cause, and wondered
and no more.
The lights in the houses flung their radiance high,
and did not serve his purpose ; but beside the closed
gate of the cemetery, between two stalls, was a votive
lamp burning before an image of the Mother and
Child. He crossed to this, and assuring himself by a
glance to right and left that he stood in no danger
from prowlers, he drew a note from his breast. It
had been slipped into his hand in the gallery before he
saw Mademoiselle to her lodging ; it had been in his
possession barely an hot./. But brief as its contents
were, and easily committed to memory, he had perused
it thrice already.
"At the house next the 'Golden Maid,' Eue Cinq
Diamauts, an hour before midnight, you may find
the door open should you desire to talk farther with
C. St. L."
As he read it for the fourth time the light of the
THE HOUSE NEXT THE u GOLDEN MAID." 31
lamp fell athwart his face ; and even as his fine clothes
had never seemed to fit him worse than when he
faintly denied the imputations of gallantry launched
at him by Nangay, so his features had never looked
less handsome than they did now. The glow of vanity
which warmed his cheek as he read the message, the
smile of conceit which wreathed his lips, bespoke a
nature not of the most noble ; or the lamp did him
less than justice. Presently he kissed the note, and
hid it. He waited until the clock of St. Jacques struck
the hour before midnight ; and then moving forward
he turned to the right by way of the narrow neck lead-
ing to the Eue Lombard. He walked in the kennel
here, his sword in his hand and his eyes looking to
right and left ; for the place was notorious for robber-
ies. But though he saw more than one figure lurking
in a doorway or under the arch that led to a passage,
it vanished on his nearer approach. In less than a
minute he reached the southern end of the street that
bore the odd title of the Five Diamonds.
Situate in the crowded quarter of the butchers, and
almost in the shadow of their famous church, this
street which farther north was continued in the Eue
Quimcampoix presented in those days a not uncom-
mon mingling of poverty and wealth. On one side of
the street a row of lofty gabled houses built under
Francis the First, sheltered persons of good condition ;
on the other, divided from these by the width of the
road and a reeking kennel, a row of pent-houses, the
hovels of cobblers and sausage-makers, leaned against
shapeless timber houses which tottered upwards in a
medley of sagging roofs and bulging gutters. Tig-
nonville was strange to the place, and nine nights out
of tan he would have been at a disadvantage. But,
32 COUNT HANNIBAL.
thanks to the tapers that to-night shone in many win-
dows, he made out enough to see that he need search
only the one side ; and with a beating heart he passed
along the row of newer houses, looking eagerly for
the sign of the " Golden Maid."
He found it at last ; and then for a moment he stood
puzzled. The note said, next door to the "Golden
Maid," but it did not say on which side. He scruti-
nised the nearer house, but he saw nothing to deter-
mine him; and he was proceeding to the farther,
when he caught sight of two men, who, ambushed be-
hind a horse-block on the opposite side of the road-
way, seemed to be watching his movements. Their
presence flurried him ; but much to his relief his next
glance at the houses showed him that the door of the
farther one was unlatched. It stood slightly ajar,
permitting a beam of light to escape into the street.
He stepped quickly to it the sooner he was within
the house the better pushed the door open and en-
tered. As soon as he was inside he tried to close
the entrance behind him, but he found he could not ;
the door would not shut. After a brief trial he aban-
doned the attempt and passed quickly on, through
a bare lighted passage which led to the foot of a stair-
case, equally bare. He stood at this point an instant
and listened, in the hope that Madame's maid would
come to him. At first he heard nothing save his own
breathing; then a gruff voice from above startled
him, "This way, Monsieur," it said. "You are
early, but not too soon ! "
So Madame trusted her footman! M. de Tignon-
ville shrugged his shoulders ; but after all, it was no
affair of his, and he went up. Half-way to the top,
however, he stood, an oath on his lips. Two men
THE HOUSE NEXT THE "GOLDEN MAID." 33
had entered by the open door below even as he had
entered ! And as quietly !
The imprudence of it ! The imprudence of leaving
the door so that it could not be closed ! He turned
and descended to meet them, his teeth set, his hand
on his sword, one conjecture after another whirling
in his brain. Was he beset ? Was it a trap ? Was it
a rival ? Was it chance ? Two steps he descended ;
and then the voice he had heard before cried again,
but more imperatively, "No, Monsieur, this way!
Did you not hear me? This way and be quick, if
you please. By-and-by there will be a crowd, and
then the more we have dealt with the better ! "
He knew now that he had made a mistake, that
he had entered the wrong house; and naturally his
impulse was to continue his descent and secure his
retreat. But the pause had brought the two men who
had entered face to face with him, and they showed
no signs of giving way. On the contrary.
"The room is above, Monsieur," the foremost said,
in a matter-of-fact tone, and with a slight salutation.
" After you, if you please, " and he signed to him to
return.
He was a burly man, grim and truculent in ap-
pearance, and his follower was like him. Tignonville
hesitated, then turned and ascended. But as soon as
he had reached the landing where they could pass
him, he turned again.
"I have made a mistake, I think," he said.
"I have entered the wrong house."
"Are you for the house next the 'Golden Maid,'
Monsieur? "
"Yes."
" Rue Cinq Diamants, Quarter of the Boucherie ? "
3
34 COUNT HANNIBAL.
"Yes."
"No mistake then," the stout man replied firmly.
"Yon are early, that is all. You have arms, I see.
Maillard ! " to the person whose voice Tignonville
had heard at the head of the stairs " A white sleeve,
and a cross for Monsieur's hat, and his name on the
register. Come, make a beginning! Make a begin-
ning, man."
"To be sure, Monsieur. All is ready."
"Then lose no time, I say. Here are others, also
early in the good cause. Gentlemen, welcome ! Wel-
come all who are for the true faith ! Death to the here-
tics! 'Kill, and no quarter! ' is the word to-night! *'
"Death to the heretics !" the last comers cried in
chorus. "Kill and no quarter! At what hour, M.
lePrevot?"
" At day-break, " the Provost answered important-
ly. "But have no fear, the tocsin will sound. The
King and our good man M. de Guise have all in hand.
A white sleeve, a white cross, and a sharp knife shall
rid Paris of the vermin ! Gentlemen of the quarter,
the word of the night is ' Kill, and no quarter !
Death to the Huguenots ! ' "
"Death! Death to the Huguenots! Kill, and no
quarter ! " A dozen the room was beginning to fill
waved their weapons and echoed the cry.
Tignonville had been fortunate enough to appre-
hend the position and the peril in which he stood
before Maillard advanced to him bearing a white
linen sleeve. In the instant of discovery his heart
had stood a moment, the blood had left his cheeks ;
but with some faults, he was no coward, and he
managed to hide his emotion. He held out his left
arm, and suffered the beadle to pass the sleeve over
THE HOUSE NEXT THE "GOLDEN MAID." 35
it and to secure the white linen above the elbow.
Then at a gesture he gave up his velvet cap, and saw
it decorated with a white cross of the same material.
"Now the register, Monsieur," Maillard continued
briskly ; and waving him in the direction of a clerk,
who sat at the end of the long table, having a book and
an ink-horn before him, he turned to the next comer.
Tignonville would fain have avoided the ordeal of
the register, but the clerk's eye was on him. He had
been fortunate so far, but he knew that the least
breath of suspicion would destroy him, and summon-
ing his wits together he gave his name in a steady
voice. "Anne Desmartins. " It was his mother's
maiden name, and the first that came into his mind.
"Of Paris?"
"Recently ; by birth, of the Limousin."
"Good, Monsieur," the clerk answered, writing in
the name. And he turned to the next. "And you,
my friend ? "
CHAPTER IV.
THE EVE OF THE FEAST.
IT was Tignonville's salvation that the men who
crowded the long white-walled room, and exchanged
vile boasts under the naked flaring lights, were of all
classes. There were butchers, natives of the sur-
rounding quarter whom the scent of blood had drawn
from their lairs ; and there were priests with hatchet
faces, who whispered in the butchers' ears. There
were gentlemen of the robe, and plain mechanics, rich
merchants in their gowns, and bare-armed ragpickers,
sleek choristers, and shabby led-captaius ; but differ as
they might in other points, in one thing all were alike.
From all, gentle or simple, rose the same cry for blood,
the same aspiration to be first equipped for the fray.
In one corner a man of rank stood silent and apart, his
hand on his sword, the working of his face alone be-
traying the storm that reigned within. In another, a
Gorman horse-dealer talked in low w r hispers with two
thieves. In a third, a gold- wire drawer addressed an
admiring group from the Sorbonne ; and meantime the
middle of the floor grew into a seething mass of mut-
tering, scowling men, through whom the last comers,
thrust as they might, had much ado to force their way.
And from all under the low ceiling rose a ceaseless
hum, though none spoke loud. " Kill ! kill ! kill ! "
was the burden ; the accompaniment such profanities
and blasphemies as had long disgraced the Paris pul-
THE EVE OF THE FEAST. 37
pits, and day by day had fanned the bigotry already
at a white heat of the Parisian populace. Tignon-
ville turned sick as he listened, and would fain have
closed his ears. But for his life he dared not. And
presently a cripple in a beggar's garb, a dwarfish,
filthy creature with matted hair, twitched his sleeve,
and offered him a whetstone.
"Are you sharp, noble sir?" he asked with a leer.
"Are you sharp? It's surprising how the edge goes
on the bone. A cut and thrust? Well, every man
to his taste. But give me a broad butcher's knife
and I'll ask no help, be it man, woman, or child ! "
A bystander, a lean man in rusty black, chuckled
as he listened. "But the woman or the child for
choice, eh, Jehan? " he said. And he looked to Tig-
nonville to join in the jest.
"Ay, give me a white throat for choice! " the crip-
ple answered, with h'orrible zest. "And there'll be
delicate necks to prick to-night ! Lord, I think I hear
them squeal! You don't need it, sir?" he continued,
again proffering the whetstone. "No? Then I'll
give my blade another whet, in the name of our
Lady, the Saints, and good Father Pezelay ! "
" Ay, and give me a turn ! " the lean man cried,
proffering his weapon. "May I die if I do not kill
one of the accursed for every finger of my hands ! "
" And toe of my feet ! " the cripple answered, not
to be outdone. " And toe of my feet ! A full score ! "
" 'Tis according to your sins! " the other, who had
something of the air of a Churchman, answered.
"The more heretics killed, the more sins forgiven.
Remember that, brother, and spare not if your soul
be burdened! They blaspheme God and call Him
paste! In the paste of their own blood," he con-
38 COUNT HANNIBAL.
tinned ferociously, "I will knead them and roll them
out, saith the good Father Pezelay, ray master ! "
The cripple crossed himself. "Whom God keep,"
he said. "He is a good man. But you are looking
ill, noble sir ? " he continued, peering curiously at the
young Huguenot.
" 'Tis the heat," Tignonville muttered. "The night
is stifling, and the lights make it worse. I will go
nearer the door."
He hoped to escape them ; he had some hope even of
escaping from the room and giving the alarm. But
when he had forced his way to the threshold, he
found it guarded by two pikemen ; and glancing back
to see if his movements were observed for he knew
that his agitation might have awakened suspicion he
found that the taller of the two whom he had left, the
black -garbed man with the hungry face, was watching
him a-tiptoe, over the shoulders of the crowd.
With that, and the sense of his impotence, the
lights began to swim before his eyes. The catastro-
phe that overhung his party, the fate so treacherously
prepared for all whom he loved and all with whom
his fortunes were bound up, confused his brain al-
most to delirium. He strove to think, to calculate
chances, to imagine some way in which he might es-
cape from the room, or from a window might cry the
alarm. But he could not bring his mind to a point.
Instead, in lightning flashes he foresaw what must
happen : his betrothed in the hands of the murderers,
the fair face that had smiled on him frozen with
terror ; brave men, the fighters of Montauban, the de-
fenders of Angely, strewn dead through the dark
lanes of the city. And now a gust of passion, and
now a shudder of fear, seized him ; and in any other
THE EVE OF THE FEAST. 39
assembly his agitation must have led to detection.
But in that room were many twitching faces and
trembling hands. Murder, cruel, midnight, and most
foul, wrung even from the murderers her toll of hor-
ror. While some, to hide the nervousness they felt,
babbled of what they would do, others betrayed by
the intentness with which they awaited the signal, the
dreadful anticipations that possessed their souls.
Before he had formed any plan, a movement took
place near the door. The stairs shook beneath the
sudden trampling of feet, a voice cried "De par le
Roi ! De par le Eoi ! " and the babel of the room
died down. The throng swayed and fell back on
either hand, and Marshal Tavanues entered, wearing
half armour, with a white sash ; he was followed by
six or eight gentlemen in like guise. Amid cries of
"Jarnac! Jarnac!" for to him the credit of that
famous fight, nominally won by the King's brother,
was popularly given he advanced up the room, met
the Provost of the merchants, and began to confer
with him. Apparently he asked the latter to select
some men who could be trusted on a special mission,
for the Provost looked round and beckoned to his side
one or two of higher rank than the herd, and then
one or two of the most truculent aspect.
Tignonville trembled lest he should be singled out.
He had hidden himself as well as he could at the rear
of the crowd by the door; but his dress, so much
above the common, rendered him conspicuous. He
fancied that the Provost's eye ranged the crowd for
him ; and to avoid it and efface himself he moved a
pace to his left.
The step was fatal. It saved him from the Provost,
but it brought him face to face and eye to eye with
40 COUNT HANNIBAL.
Count Haimibal, who stood in the first rank at his
brother's elbow. Tavaimes stared an instant as if he
doubted his eyesight. Then, as doubt gave slow place
to certainty, and surprise to amazement, he smiled.
And after a moment he looked another way.
Tignouville's heart gave a great bump and seemed
to stand still. The lights whirled before his eyes,
there was a roaring in his ears. He waited for the
word that should denounce him. It did not come.
And still it did not come ; and Marshal Tavannes was
turning. Yes, turning, and going ; the Provost, bow-
ing low, was attending him to the door; his suite
were opening on either side to let him pass. And
Count HaunibaH Count Hannibal was following
also, as if nothing had occurred. As if he had seen
nothing !
The young man caught his breath. Was it pos-
sible that he had imagined the start of recognition,
the steady scrutiny, the sinister smile? No; for as
Tavanues followed the others, he hung an instant on
his heel, their eyes met again, and once more he
smiled. In the next breath he was gone through the
doorway, his spurs rang on the stairs ; and the babel
pf the crowd, unchecked by the great man's presence,
broke out anew, and louder.
Tignonville shuddered. He was saved as by a mir-
acle, saved he did not know how. But the respite,
though its strangeness diverted his thoughts for a
while, brought short relief. The horrors which im-
pended over others surged afresh into his mind, and
filled him with a maddening sense of impotence. To
be one hour, only one short half -hour without! To
run through the sleeping streets, and scream in the
dull ears which a King's flatteries had stopped as
THE EYE OF THE FEAST. 41
with wool ! To go up aiid down and shake into life the
guests whose royal lodgings daybreak would turn to a
shambles reeking with their blood! They slept, the
gentle Teligny, the brave Pardaillan, the gallant
Rochefoucauld, Piles the hero of St. Jean, while the
cruel city stirred rustling about them, and doom crept
whispering to the door. They slept, they and a thou-
sand others, gentle and simple, young and old ; while
the half-mad Valois shifted between two opinions,
and the Italian woman, accursed daughter of an ac-
cursed race, cried " Hark ! " at her window, and
looked eastwards for the dawn.
And the women ? The woman he was to marry ?
And the others? In an access of passion he thrust
aside those who stood between, he pushed his way,
disregarding complaints, disregarding opposition, to
the door. But the pikes lay across it, and he could
not utter a syllable to save his life. He would have
flung himself on the door-keepers, for he was losing
control of himself; but as he drew back for the
spring, a hand clutched his sleeve, and a voice he
loathed hummed in his ear.
"No, fair play, noble sir; fair play! "the cripple
Jehan muttered, forcibly drawing him aside. "All
start together, and it's no man's loss. But if there is
any little business, " he continued, lowering his tone
and peering with a cunning look into the other's face,
"of your own, noble sir, or your friends', anything
or anybody you want despatched, count on me. It
were better, perhaps, you didn't appear in it your-
self, and a man you can trust "
" What do you mean ? " the young man cried, re-
coiling from him.
" No need to look surprised, noble sir, " the lean
42 COUNT HANNIBAL.
man, who had joined them, answered in a soothing
tone. "Who kills to-night does God service, and
who serves God much may serve himself a little.
'Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the
corn, ' says good Father Pezelay. "
" Hear, hear ! " the cripple chimed in eagerly, his
impatience such that he danced on his toes. "He
preaches as well as the good father his master ! So
frankly, noble sir, what is it? What is it? A wo-
man grown ugly? A rich man grown old, with per-
chance a will in his chest? Or a young heir that
stands in my lord's way? Whichever it be, or what-
ever it be, trust me and our friend here, and my
butcher's gully shall cut the knot."
Tignonville shook his head.
" But something there is," the lean man persisted
obstinately; and he cast a suspicious glance at Tig-
nonville 's clothes. It was evident that the two had
discussed him, and the motives of his presence there.
" Have the dice proved fickle, my lord, and are you
for the jewellers' shops on the bridge to fill your
purse again ? If so, take my word, it were better to
go three than one, and we'll enlist."
"Ay, we know shops on the bridge where you can
plunge your arm elbow-deep in gold," the cripple
muttered, his eyes sparkling greedily. "There's
Baillet's, noble sir! There's a shop for you! And
there's the man's shop who works for the King.
He's lame like me. And I know the way to all. Oh,
it will be a merry night if they ring before the dawn.
It must be near daybreak now. And what's that? "
Ay, what was it? A score of voices called for
silence; a breathless hush fell on the crowd. A mo-
ment the fiercest listened, with parted lips and
THE EVE OF THE FEAST. 43
starting eyes. Then, " It was the bell ! " cried one,
"let us out!" "It was not!" cried, another. "It
was a pistol shot!" "Anyhow let us out!" the
crowd roared in chorus; "let us out!" And they
pressed in a furious mass towards the door, as if they
would force it, signal or no signal.
But the pikemen stood fast, and the throng, checked
in their first rush, turned on one another, and broke
into wrangling and disputing; boasting, and calling
Heaven and the saints to witness how thoroughly,
how pitilessly, how remorselessly they would purge
Paris of this leprosy when the signal did sound. Un-
til again above the babel a man cried "Silence! " and
again they lis.<3ned. And this time, dulled by walls
and distance, but unmistakable by the ears of fear
or hate, the heavy note of a bell came to them on the
hot night-air. It was the boom, sullen and menac-
ing, of the death signal.
The door-keepers lowered their pikes, and with a
wild rush as of wolves swarming on their prey, the
band stormed the door, and thrust and struggled
and battled a way down the narrow staircase, and
along the narrow passage. "A bas les Huguenots!
Mort aux Huguenots ! " they shouted ; and shrieking,
sweating, spurning with vile hands viler faces, they
poured pell-mell into the street, and added their
clamour to the boom of the tocsin that, as by magic
and in a moment, turned the streets of Paris into a
hell of blood and cruelty. For as it was here, so it
was in a dozen other quarters.
Quickly as they streamed out and to have issued
more quickly would have been impossible fiercely as
they pushed and fought and clove their way, Tignon-
ville was of the foremost. And for a moment, seeing
44 COUNT HANNIBAL.
the street clear before him and almost empty, the
Huguenot thought that he might do something. He
might outstrip the stream of rapine, he might carry
the alarm ; at worst he might reach his betrothed be-
fore harm befel her. But when he had sped fifty yards,
his heart sank. True, none passed him ; but under the
spell of the alarm-bell the stones themselves seemed
to turn to men. Houses, courts, alleys, the very
churches vomited men. In a twinkling the street was
alive with men, roared with them as with a rushing
tide, gleamed with their lights and weapons, thundered
with the volume of their thousand voices. He was
no longer ahead, men were running before him, be-
hind him, on his right hand and on his left. In every
side-street, every passage, men were running ; and
not men only, but women, children, furious creatures
without age or sex. And all the time the bell tolled
overhead, tolled faster and faster, and louder and
louder ; and shots and screams, and the clash of arms,
and the fall of strong doors began to swell the mael-
strom of sound.
He was in the Eue St. Honore now, and speeding
westward. But the flood still rose with him, and
roared abreast of him. Nay, it outstripped him.
When he came, panting, within sight of his goal, and
lacked but a hundred paces of it, he found his pas-
sage barred by a dense mass of people moving slowly
to meet him. In the heart of the press the light of a
dozen torches shone on half as many riders mailed
and armed; whose eyes, as they moved on, and the
furious gleaming eyes of the rabble about them, never
left the gabled roofs on their right. On these from
time to time a white -clad figure showed itself, and
passed from chimney-stack to chimney-stack, or,
THE EVE OF THE FEAST. 45
stooping low, ran along the parapet. Every time
that this happened, the men on horseback pointed
upwards and the mob foamed with rage.
Tiguonville groaned, but he could not help. Un-
able to go forward, he turned, and with others hurry-
ing, shouting, and brandishing weapons, he pressed
into the Eue du Eoule, passed through it, and gained
the Bethizy. But here, as he might have foreseen,
all passage was barred at the Hotel Pouthieu by a
horde of savages, who danced and yelled and sang
songs round the Admiral's body, which lay in the
middle of the way ; while to right and left men were
bursting into houses and forcing new victims into the
street. The worst had happened there, and he turned
panting, regained the Eue St. Honore and, crossing it
and turning left-handed, darted through side streets
until he came again into the main thoroughfare a lit-
tle beyond the Croix du Tiroir, that marked the cor-
ner of Mademoiselle's house.
Here his last hope left him. The street swarmed
with bands of men hurrying to and fro as in a sacked
city. The scum of the Halles, the rabble of the quar-
ter poured this way and that, here at random, there
swayed and directed by a few knots of men-at-arms,
whose corselets reflected the glare of a hundred
torches. At one time and within sight, three or four
houses were being stormed. On every side rose heart-
rending cries, mingled with brutal laughter, with sav-
age jests, with cries of "To the river!" The most
cruel of cities had burst its bounds and was not to be
stayed ; nor would be stayed until the Seine ran red
to the sea, and leagues below, in pleasant Normandy
hamlets, men, for fear of the pestilence, pushed the
corpses from the bridges with poles and boat-hooks.
46 COUNT HANNIBAL.
All this Tiguouville saw, though his eyes, leaping
the turmoil, looked only to the door at which he had
left Mademoiselle a few hours earlier. There a
crowd of men pressed and struggled; but from the
spot where he stood he could see no more. That was
enough, however. Rage nerved him, and despair;
his world was dying round him. If he could not save
her he would avenge her. Eecklessly he plunged
into the tumult ; blade in hand, with vigorous blows
he thrust his way through, his white sleeve and the
white cross in his hat gaining him passage until he
reached the fringe of the band who beset the door.
Here his first attempt to pass failed ; and he might
have remained hampered by the crowd if a squad
of archers had not ridden up. As they spurred to
the spot, heedless over whom they rode, he clutched
a stirrup, and was borne with them into the heart of
the crowd. In a twinkling he stood on the threshold
of the house, face to face and foot to foot with Count
Hannibal, who stood also on the threshold, but with
his back to the door, which, unbarred and unbolted,
gaped open behind him.
CHAPTER Y.
A ROUGH WOOING.
THE young man had caught the delirium that was
abroad that night. The rage of the trapped beast was
in his heart, his hand held a sword. To strike blind-
ly, to strike without question the first who withstood
him was the wild-beast instinct ; and if Count Hanni-
bal had not spoken on the instant, the Marshal's
brother had said his last word in the world.
Yet as he stood there, a head above the crowd, he
seemed unconscious alike of Tignonville and the point
that all but pricked his breast. Swart and grim-
visaged, his harsh features distorted by the glare
which shone upon him, he looked beyond the Hugue-
not to the sea of tossing arms and raging faces that
surged about the saddles of the horsemen. It was to
these he spoke.
"Begone, dogs!" he cried, in a voice that startled
the nearest, "or I will whip you away with my stir-
rup-leathers! Do you hear? Begone! This house is
not for you ! Burn, kill, plunder where you will, but
go hence ! " .
"But 'tis on the list!" one of the wretches yelled.
"'Tis on the list! " And he pushed forward until he
stood at Tignonville 's elbow.
" And has no cross ! " shrieked another, thrusting
himself forward in his turn. "See you, let us by,
48 COUNT HANNIBAL.
whoever you are ! lu the King's name, kill ! It has
no cross ! "
"Then," Tavauues thundered, "will I nail you for
a cross to the front of it ! No cross, say you ? I will
make one of you, foul crow ! "
And as he spoke, his arm shot out; the man re-
coiled, his fellow likewise. But one of the mounted
archers took up the matter.
" Nay, but, my lord, " he said he knew Tavannes
"it is the King's will there be no favour shown
to-night to any, small or great. And this house is
registered, and is full of heretics. "
"And has no cross! " the rabble urged in chorus.
And they leapt up and down in their impatience, and
to see the better. " And has no cross ! " they per-
sisted. They could understand that. Of what use
crosses, if they were not to kill where there was no
cross? Daylight was not plainer.
Tavannes' face grew dark, and he shook his finger
at the archer who had spoken. "Rogue," he cried,
"does the King's will run here only? Are there no
other houses to sack or men to kill, that you must
beard me? And favour? You will have little of
mine, if you do not budge and take your vile tail with
you ! Off ! Or must I cry ' Tavannes ! ' and bid my
people sweep you from the streets? "
The foremost rank hesitated, awed by his manner
and his name ; while the rearmost, attracted by the
prospect'of easier pillage, had gone off already. The
rest wavered ; and another and another broke away.
The archer who had put himself forward saw which
way the wind was blowing, and he shrugged his
shoulders. "Well, my lord, as you will," he said
sullenly. "All the same I would advise you to close
A EOUGH WOOING. 49
the door and bolt and bar. We shall not be the last
to call to-day." And he turned his horse in ill-
humour, and forced it, snorting and plunging, through
the crowd.
"Bolt and bar? " Tavannes cried after him in fury.
"See you my answer to that!" And turning on the
threshold, "Within there!" he cried. "Open the
shutters and set lights, and the table ! Light, I say ;
light ! And lay on quickly, if you value your lives !
And throw open, for I sup with your mistress to-
night, if it rain blood without! Do you hear me,
rogues ? Set on ! "
He flung the last word at the quaking servants;
then he turned again to the street. He saw that the
crowd was melting, and, looking in Tignonville's
face, he laughed aloud. "Does Monsieur sup with
us?" he said. "To complete the party? Or will he
choose to sup with our friends yonder? It is for
him to say. I confess, for my part," with an awful
smile, "their hospitality seems a trifle crude, and
boisterous. "
Tiguonville looked behind him and shuddered.
The same horde which had so lately pressed about
the door had found a victim lower down the street,
and, as Tavaunes spoke, came driving back along
the roadway, a mass of tossing lights and leaping,
running figures, from the heart of which rose the
screams of a creature in torture. So terrible were
the sounds that Tignonville leant half swooning
against the door-post ; and even the iron heart of
Tavaunes seemed moved for a moment.
For a moment only : then he looked at his compan-
ion, and his lip curled. "You'll join us, I think?"
he said with an undisguised sneer. "Then, after
4
50 COUNT HANNIBAL.
you, Monsieur. They are opening the shutters.
Doubtless the table is laid, and Mademoiselle is ex-
pecting us. After you, Monsieur, if you please. A
few hours ago I should have gone first, for you, in
this house" with a sinister smile "were at home!
Now, we have changed places."
Whatever he meant by the gibe and some smack
of an evil jest lurked in his tone he played the host
so far as to urge his bewildered companion along the
passage and into the living-chamber on the left, where
he had seen from without that his orders to light and
lay were being executed. A dozen candles shone on
the board, and lit up the apartment. What the house
contained of food and wine had been got together
and set on the table; from the low, wide window,
beetle-browed and diamond-paned, which extended
the whole length of the room and looked on the street
at the height of a man's head above the roadway, the
shutters had beeu removed doubtless by trembling
and reluctant fingers. To such eyes of passers-by as
looked in, from the inferno of driving crowds and
gleaming weapons which prevailed outside and not
outside only, but throughout Paris the brilliant
room and the laid table must have seemed strange
indeed !
To Tignonville, all that had happened, all that was
happening, seemed a dream: a dream his entrance
under the gentle impulsion of this man who domi-
nated him; a dream Mademoiselle standing behind
the table with blanched face and stony eyes ; a dream
the cowering servants huddled in a corner beyond
her ; a dream his silence, her silence, the moment of
waiting before Count Hannibal spoke.
When he did speak it was to count the servants.
A BOUGH WOOING. 51
"One, two, three, four, five," he said. "And two of
them women. Mademoiselle is but poorly attended.
Are there not "and he turned to her " some lack-
ing?"
The girl opened her lips twice, but no sound issued.
The third time, " Two went out, " she muttered in a
hoarse, strangled voice, "and have not returned."
"And have not returned?" he answered, raising
his eyebrows. " Then I fear we must not wait for
them. We might wait long ! " And turning sharply
to the panic-stricken servants, "Go you to your
places ! Do you not see that Mademoiselle waits to
be served ? "
The girl shuddered and spoke.
"Do you wish me," she muttered, in the same
strangled tone, "to play this farce to the end? "
"The end may be better, Mademoiselle, than you
think, " he answered, bowing. And then to the mis-
erable servants, who hung back afraid to leave the
shelter of their mistress's skirts, "To your places!"
he cried. "Set Mademoiselle's chair. Are you so
remiss on other days? If so," with a look of terrible
meaning, "you will be the less loss! Now, Mademoi-
selle, may I have the honour? And when we are at
table we can talk."
He extended his hand, and, obedient to his gesture,
she moved to the place at the head of the table, but
without letting her fingers come into contact with his.
He gave no sign that he noticed this, but he strode to
the place on her right, and signed to Tignonville to
take that on her left. " Will you not be seated ? " he
continued. For she kept her feet.
She turned her head stiffly, until for the first time
her eyes looked into his. A shudder more violent
52 COUNT HANNIBAL.
than the last shook her. "Had you not better kill
us at once ? " she whispered. The blood had for-
saken even her lips. Her face was the face of a statue
white, beautiful, lifeless.
"I think not," he said gravely. "Be seated, and
let us hope for the best. And you, sir, " he contin-
ued, turning to Carlat, "serve your mistress with
wine. She needs it."
The steward filled for her, and then for each of the
men, his shaking hand spilling as much as it poured.
Nor was this strange. Above the din and uproar of
the street, above the crash of distant doors, above
the tocsin that still rang from the reeling steeple
of St. Germain's, the great bell of the Palais on the
island had just begun to hurl its note of doom upon
the town. A woman crouching at the end of the
chamber burst into hysterical weeping, but, at a
glance from Tavannes' terrible eye, was mute again.
Tiguonville found voice at last. "Have they
killed the Admiral?" he muttered, his eyes on the
table.
" M. Coligny ! An hour ago. "
"AndTeligny?"
"Him also."
"M. de Eochefoucauld?"
"They are dealing with M. le Comte now, I be-
lieve," Tavannes answered. "He had his chance, and
cast it away. " And he began to eat.
The man at the table shuddered. The woman con-
tinued to look before her, but her lips moved as if
she prayed. Suddenly a rush of feet, a roar of voices
surged past the window ; for a moment the glare of
the torches which danced ruddily on the walls of the
room, showed a severed head borne above the multi-
A EOUGH WOOING. 53
tude on a pike. Mademoiselle, with a low cry, made
an effort to rise, but Count Hannibal grasped her
wrist and she sank back half fainting. Then the
nearer clamour sank a little, and the bells, unchal-
lenged, flung their iron tongues above the maddened
city. In the east the dawn was growing; soon its
grey light would fall on cold hearths, on battered
doors and shattered weapons, on hordes of wretches
drunk with greed and hate.
When he could be heard, "What are you going to
do with us? " the man asked hoarsely.
"That depends," Count Hannibal replied after a
moment's thought.
"On what ?"
"On Mademoiselle de Vrillac."
The other's eyes gleamed with passion. He leaned
forward. "What has she to do with it?" he cried.
And he stood up and sat down again in a breath.
Tavaunes raised his eyebrows with a blanduess
that seemed at odds with his harsh visage. " I will an-
swer that question by another question, " he replied.
"How many are there in the house, my friend?"
"You can count."
Tavaunes counted again. "Seven?" he said.
Tignonville nodded impatiently.
"Seven lives?"
"Well?"
"Well, Monsieur, you know the King's will?"
"I can guess it," the other replied furiously. And
he cursed the King, and the King's mother, calling
her Jezebel.
"You can guess it? " Tavannes answered; and then
with sudden heat, as if that which he had to say could
not be said even by him in cold blood, "Nay, you
54 COUNT HANNIBAL.
know it ! You heard it from the archer at the door.
You heard him say, 'No favour, no quarter for man,
for woman, or for child. So says the King.' You
heard it, but you fence with me. Foucauld, with
whom his Majesty played to-night, hand to hand and
face to face Foucauld is dead ! And you think to
live ? You 1 " he continued, lashing himself into
passion. "I know not by what chance you came
where I saw you an hour gone, nor by what chance
you came by that and that " pointing with accusing
finger to the badges the Huguenot wore. "But this I
know! I have but to cry your name from yonder
casement, nay, Monsieur, I have but to stand aside
when the mob go their rounds from house to house,
as they will go presently, and you will perish as cer-
tainly as you have hitherto escaped ! "
For the second time Mademoiselle turned and
looked at him. "Then," she whispered, with white
lips, "to what end this mockery?"
"To the end that seven lives may be saved, Ma-
demoiselle," he answered, bowing.
"At a price? " she muttered.
"At a price," he answered. "A price which wo-
men do not find it hard to pay at Court. 'Tis paid
every day for pleasure or a whim, for rank or the
entree, for robes and gewgaws. Few, Mademoiselle,
are privileged to buy a life ; still fewer, seven ! "
She began to tremble. " I would rather die seven
times ! " she cried, her voice quivering. And she
tried to rise, but sat down again.
" And these ? " he said, indicating the servants.
"Far, far rather! " she repeated passionately.
" And Monsieur ? And Monsieur ! " he urged with
stern persistence, while his eyes passed lightly from
A BOUGH WOOING. 55
her to Tignonville and back to her again, their depths
inscrutable. "If you love Monsieur, Mademoiselle,
and I believe you do - "
" I can die with him ! " she cried.
"And he with you! "
She writhed in her chair.
"And he with you?" Count Hannibal repeated,
with emphasis; and he thrust forward his head.
"For that is the question. Think, think, Mademoi-
.^lle. It is in my power to save from death him
whom you love ; to save you ; to save this canaille, if
it so please you. It is in my power to save him, to
save you, to save all ; and I will save all at a price !
If, on the other hand, you deny me that price, I will
as certainly leave all to perish, as perish they will,
before the sun that is now rising sets to-night ! "
Mademoiselle looked straight before her, the nicker
of a dreadful prescience in her eyes. "And the
price? " she muttered. "The price? "
"You, Mademoiselle."
" Yes, you ! Nay. why fence with me ? " he con-
tinued gently. "You knew it, you have said it. You
have read it in my eyes these seven days."
She did not speak, move, or seem to breathe. As
he said, she had foreseen, she had known the answer.
But Tignonville, it seemed, had not. He sprang to
his feet. "M. de Tavannes," he cried, "you are a
villain ! "
"Monsieur?"
" You are a villain ! But you shall pay for this ! "
the young man continued vehemently. "You shall
not leave this room alive! You shall pay for this
insult!"
56 COUNT HANNIBAL.
" Insult ? " Tavaunes answered in apparent sur-
prise; and then, as if comprehension broke upon
him, "Ah! Monsieur mistakes me," he said, with a
generous sweep of his hand. "And Mademoiselle
also, perhaps? Oh! be content, she shall have bell,
book, and candle ; she shall be tied as tight as Holy
Church can tie her ! Or, if she please, and one sur-
vive, she shall have a priest of her own church you
call it a church ? She shall have whichever of the two
will serve her better. "Pis one to me ! But for pay-
ing me, Monsieur," he continued with irony in voice
and manner ;" when, I pray you ? In Eternity! For
if you refuse my offer, you have done with time.
Now ? I have but to sound this whistle " he touched
a silver whistle which hung at his breast "and there
are those within hearing will do your business before
you make two passes. Dismiss the notion, sir, and
understand. You are in my power. Paris runs with
blood, as noble as yours, as innocent as hers. If you
would not perish with the rest, decide ! And quick-
ly ! For what you have seen are but the forerunners,
what you have heard are but the gentle whispers that
predict the gale. Do not parley too long; so long
that even I may no longer save you."
"I would rather die!" Mademoiselle moaned, her
face covered. " I would rather die ! "
"And see him die?" he answered quietly. "And
see these die? Think, think, child!"
"You will not do it!" she gasped. She shook
from head to foot.
"I shall do nothing," he answered firmly. "I shall
but leave you to your fate, and these to theirs. In
the King's teeth I dare save my wife and her people;
but no others. You must choose and quickly."
A ROUGH WOOING. 57
One of the frightened women it was Mademoi-
selle's tiring-maid, a girl called Javette made a
movement, as if to throw herself at her mistress's
feet. Tignonville drove her to her place with a word.
He turned to Count Hannibal. "But, M. le Comte,"
he said, " you must be mad ! Mad, to wish to marry
her in this way ! You do not love her. You do not
want her. What is she to you more than other wo-
men ? "
"What is she to you more than other women? " Ta-
vanues retorted in a tone so sharp and incisive that
Tignonville started, and a faint touch of colour crept
into the wan cheek of the girl, who sat between them,
the prize of the contest. " What is she more to you
than other women? Is she more? And yet you
want her ! "
"She is more to me," Tignonville answered.
" Is she ? " the other retorted, with a ring of keen
meaning. "Is she? But we bandy words and the
storm is rising, as I 'warned you it would rise.
Enough for you that I do want her. Enough for you
that I will have her. She shall be the wife, the will-
ing wife, of Hannibal de Tavannes or I leave her to
her fate, and you to yours ! "
" Ah, God ! " she moaned. " The willing wife ! "
"Ay, Mademoiselle, the willing wife," he answered
sternly. " Or no man's wife ! "
CHAPTEE VI.
WHO TOUCHES TAVANNES?
IN saying that the storm was rising Count Hannibal had
said no more than the truth. A new mob had a min-
ute before burst from the eastward into the Rue St.
Honore ; and the roar of its thousand voices swelled
louder than the importunate clangour of the bells.
Behind its moving masses the dawn of a new day
Sunday, the 24th of August, the feast of St. Barthol-
omew was breaking over the Bastille, as if to aid the
crowd in its cruel work. The gabled streets, the lanes,
and gothic courts, the stifling wynds, where the work
awaited the workers, still lay in twilight; still the
gleam of the torches, falling On the house -fronts, her-
alded the coming of the crowd. But the dawn was
growing, the sun was about to rise. Soon the day
would be here, giving up the lurking fugitive whom
darkness, more pitiful, had spared, and stamping with
legality the horrors that night had striven to hide.
And with day, with the full light, killing would
grow more easy, escape more hard. Already they
were killing on the bridge where the rich goldsmiths
lived, on the wharves, on the river. They were kill-
ing at the Louvre, in the courtyard under the King's
eyes, and below the windows of the Medicis. They
were killing in St. Martin and St. Denis and St. An-
toine; wherever hate, or bigotry, or private malice
impelled the hand. From the whole city went up
WHO TOUCHES TAVANNES ? 59
a din of lamentation, and wrath, and foreboding.
From the Cour des Miracles, from the markets, from
the Boucherie, from every haunt of crime and misery,
hordes of wretched creatures poured forth; some to
rob on their own account, and where they listed, none
gainsaying; more to join themselves to one of the
armed bands whose business it was to go from street
to street, and house to house, quelling resistance, and
executing through Paris the high justice of the King.
It was one of these swollen bands which had en-
tered the street while Tavannes spoke ; nor could he
have called to his aid a more powerful advocate. As
the deep "A bas! A bas!" rolled like thunder along
the fronts of the houses, as the more strident " Tuez !
Tuez ! " drew nearer and nearer, and the lights of the
oncoming multitude began to flicker on the shut-
tered gables, the fortitude of the servants gave way.
Madame Carlat, shivering in every limb, burst into
moaning; the tiring-maid, Javette, flung herself in
terror at Mademoiselle's knees, and, writhing herself
about them, shrieked to her to save her, only to save
her! One of the men moved forward on impulse, as
if he would close the shutters ; and only old Carlat
remained silent, praying mutely with moving lips
and a stern, set face.
And Count Hannibal ? As the glare of the links in
the street grew brighter, and ousted the sickly day-
light, his form seemed to dilate. He stilled the
shrieking woman by a glance. " Choose ! Mademoi-
selle, and quickly ! " he said. " For I can only save
my wife and her people! Quick, for the pinch is
coming, and 'twill be no boy's play."
A shot, a scream from the street, a rush of racing
feet before the window seconded his words.
60 COUNT HANNIBAL.
"Quick, Mademoiselle! " lie cried. And his breath
came a little faster. "Quick, before it be too late!
"Will you save life, or will you kill! "
She looked at her lover with eyes of agony, dumbly
questioning him. But he made no sign, and only Ta-
vannes marked the look. " Monsieur has done what
he can to save himself," he said with a sneer. "He
has donned the livery of the King's servants ; he has
said, 'Whoever perishes, I will live!' But "
" Curse you ! " the young man cried, and, stung
to madness, he tore the cross from his cap and flung
it on the ground. He seized his white sleeve and
ripped it from shoulder to elbow. Then, when it
hung by the string only, he held his hand.
"Curse you!" he cried furiously. "I will not at
your bidding ! I may save her yet ! I will save her ! "
"Fool!" Tavannes answered but his words were
barely audible above the deafening uproar. "Can
you fight a thousand? Look! Look!" and seiz-
ing the other's wrist he pointed to the window.
The street glowed like a furnace in the red light of
torches, raised on poles above a sea of heads ; an end-
less sea of heads, and gaping faces, and tossing arms
which swept on and on, and on and by. For a while
it seemed that the torrent would flow past them and
would leave them safe. Then came a check, a con-
fused outcry, a surging this way and that ; the torches
reeled to and fro, and finally with a dull roar of
" Open ! Open ! " the mob faced about to the house
and the lighted window.
For a second it seemed that even Count Hannibal's
iron nerves shook a little. He stood between the sul-
len group that surrounded the disordered table and
the maddened rabble, that gloated on the victims be-
WHO TOUCHES TAVANNES ? 61
fore they tore them to pieces. "Open! Open!" the
inob howled : and a man dashed in the window with
his pike.
In that crisis Mademoiselle's eyes met Tavannes'
for the fraction of a second. She did not speak ; nor,
had she retained the power to frame the words, would
they have been audible. But something she must have
looked, and something of import, though no other than
he marked or understood it. For in a flash he was
at the window and his hand was raised for silence.
"Back!" he thundered. "Back, knaves!" And
he whistled shrilly. "Do what you will," he contin-
ued in the same tone, "but not here! Pass on! Pass
on ! do you hear ? "
But the crowd were not to be lightly diverted. With
a persistence brutal and unquestioning they con-
tinued to howl "Open! Open!" while the man who
had broken the window the moment before, Jehau,
the cripple with the hideous face, seized the lead-
work, and tore away a great piece of it. Then laying
hold of a bar, he tried to drag it out, setting one foot
against the wall below.
Tavannes saw what he did, and his frame seemed
to dilate with the fury and violence of his character.
"Dogs! " he shouted, "must I call out my riders and
scatter you? Must I flog you through the streets
with stirrup-leathers? I am Tavanues, beware of me !
I have claws and teeth and I bite ! " he continued,
the scorn in his words exceeding even the rage of the
crowd, at which he flung them. "Kill where you
please, rob where you please, but not where I am !
Or I will hang you by the heels on Montfaucou, man
by man! I will flay your backs. Go! go! I am
Tavannes ! "
62 COUNT HANNIBAL.
But the mob, cowed for a moment by the thunder of
his voice, by his arrogance and recklessness, showed
at this that their patience was exhausted. With a
yell which drowned his tones they swayed for-
ward; a dozen thundered on the door, crying, "In
the King's name!" As many more tore out the re-
mainder of the casement, seized the bars of the win-
dow, and strove to pull them out or to climb between
them. Jehan, the cripple, with whom Tignonville had
rubbed elbows at the rendezvous, led the way.
Count Hannibal watched them a moment, his harsh
face bent down to them, his features plain in the
glare of the torches. But when the cripple, raised
on the others' shoulders, and emboldened by his ad-
versary's inactivity, began to squeeze himself through
the bars, Tavannes raised a pistol, which he had held
unseen behind him, cocked it at leisure, and levelled
it at the foul face which leered close to his. The dwarf
saw the weapon and tried to retreat ; but it was too
late. A flash, a scream, and the wretch, shot through
the throat, flung up his hands, and fell back into the
arms of a lean man in black who had lent him his
shoulder to ascend.
For a few seconds the smoke of the pistol filled the
window and the room. There was a cry that the Hu-
guenots were escaping, that the Huguenots were re-
sisting, that it was a plot ; and some shouted to guard
the back and some to watch the roof, and some to be
gone. But when the fumes cleared away, the mob
saw, with stupor, that all was as it had been. Count
Hannibal stood where he had stood before, a grim
smile on his lips.
"Who comes next! " he cried in a tone of mockery.
"I have more pistols!" And then with a sudden
WHO TOUCHES TAVANNES ! 63
change to ferocity, "You dogs! " he went on. "Yon
scum of a filthy city, sweepings of the Halles ! Do
you think to beard me ? Do you think to frighten me
or murder me ? I am Tavannes, and this is my house,
and were there a score of Huguenots in it, you should
not touch one, nor harm a hair of his head ! Begone,
I say again, while you may ! Seek women and chil-
dren, and kill them. But not here ! "
For an instant the mingled scorn and brutality of
his words silenced them. Then from the rear of the
crowd came an answer the roar of an arquebuse.
The ball whizzed past Count Hannibal's head, and,
splashing the plaster from the wall within a pace of
Tignonville, dropped to the ground.
Tavannes laughed. "Bungler! " he cried. "Were
you in my troop I would dip your trigger-finger in
boiling oil to teach you to shoot ! But you weary me,
dogs. I must teach you a lesson, must I *? " And he
lifted a pistol and levelled it. The crowd did not
know whether it was the one he had discharged or
another, but they gave back with a sharp gasp.
"I must teach you, must I? " he continued with scorn.
"Here Bigot, Badelon, drive me these blusterers!
Rid the street of them ! A Tavaunes ! A Tavannes ! "
Not by word or look had he before this betrayed that
he had supports. But as he cried the name, a dozen
men armed to the teeth, who had stood motionless
under the Croix du Tiroir, fell in a line on the right
flank of the crowd. The surprise for those nearest
them was complete. With the flash of the pikes be-
fore their eyes, with the cold steel in fancy between
their ribs, they fled every way, uncertain how many
pursued, or if any pursuit there was. For a moment
the mob, which a few minutes before had seemed so
64 COUKT HAKNTBAL.
formidable that a regiment might have quailed before
it, bade fair to be routed by a dozen pikes.
And so, had all in the crowd been what he termed
them, the rabble and sweepings of the streets, it
would have been. But in the heart of it, and felt
rather than seen, were a handful of another kidney ;
Sorbonne students and fierce-eyed priests, with three
or four mounted archers, the nucleus that, mov-
ing through the streets, had drawn together this
concourse. And these with threats and curses and
gleaming eyes stood fast, even Tavannes' dare-devils
recoiling before the tonsure. The check thus caused
allowed those who had budged a breathing space.
They rallied behind the black robes, and began to
stone the pikes; who in their turn withdrew until
they formed two groups, standing on their defence,
the one before the window the other before the door.
Count Hannibal had watched the attack and the
check, as a man watches a play ; with smiling inter-
est. In the panic, the torches had been dropped or
extinguished, and now between the house and the
sullen crowd which hung back, yet grew moment by
moment more dangerous, the daylight fell cold on the
littered street and the cripple's huddled form prone
in the gutter. A priest raised on the shoulders of the
lean man in black began to harangue the mob, and the
dull roar of assent, the brandished arms which greeted
his appeal, had their effect on Tavaunes' men. They
looked to the window, and muttered among them-
selves. It was plain that they had no stomach for
a fight with the Church, and were anxious for the
order to withdraw.
But Count Hannibal gave no order, and, much as
his people feared the cowls, they feared him more.
WHO TOUCHES TAYANNES t 65
Meanwhile the speaker's eloquence rose higher; he
pointed with frenzied gestures to the house. The
mob groaned, and suddenly a volley of stones fell
among the pikemeu, whose corselets rattled under the
shower. The priest seized that moment. He sprang
to the ground, and to the front. He caught up his
robe and waved his hand, and the rabble, as if impelled
by a single will, rolled forward in a huge one-fronted
thundering wave, before which the two handfuls of
pikemen afraid to strike, yet afraid to fly were
swept away like straws upon the tide.
But against the solid walls and oak-barred door of
the house the wave beat, only to fall back again, a
broken, seething mass of brandished arms and raven-
ing faces. One point alone was vulnerable, the win-
dow, and there in the gap stood Tavannes. Quick as
thought he fired two pistols into the crowd; then,
while the smoke for a moment hid all, he whistled.
Whether the signal was a summons to his men to
fight their way back as they were doing to the best
of their power or he had resources still unseen, was
not to be known. For as the smoke began to rise, and
while the rabble before the window, cowed by the fall
of two of their number, were still pushing backward
instead of forward, there rose behind them strange
sounds yells, and the clatter of hoofs, mingled with
screams of alarm. A second, and into the loose skirts
of the crowd came charging helter-skelter, pell-mell,
a. score of galloping, shrieking, cursing horsemen,
attended by twice as many footmen, who clung to
their stirrups or to the tails of the horses, and yelled
and whooped, and struck in unison with the mad-
dened riders.
" On ! on ! " the foremost shrieked, rolling in his
5
66 COUNT HANNIBAL.
saddle, and foaming at the mouth. "Bleed in Au-
gust, bleed in May ! Kill ! " And he fired a pistol
among the rabble, who fled every way to escape his
rearing, plunging charger.
"Kill! Kill!" cried his followers, cutting the air
with their swords, and rolling to and fro on their
horses in drunken emulation. "Bleed in August,
bleed in May ! "
" On ! On ! " cried the leader, as the crowd which
beset the house fled every way before his reckless
onset. " Bleed in August, bleed in May ! "
The rabble fled, but not so quickly but that one
or two were ridden down, and this for an instant
checked the riders. Before they could pass on,
" Ohe ! " cried Count Hannibal from his window.
"Ohe!" with a shout of laughter, "ride over them,
dear brother ! Make me a clean street for my wed-
ding ! "
Marshal Tavannes for he, the hero of Jarnac, was
the leader of this wild orgy turned that way, and
strove to rein in his horse. "What ails them?" he
cried, as the maddened animal reared upright, its
iron hoofs striking fire from the slippery pavement.
"They are rearing like thy Bayard!" Count Han-
nibal answered. "Whip them, whip them for me!
Tavannes ! Tavannes ! "
" What I This canaille ! "
" Ay, that canaille ! "
" Who touches my brother, touches Tavaunes ! "
the Marshal replied, and spurred his horse among the
rabble, who had fled to the sides of the street and
now strove hard to efface themselves against the
walls. "Begone, dogs; begone! " he cried, still hunt-
ing them. And then, "You would bite, would you? "
WHO TOUCHES TAVAXFES 1 67
And snatching another pistol from his boot, he fired
it among them, careless whom he hit. "Ha! ha!
That stirs you, does it ! " he continued as the wretches
fled headlong. "Who touches my brother, touches
Tavannes! On! On!"
Suddenly, from a doorway near at hand, a sombre
figure darted into the roadway, caught the Marshal's
rein, and for a second checked his course. The priest
for a priest it was, Father Pezelay, the same who
had addressed the mob held up a warning hand.
"Halt!" he cried, with burning eyes. "Halt, my
lord ! It is written, thou shalt not spare the Canaan -
itish woman. 'Tis not to spare the King has given
command and a sword, but to kill ! 'Tis not to har-
bour, but to smite ! To smite ! "
"Then smite I will!" the Marshal retorted, and
with the butt of his pistol struck the zealot down.
Then, with as much indifference as he would have
treated a Huguenot, he spurred his horse over him,
with a mad laugh at his jest. "Who touches my
brother, touches Tavannes!" he yelled. "Touches
Tavanues! On! On! Bleed in August, bleed in
May!"
"On!" shouted his followers, striking about them
in the same desperate fashion. They were young no-
bles who had spent the night feasting at the Palace,
and, drunk with wine and mad with excitement, had
left the Louvre at daybreak to rouse the city. "A
Jarnac ! A Jarnac ! " they cried, and some saluted
Count Hannibal as they passed. And so, shouting
and spurring and following their leader, they swept
away down the now empty street, carrying terror and
a flame wherever their horses bore them that morn-
ing.
68 COUNT HANNIBAL.
Tavannes, his hands on the ledge of the shattered
window, leaned out laughing, and followed them with
his eyes. A moment, and the mob was gone, the
street was empty; and one by one, with sheepish
faces, his pikemeu emerged from the doorways and
alleys in which they had taken refuge. They gath-
ered about the three huddled forms which lay prone
and still in the gutter: or, not three two. For
even as they approached them, one, the priest, rose
slowly and giddily to his feet. He turned a face
bleeding, lean, and relentless towards the window at
which Tavannes stood. Solemnly, with the sign of
the cross, and with uplifted hands, he cursed him in
bed and at board, by day and by night, in walking,
in riding, in standing, in the day of battle, and at the
hour of death. The pikejnen fell back appalled, and
hid their eyes; and those who were of the north
crossed themselves, and those who came from the
south bent two fingers horse-shoe fashion. But Han-
nibal de Tavannes laughed; laughed in his mous-
tache, his teeth showing, and bade them move that
carrion to a distance, for it would smell when the sun
was high. Then he turned his back on the street,
and looked into the room.
CHAPTER VH.
IN THE AMPHITHEATRE.
THE movements of the women had overturned two
of the candles ; a third had guttered out. The three
which still burned, contending pallidly with the day-
light that each moment grew stronger, imparted to
the scene the air of a debauch too long sustained.
The disordered board, the wan faces of the servants
cowering in their corner, Mademoiselle's frozen look
of misery, all increased the likeness; which a com-
mon exhaustion so far strengthened that when Ta-
vannes turned from the window, and, flushed with his
triumph, met the others' eyes, his seemed the only
vigour, and he the only man in the company. True,
beneath the exhaustion, beneath the collapse of his
victims, there burned passions, hatreds, repulsions, as
fierce as the hidden fires of the volcano ; but for the
time they smouldered ash -choked and inert.
He flung the discharged pistols on the table. "If
yonder raven speak truth," he said, "I am like to
pay dearly for my wife, and have short time to call
her wife. The more need, Mademoiselle, for speed,
therefore. You know the old saying, ' Short signing,
long seisin' ? Shall it be my priest, or your minister ? "
M. de Tignouville started forward. "She prom-
ised nothing ! " he cried. And he struck his hand on
the table.
70 COUNT HANNIBAL.
Count Hannibal smiled, his lip curling. "That,"
he replied, "is for Mademoiselle to say."
"But if she says it? If she says it, Monsieur?
What then?"
Tavanues drew forth a comfit-box, such as it was the
fashion of the day to carry, as men of a later time
carried a snuff-box. He slowly chose a prune. "If
she says it? " he answered. "Then M. de Tignonville
has regained his sweetheart. And M. de Tavannes
has lost his bride."
" You say so ! "
"Yes. But "
"But what?"
"But she will not say it," Tavannes replied coolly.
"Why not?"
"Why not?"
"Yes, Monsieur, why not?" the younger man re-
peated trembling.
"Because, M. de Tignonville, it is not true."
" But she did not speak I " Tignonville retorted,
with passion the futile passion of the bird which
beats its wings against a cage. "She did not speak.
She could not promise, therefore. "
Tavannes ate the prune slowly, seemed to give a
little thought to its flavour, approved it a true Agen
plum, and at last spoke. "It is not for you to say
whether she promised," he returned drily, "nor for
me. It is for Mademoiselle."
" You leave it to her ? "
"I leave it to her to say whether she promised."
"Then she must say No!" Tignonville cried in a
tone of triumph and relief. "For she did not speak.
Mademoiselle, listen ! " he continued, turning with
outstretched hands and appealing to her with passion.
IN THE AMPHITHEATEE. 71
"Do you hear? Do you understand? You have but
to speak to be free ! You have but to say the word,
and Monsieur lets you go! In God's name, speak!
Speak then, Clotilde ! Oh ! " with a gesture of de-
spair, as she did not answer, but continued to sit
stony and hopeless, looking straight before her, her
hands picking convulsively at. the fringe of her girdle.
"She does not understand! Fright has stunned her!
Be merciful, Monsieur. Give her time to recover, to
know what she does. Fright has turned her brain. "
Count Hannibal smiled. "I knew her father and
her uncle," he said, "and in their time the Vrillacs
were not wont to be cowards. Monsieur forgets, too,"
he continued with fine irony, "that he speaks of my
betrothed. "
"It is a lie!"
Tavannes raised his eyebrows. "You are in my
power," he said. "For the rest, if it be a lie, Ma-
demoiselle has but to say so."
" You hear him ? " Tignouville cried. " Then speak,
Mademoiselle! Clotilde, speak! Say you never
spoke, you never promised him ! "
The young man's voice quivered with indignation,
with rage, with pain ; but most, if the truth be told,
with shame the shame of a position strange and un-
paralleled. For in proportion as the fear of death
instant and A T iolent was lifted from him, reflection
awoke, and the situation in which he stood took uglier
shape. It was not so much love that cried to her,
love that suffered, anguished by the prospect of love
lost; as in the highest natures it might have been.
Bather it was the man's pride which suffered; the
pride of a high spirit which found itself helpless be-
tween the hammer and the anvil, in a position so false
72 COUNT HANNIBAL.
that hereafter men might say of the unfortunate that
he had bartered his mistress for his life. He had
not! But he had perforce to stand by; he had to
be passive under stress of circumstances, and by the
sacrifice, if she consummated it, he would in fact be
saved.
There was the pinch. No wonder that he cried to
her in a voice which roused even the servants from
their lethargy of fear. "Say it!" he cried. "Say
it, before it be too late. Say you did not promise ! "
Slowly she turned her face to him. "I cannot," she
whispered; "I cannot. Go," she continued, a spasm
distorting her features. "Go, Monsieur. Leave
me. It is over. "
"What?" he exclaimed. " You promised him ?"
She bowed her head.
"Then," the young man cried, in a transport of
resentment, "I will be no part of the price. See!
There ! And there ! " He tore the white sleeve
wholly from his arm, and, rending it in twain, flung
it on the floor and trampled on it. " It shall never
be said that I stood by and let you buy my life ! I
go into the street and I take my chance." And he
turned to the door.
But Tavauues was before him. "No!" he said;
" you will stay here, M. de Tignonville ! " And he set
his back against the door.
The young man looked at him, his face convulsed
with passion. " I shall stay here ?" he cried. "And
why, Monsieur? "What is it to you if I choose to per-
ish?"
"Only this," Tavannes retorted. "I am answerable
to Mademoiselle now, in an hour I shall be answer-
able to my wife for your life. Live, then, Monsieur ;
IN THE AMPHITHEATKE. 73
you have no choice. In a month you will thank me
and her."
"I am your prisoner? "
"Precisely."
"And I must stay here to be tortured?" Tignou-
ville cried.
Count Hannibal's eyes sparkled. Sudden stormy
changes, from indifference to ferocity, from irony
to invective, were characteristic of the man. "Tor-
tured!" he repeated grimly. "You talk of torture
while Piles and Pardaillau, Teligny and Kochefou-
cauld lie dead in the street ! While your cause sinks
withered in a night, like a gourd ! While your ser-
vants fall butchered, and France rises round you in a
tide of blood ! Bah ! " with a gesture of disdain
"you make me also talk, and I have no love for talk,
and small time. Mademoiselle, you at least act and
do not talk. By your leave I return in an hour, and
I bring with me shall it be my priest, or your minis-
ter?"
She looked at him with the face of one who awakes
slowly to the full horror, the full dread, of her posi-
tion. For a moment she did not answer. Then, "A
minister," she murmured, her voice scarcely audible.
He nodded. "A minister?" he said lightly.
" Very well, if I can find one. " And walking to the
shattered, gaping casement through which the cool
morning air blew into the room and gently stirred
the hair of the unhappy girl he said some words to
the man on guard outside. Then he turned to the
door, but on the threshold he paused, looked with a
strange expression at the pair, and signed to Carlat
and the servants to go out before him.
"Up, and lie close above!" he growled. "Open a
74 COUNT HANNIBAL.
window or look out, and you will pay dearly for it !
Do you hear? Up! Up! You, too, old crop -ears.
What ! would you ? " with a sudden glare as Carlat
hesitated "that is better! Mademoiselle, until my
return. "
He saw them all out, followed them, and closed the
door on the two ; who, left together, alone with the
gaping window and the disordered feast, maintained
a strange silence. The girl, gripping one hand in the
other as if to quell her rising horror, sat looking be-
fore her, and seemed barely to breathe. The man,
leaning against the wall at a little distance, bent his
eyes not on her, but on the floor, his face gloomy and
distorted.
His first thought should have been of her and for
her ; his first impulse to console, if he could not save
her. His it should have been to soften, were that
possible, the fate before her; to prove to her by
words of farewell, the purest and most sacred, that
the sacrifice she was making, not to save her own life
but the lives of others, was appreciated by him who
paid with her the price.
And all these things, and more, may have been in
M. de Tignonville's mind; they may even have been
uppermost in it, but they found no expression. The
man remained sunk in a sombre reverie. He had the
appearance of thinking of himself, not of her ; of his
own position, not of hers. Otherwise he must have
looked at her, he must have turned to her ; he must
have owned the subtle attraction of her unspoken
appeal when she drew a deep breath and slowly
turned her eyes on him, mute, asking, waiting what
he should offer.
Surely he should have ! Yet it was long before he
IN THE AMPHITHEATEB. 75
responded. He sat buried in thought of himself, and
his position, the vile, the unworthy position in which
her act had placed him. At length the constraint of
her gaze wrought on him, or his thoughts became
unbearable, and he looked up and met her eyes, and
with an oath he sprang to his feet.
"It shall not be!" he cried, in a tone low, but
full of fury. "You shall not do it! I will kill him
first! I will kill him with this hand! Or " a
step took him to the window, a step brought him
back ay, brought him back exultant, and with a
changed face. "Or better, we will thwart him yet.
See, Mademoiselle, do you see ? Heaven is merciful !
For a moment the cage is open ! " His eyes shone
with excitement, the sweat of sudden hope stood on
his brow as he pointed to the unguarded casement.
" Come ! it is our one chance ! " And he caught her
by her arm, and strove to draw her to the window.
But she hung back, staring at him. "Oh, no, no! "
she cried.
"Yes, yes! I say!" he responded. "You do not
understand. The way is open! We can escape, Clo-
tilde, we can escape ! "
" I cannot ! I cannot ! " she wailed, still resisting him.
"You are afraid?"
" Afraid ? " she repeated the word in a tone of won-
der. "No, but I cannot. I promised him. I can-
not. And, O God ! " she continued, in a sudden out-
burst of grief, as the sense of general loss, of the
great common tragedy broke on her and whelmed for
the moment her private misery. "Why should we
think of ourselves? They are dead, they are dying,
who were ours, whom we loved! Why should we
think to live ? What does it matter how it fares with
76 COUNT HANNIBAL.
us? We cannot be happy. Happy 1 ?" she continued
wildly. "Are any happy now? Or is the world all
changed in a night? No, we could not be happy.
And at least you will live, Tignonville. I have that
to console me."
"Live!" he responded vehemently. "I live? I
would rather die a thousand times. A thousand
times rather than live shamed! Thau see you sacri-
ficed to that devil ! Than go out with a brand on my
brow, for every man to point at me ! I would rather
die a thousand times! "
"And do you think that I would not?" she an-
swered, shivering. "Better, far better die than
than live with him ! "
"Then why not die? "
She stared at him, wide-eyed, and a sudden still-
ness possessed her. "How? " she whispered. "What
do you mean ? "
"That! " he said. As he spoke, he raised his hand
and signed to her to listen. A sullen murmur, dis-
tant as yet, but borne to the ear on the fresh morning
air, foretold the rising of another storm. The sound
grew in intensity, even while she listened ; and yet for
a moment she misunderstood him. "O God!" she
cried, out of the agony of nerves overwrought, "will
that bell never stop 1 Will it never stop ? Will no
one stop it?"
" 'Tis not the bell ! " he cried, seizing her hand as if
to focus her attention. "It is the mob you hear.
They are returning. We have but to stand a moment
at this open window, we have but to show ourselves
to them, and we need live no longer ! Mademoiselle !
Clotilde! if you mean what you say, if you are in
earnest, the way is open ! "
IN THE AMPHITHEATER 7?
"And we shall die together! "
"Yes, together. But have you the courage 1 ? "
" The courage !" she cried, a brave smile lighting
the whiteness of her face. "The courage were needed
to live. The courage were needed to do that. I am
ready, quite ready. It can be no sin ! To live with
that in front of me were the sin ! Come ! " For the
moment she had forgotten her people, her promise,
all ! It seemed to her that death would absolve her
from all. "Come!"
He moved with her under the impulse of her hand
until they stood at the gaping window. The mur-
mur, which he had heard indistinctly a moment be-
fore, had grown to a roar of voices. The mob, on
its return eastward along the Eue St. Honor6, was
nearing the house. He stood, his arm supporting
her, and they waited, a little within the window.
Suddenly he stooped, his face hardly less white than
hers ; their eyes met, and he would have kissed her.
She did not withdraw from his arm, but she drew
back her face, her eyes half shut. " No ! " she mur-
mured. " No ! While I live I am his. But we die
together, Tignonville ! We die together. It will not
last long, will it ? And afterwards "
She did not finish the sentence, but her lips moved
in prayer, and over her features came a far-away
look ; such a look as that which on the face of an-
other Huguenot lady, Philippine de Luns vilely
done to death in the Place Maubert fourteen years
before silenced the ribald jests of the lowest rabble
in the world. An hour or two earlier, awed by the
abruptness of the outburst, Mademoiselle had shrunk
from her fate ; she had known fear. Now that she
stood out voluntarily to meet it, she, like many a wo-
78 COUNT HAXNIBAL.
man before and since, feared no longer. She was
lifted out of and above herself.
But death was long in coming. Some cause beyond
their knowledge stayed the onrush of the mob along
the street. The din, indeed, persisted, deafened,
shook them ; but the crowd seemed to be at a stand a
few doors down the Eue St. Honore". For a half-
minute, a long half-minute, which appeared an age,
it drew no nearer. -Would it draw nearer 1 ? Would
it come on? Or would it turn again?
The doubt, so much worse than despair, began to
sap that courage of the man which is always better
fitted to do than to suffer. The sweat rose on Tig-
nonville's brow as he stood listening, his arm round
the girl as he stood listening and waiting. It is pos-
sible that when he had said a minute or two earlier
that he would rather die a thousand times than live
thus shamed, he had spoken beyond the mark. Or
it is possible that he had meant his words to the full.
But in this case he had not pictured what was to come,
he had not gauged correctly his power of passive en-
durance. He was as brave as the ordinary man, as
the ordinary soldier; but martyrdom, the apotheosis
of resignation, comes more naturally to women than
to men, more hardly to men than to women. Yet
had the crisis come quickly he might have met it.
But he had to wait, and to wait with that howling
of wild beasts in his ears ; and for this he was not
prepared. A woman might be content to die after
this fashion ; but a man ? His colour went and came,
his eyes began to rove hither and thither. Was it
even now too late to escape ? Too late to avoid the
consequences of the girl's silly persistence"? Too late
to ? Her eyes were closed, she hung half lifeless
IN THE AMPHITHEATER 79
on his arm. She would not know, she need not
know until afterwards. And afterwards she would
thank him ! Afterwards meantime the window was
open, the street was empty, and still the crowd hung
back and did not come.
He remembered that two doors away was a nar-
row passage, which leaving the Eue St. Honor6 turned
at right angles under a beetling archway, to emerge
in the Eue du Eoule. If he could gain that passage
unseen by the mob ! He would gain it. With a swift
movement, his mind made up, he took a step forward.
He tightened his grasp of the girl's waist, and, seiz-
ing with his left hand the end of the bar which the
assailants had torn from its setting in the window
jamb, he turned to lower himself. One long step
would land him in the street.
At that moment she awoke from the stupor of exal-
tation. She opened her eyes with a startled move-
ment ; and her eyes met his.
He was in the act of stepping backwards and down-
wards, dragging her after him. But it was not this
betrayed him. It was his face, which in an instant
told her all, and that he sought not death, but life !
She struggled upright and strove to free herself.
But he had the purchase of the bar, and by this time
he was furious as well as determined. Whether she
would or no, he would save her, he would drag her
out. Then, as consciousness fully returned, she, too,
took fire. "No!" she cried, "I will not!" and she
struggled more violently.
"You shall ! " he retorted between his teeth. "You
shall not perish here."
But she had her hands free, and as he spoke she
thrust him from her passionately, desperately, with
80 COUNT HANNIBAL.
all her strength. He had his one foot in the air
at the moment, and in a flash it was done. With a
cry of rage he lost his balance, and, still holding the
bar, reeled backwards through the window; while
Mademoiselle, panting and half fainting, recoiled
recoiled into the arms of Hannibal de Tavanues, who,
unseen by either, had entered the room a long minute
before. From the threshold, and with a smile, all his
own, he had watched the contest and the result.
CHAPTER VIII.
TWO HENS AND AN EGG.
M. DE TIGNONVILLE was shaken by the fall, and in
the usual course of things he would have lain where he
was, and groaned. But when a man has once turned
his back on death he is apt to fancy it at his shoul-
der. He has small stomach for surprises, and is in
haste to set as great a distance as possible between
the ugly thing and himself. So it was with the Hu-
guenot. Shot suddenly into the full publicity of the
street, he knew that at any instant danger might take
him by the nape ; and he was on his legs and glancing
up and down before the clatter of his fall had trav-
elled the length of three houses.
The rabble were still a hundred paces away, piled
up and pressed about a house where men were being
hunted as men hunt rats. He saw that he was un-
noted, and apprehension gave place to rage. His
thoughts turned back hissing hot to the thing that
had happened, and in a paroxysm of shame he shook
his fist at the gaping casement and the sneering face
of his rival, dimly seen in the background. If a
look would have killed Tavanues and her it had
not been wanting.
For it was not only the man M. de Tignonville
hated at this moment ; he hated Mademoiselle also,
the unwitting agent of the other's triumph. She had
thrust him from her ; she had refused to be guided
6
82 COUNT HANNIBAL.
by him; she had resisted, thwarted, shamed him.
Then let her take the consequences. She willed to
perish : let her perish !
He did not acknowledge even to himself the real
cause of offence, the proof to which she had put
his courage, and the failure of that courage to stand
the test. Yet it was this, though he had himself
provoked the trial, which burned up his chivalry, as
the smuggler's fire burns up the dwarf heath upon
the Laudes. It was the discovery that in an heroic
hour he was no hero that gave force to his passion-
ate gesture, and next moment sent him storming
down the beetling passage to the Rue du Koule, his
heart a maelstrom of fierce vows and fiercer men-
aces.
He had reached the further end of the alley and
was on the point of entering the street before he re-
membered that he had nowhere to go. His lodgings
were no longer his, since his landlord knew him to be
a Huguenot, and would doubtless betray him. To
approach those of his faith whom he had frequented
was to expose them to danger ; and, beyond the reli-
gion, he had few acquaintances and those of the new-
est. Yet the streets were impossible. He walked
them on the utmost edge of peril ; he lurked in them
under the blade of an impending axe. And, whether
he walked or lurked, he went at the mercy of the first
comers bold enough to take his life.
The sweat stood on his brow as he paused under
the low arch of the alley-end, tasting the bitter for-
loruness of the dog banned and set for death in
that sunlit city. In every window of the gable
end which faced his hiding-place he fancied an eye
watching his movements; in every distant step he
TWO HENS AND AN EGG. 83
heard the footfall of doom coming that way to his dis-
covery. And while he trembled, he had to reflect, to
think, to form some plan.
In the town was no place for him, and short of the
open country no safety. And how could he gain the
open country? If he succeeded in reaching one of
the gates St. Antoiue, or St. Denis, in itself a task
of difficulty it would only be to find the gate closed,
and the guard on the alert. At last it flashed on
him that he might cross the river; and at the no-
tion hope awoke. It was possible that the massacre
had not extended to the southern suburb; possible,
that if it had, the Huguenots who lay there Fronte-
nay, and Montgomery, and Chartres, with the men of
the North might be strong enough to check it, and
even to turn the tables on the Parisians.
His colour returned. He was no coward, as sol-
diers go; if it came to fighting he had courage
enough. He could not hope to cross the river by the
bridge, for there, where the goldsmiths lived, the
mob were like to be most busy. But if he could
reach the bank he might procure a boat at some
deserted point, or, at the worst, he might swim
across.
From the Louvre at his back came the sound of
gun-shots ; from every quarter the murmur of distant
crowds, or the faint lamentable cries of victims. But
the empty street before him promised an easy pas-
sage, and he ventured into it and passed quickly
through it. He met no one, and no one molested
him; but as he went he had glimpses of pale
faces that from behind the casements watched him
come and turned to watch him go ; and so heavy on
Ms nerves was the pressure of this silent ominous at-
84 COUNT HANNIBAL.
teution, that lie blundered at the eiid of the street.
He should have taken the southerly turning ; instead
he held on, found himself in the Rue Ferronerie, and
a moment later was all but in the arms of a band of
city guards, who were making a house-to-house visi-
tation.
He owed his safety rather to the condition of the
street than to his presence of mind. The Eue Ferro-
nerie, narrow in itself, was so choked at this date by
stalls and bulkheads, that an edict directing the re-
moval of those which abutted on the cemetery had
been issued a little before. Nothing had been done
on it, however, and this neck of Paris, this main
thoroughfare between the east and the west, between
the fashionable quarter of the Marais and the fashion-
able quarter of the Louvre, was still a devious huddle
of sheds and pent-houses. Tignonville slid behind
one of these, found that it masked the mouth of an
alley, and, heedless whither the passage led, ran hur-
riedly along it. Every instant he expected to hear
the hue and cry behind him, and he did not halt or
draw breath until he had left the soldiers far in the
rear, and found himself astray at the junction of four
noisome lanes, over two of which the projecting ga-
bles fairly met. Above the two others a scrap of sky
appeared, but this was too small to indicate in which
direction the river lay.
Tiguonville hesitated, but not for long ; a burst of
voices heralded a new danger, and he shrank into a
doorway. Along one of the lanes a troop of chil-
dren, the biggest not twelve years old, came dancing
and leaping round something which they dragged by
a string. Now one of the hindmost would hurl it
onward with a kick, now another, amid screams of
TWO HENS AND AN EGG. 85
/
childish laughter, tripped headlong over the cord;
now at the crossways they stopped to wrangle and
question which way they should go, or whose turn it
was to pull and whose to follow. At last they started
afresh with a whoop, the leader singing and all
plucking the string to the cadence of the air. Their
plaything leapt and dropped, sprang forward, and
lingered like a thing of life. But it was no thing of
life, as Tignonville saw with a shudder when they
passed him. The object of their sport was the naked
body of a child, an infant !
His gorge rose at the sight. Fear such as he had
not before experienced chilled his marrow. This was
hate indeed, a hate before which the strong man
quailed ; the hate of which Mademoiselle had spoken
when she said that the babes crossed themselves,
at her passing, and the houses tottered to fall upon
her!
He paused a minute to recover himself, so deeply
had the sight moved him ; and as he stood, he won-
dered if that hate already had its cold eye fixed on
him. Instinctively his gaze searched the opposite
wall, but save for two small double-grated windows
it was blind ; time-stained and stone-built, dark with
the ordure of the city lane, it seemed but the back
of a house, which looked another way. The outer
gates of an arched doorway were open, and a loaded
hay-cart, touching either side and brushing the arch
above, blocked the passage. His gaze, leaving the
windows, dropped to this, he scanned it a moment;
and on a sudden he stiffened. Between the hay and
the arch a hand flickered an instant, then vanished.
Tignonville stared. At first he thought his eyes
had tricked him. Then the hand appeared again,
86 COUNT HANNIBAL.
\
and this time it conveyed an unmistakable invitation.
It is not from the unknown or the hidden that the
fugitive has aught to fear, and Tiguonville, after cast-
ing a glance down the lane which revealed a single
man standing with his face the other way slipped
across and pushed between the hay and the wall. He
coughed.
A voice whispered to him to climb up ; a friendly
hand clutched him in the act, and aided him. In a
second he was lying on his face, tight squeezed be-
tween the hay and the roof of the arch. Beside him
lay a man whose features his eyes, unaccustomed to
the gloom, could not discern. But the man knew
him and whispered his name.
"You know me?" Tignonville muttered in aston-
ishment.
" I marked you, M. de Tiguonville, at the preach-
ing last Sunday, " the stranger answered placidly.
"You were there? "
"I preached."
"Then you are M. la Tribe! "
"I am," the clergyman answered quietly. "They
seized me on my threshold, but I left my cloak in
their hands and fled. One tore my stocking with his
point, another my doublet, but not a hair of my head
was injured. They hunted me to the end of the next
street, but I lived and still live, and shall live to lift
up my voice against this wicked city. "
The sympathy between the Huguenot by faith and
the Huguenot by politics was imperfect. Tignon-
ville, like most men of rank of the younger genera-
tion, was a Huguenot by politics ; and he was in a
bitter humour. He felt, perhaps, that it was men
such as this who had driven the other side to excesses
TWO HENS AND AN EGG. 87
snch as these ; and he hardly repressed a sneer. " I
wish I felt as sure!" he muttered bluntly. "You
know that all our people are dead? "
"He can save by few or by many," the preacher
answered devoutly. "We are of the few, blessed "be
God, and shall see Israel victorious, and our people
as a flock of sheep ! "
"I see small chance of it," Tignonville answered
contemptuously.
" I know it as certainly as I knew before you came,
M. de Tignonville, that you would come.! "
"That I should come?"
"That some one would come," La Tribe answered,
correcting himself. "I knew not who it would be
until you appeared and placed yourself in the door-
way over against me, even as Obadiah in the Holy
Book passed before the hiding-place of Elijah."
The two lay on their faces side by side, the rafters
of the archway low on their heads. Tignonville lifted
himself a little, and peered anew at the other. He
fancied that La Tribe's mind, shaken by the horrors
of the morning and his narrow escape, had given way.
"You rave, man," he said. "This is no time for
visions. "
"I said naught of visions," the other answered.
"Then why so sure that we shall escape? "
"I am certified of it," La Tribe replied. "And
more than that, I know that we shall lie here some
days. The time has not been revealed to me, but it
will be days and a day. Then we shall leave this
place unharmed, as we entered it, and, whatever be-
tide others, we shall live."
Tignonville shrugged his shoulders. "I tell you,
you rave, M. la Tribe," he said petulantly. "At any
88 COUNT HANNIBAL.
moment we may be discovered. Even now I hear
footsteps. "
"They tracked me well-nigh to this place," the
minister answered placidly.
"The deuce they did!" Tiguonville muttered, with
irritation. He dared not raise his voice. "I would
you had told me that before I joined you, Monsieur,
and I had found some safer hiding-place ! When we
are discovered
"Then," the other continued calmly, "you will see."
"In any case we shall be better farther back,"
Tignonville retorted. "Here, we are within an ace
of being seen from the lane." And he began to*
wriggle himself backwards.
The minister laid his hand on him. "Have a
care! " he muttered. "And do not move, but listen.
And you will understand. When I reached this
place it would be about five o'clock this morning
breathless, and expecting each minute to be dragged
forth to make my confession before men, I despaired
as you despair now. Like Elijah under the juniper
tree, I said 'It is enough, O Lord! Take my soul
also, for I am no better than my fellows ! ' All the
sky was black before my eyes, and my ears were filled
with the wailiugs of the little ones and the lamenta-
tions of women. 'O Lord, it is enough,' I prayed.
' Take my soul, or, if it be Thy will, then, as the angel
was sent to take the cakes to Elijah, give me also a
sign that I shall live. ' "
For a moment he paused, struggling with overpow-
ering emotion. Even his impatient listener, hitherto
incredulous, caught the infection, and in a tone of
awe murmured, "Yes ? And then, M. la Tribe!"
"The sign was given me. The words were scarcely
TWO HENS AND AN EGG. 89
out of my mouth when a lieu flew up, aud, scratching
a nest iu the hay at my feet, presently laid an egg. "
Tignonville stared. "It was timely, I admit," he
said. "But it is no uncommon thing. Probably it
has its nest here and lays daily. "
"Young man, this is new-mown hay," the minister
answered solemnly. "This cart was brought here no
further back than yesterday. It smells of the mead-
ow, and the flowers hold their colour. No, the fowl
was sent. To-morrow it will return, and the next,
and the next, until the plague be stayed and I go
hence. But that is not all. A while later a second
hen appeared, and I thought it would lay in the same
nest. But it made a new one, on the side on which
you lie 'and not far from your foot. Then I knew
that I was to have a companion, and that God had
laid also for him a table in the wilderness."
"It did lay, then?"
" It is still on the nest, beside your foot. "
Tignonville was about to reply when the preacher
grasped his arm and by a sign enjoined silence. He
did so not a moment too soon. Preoccupied by the
story, narrator and listener had paid no heed to what
was passing in the lane, aud the voices of men speak-
ing close at hand took them by surprise. From the
first words which reached them, it was clear that the
speakers were the same who had chased La Tribe as
far as the meeting of the four ways, and, losing him
there, had spent the morning in other business. Now
they had returned to hunt him down, and but for a
wrangle which arose among them and detained them,
they had stolen on their quarry before their coming
was suspected.
" 'Twas this way he ran ! " " No, 'twas the other ! "
90 COUNT HANNIBAL.
they contended; and their words, winged with vile
threats and oaths, grew noisy and hot. The two lis-
teners dared scarcely to breathe. The danger was so
near, it was so certain that if the uieu came three
paces farther, they would observe and search the hay-
cart, that Tignonville fancied the steel already at his
throat. He felt the hay rustle under his slightest
movement, and gripped one hand with the other to
restrain the tremor of overpowering excitement. Yet
when he glanced at the minister he found him un-
moved, a smile on his face. And M. de Tiguonville
could have cursed him for his folly.
For the men were coming on! An instant, and
they perceived the cart, and the ruffian who had ad-
vised this route pounced on it in triumph. "There!
Did I not say so?" he cried. "He is curled up in
that hay, for the Satan's grub he is! That is where
he is, see you ! "
"Maybe," another answered grudgingly, as they
gathered before it. "And maybe not, Simon! "
"To hell with your maybe not!" the first replied.
And he drove his pike deep into the hay and turned
it viciously.
The two on the top controlled themselves. Tignon-
ville's face was livid; of himself he would have
slid down amongst them and taken his chance, prefer-
ring to die fighting, to die in the open, rather than to
perish like a rat in a stack. But La Tribe had
gripped his arm and held him fast.
The man whom the others called Simon thrust
again, but too low and without result. He was for
trying a third time, when one of his comrades who
had gone to the other side of the lane announced that
the men were on the top of the hay.
TWO HENS AND AN EGG. 91
"Can you see them! "
"No, but there's room and to spare."
" Oh, a curse on your room ! " Simon retorted.
"Well, you can look."
"If that's all, I'll soon look!" was the answer.
And the rogue, forcing himself between the hay and
the side of the gateway, found the wheel of the cart,
and began to raise himself on it. Tiguonville, who
lay on that hand, heard, though he could not see his
movements. He knew what they meant, he knew
that in a twinkling he must be discovered ; and with
a last prayer he gathered himself for a spring.
It seemed an age before the intruder's head ap-
peared on a level with the hay ; and then the alarm
came from another quarter. The hen which had
made its nest at Tignonville's feet, disturbed by the
movement or by the newcomer's hand, flew out with
a rush and flutter as of a great firework. Upsetting
the startled Simon, who slipped swearing to the
ground, it swooped scolding and clucking over the
heads of the other men, and reaching the street in
safety scuttled off at speed, its outspread wings sweep-
ing the earth in its rage.
They laughed uproariously as Simon emerged, rub-
bing his elbow. "There's for you! There's your
preacher ! " his opponent jeered.
"D 11 her! she gives tongue as fast as any of
them!" gibed a second. "Will you try again, Si-
mon ? You may find another love-letter there ! "
"Have done!" a third cried impatiently. "He'll
not be where the hen is! Let's back! Let's back!
I said before that it wasn't this way he turned!
He's made for the river."
"The plague in his vitals!" Simon replied furi-
92 COUNT HANNIBAL.
ously. "Wherever lie is, I'll find him!" And re-
luctant to confess himself wrong, he lingered, casting
vengeful glances at the hay. But one of the other
men cursed him for a fool ; and presently, forced to
accept his defeat or be left alone, he rejoined his
fellows. Slowly the footsteps and voices receded along
the lane ; slowly, until silence swallowed them, and on
the quivering strained senses of the two who re-
mained behind, descended the gentle influence of twi-
light and the sweet scent of the new-mown hay on
which they lay.
La Tribe turned to his companion, his eyes shin-
ing. "Our soul is escaped," he murmured, "even as
a bird out of the snare of the fowler. The snare is
broken and we are delivered ! " His voice shook as
he whispered the ancient words of triumph.
But when they came to look in the nest at Tignon-
ville's feet there was no egg!
CHAPTER IX.
UNSTABLE.
AND that troubled M. la Tribe no little, although
he did not impart his thoughts to his companion. In-
stead they talked in whispers of the things which
had happened ; of the Admiral, of Teligny, whom all
loved, of Eochefoucauld the accomplished, the King's
friend ; of the princes in the Louvre whom they gave
up for lost, and of the Huguenot nobles on the far-
ther side of the river, of whose safety there seemed
some hope. Tignonville he best knew why said
nothing of the fate of his betrothed, or of his own
adventures in that connection. But each told the
other how the alarm had reached him, and painted
in broken words his reluctance to believe in treach-
ery so black. Thence they passed to the future of
the cause, and of that took views as opposite as light
and darkness, as Papegot and Huguenot. The one
was confident, the other in despair. And some time
in the afternoon, worn out by the awful experiences
of the last twelve hours, they fell asleep, their heads
on their arms, the hay tickling their faces ; and, with
death stalking the lane beside them, slept soundly
until after sundown.
When they awoke hunger awoke with them, and
urged on La Tribe's mind the question of the missing
egg. It was not altogether the prick of appetite
which troubled him, but regarding the hiding-place in
94 COUNT HANNIBAL.
which they lay as an ark of refuge providentially
supplied, protected and victualled, he could not
refrain from asking reverently what the deficiency
meant. It was not as if one hen only had appeared ;
as if no farther prospect had been extended. But
up to a certain point the message was clear. Then
when the Hand of Providence had shown itself most
plainly, and in a manner to melt the heart with
awe and thankfulness, the message had been blurred.
Seriously the Huguenot asked himself what it por-
tended.
To Tignonville, if he thought of it at all, the mat-
ter was the matter of an egg, and stopped there. An
egg might alleviate the growing pangs of hunger ; its
non-appearance was a disappointment, but he traced
the matter no farther. It must be confessed that the
hay-cart was to him only a hay-cart and not an ark ;
and the sooner he was safely away from it the better
he would be pleased. While La Tribe, lying snug
and warm beside him, thanked God for a lot so dif-
ferent from that of such of his fellows as had escaped
whom he pictured crouching in dank cellars, or
on roof -trees exposed to the heat by day and the
dews by night the young man grew more and more
restive.
Hunger pricked him, and the meanness of the part
he had played moved him to action. About mid-
night, resisting the dissuasions of his companion, he
would have sallied out in search of food if the pas-
sage of a turbulent crowd had not warned him that
the work of murder was still proceeding. He curbed
himself after that and lay until daylight. But, ill
content with his own conduct, on fire when he thought
of his betrothed, he was in no temper to bear hard-
UNSTABLE. 95
ship cheerfully or long; and gradually there rose
before his mind the picture of Madame St. Lo's
smiling face, and the fair hair which curled low on
the white of her neck.
He would, and he would not. Death that had
stalked so near him preached its solemn sermon. But
death and pleasure are never far apart; and at no
time and nowhere have they jostled one another more
familiarly than in that age, wherever the influence
of Italy and Italian art and Italian hopelessness ex-
tended. Again, on the one side, La Tribe's example
went for something with his comrade in misfortune ;
but in the other scale hung relief from discomfort,
with the prospect of a woman's smiles and a woman's
flatteries, of dainty dishes, luxury, and passion. If
he went now, he went to her from the jaws of death,
with the glamour of adventure and peril about him ;
and the veiy going into her presence was a lure.
Moreover, if he had been willing while his betrothed
was still his, why not now when he had lost her?
It was this last reflection and one other thing
which came on a sudden into his mind which turned
the scale. About noon he sat up in the hay, and,
abruptly and sullenly, "I'll lie here no longer,"
he said; and he dropped his legs over the side. "I
shall go."
The movement was so unexpected that La Tribe
stared at him in silence. Then, "You will run a
great risk, M. de Tiguonville, " he said gravely, "if
you do. You may go as far under cover of night as
the river, or you may reach one of the gates. But as
to crossing the one or passing the other, I reckon it a
thing impossible."
"I shall not wait until night," Tignonville answered
96 COUNT HANNIBAL.
curtly, a ring of defiance in his tone. "I shall go
now ! I'll lie here no longer ! "
"Now?"
"Yes, now."
"You will be mad if you do, "the other replied.
He thought it the petulant outcry of youth tired of
inaction ; a protest, and nothing more.
He was speedily undeceived. "Mad or not, I am
going ! " Tignouville retorted. And he slid to the
ground, and from the covert of the hanging fringe of
hay looked warily up and down the lane. "It is
clear, I think," he said. "Good-bye." And with no
more, without one upward glance or a gesture of the
hand, with no further adieu or word of gratitude, he
walked out into the lane, turned briskly to the left,
and vanished.
The minister uttered a cry of astonishment, and
made as if he would descend also. "Come back,
sir ! " he called, as loudly as he dared. " M. de Tig-
nonville, come back ! This is folly or worse ! "
But M. de Tignouville was gone.
La Tribe listened a while, unable to believe it,
and still expecting his return. At last, hearing no-
thing, he slid, greatly excited, to the ground and
looked out. It was not until he had peered up and
down the lane and made sure that it was empty that
he could persuade himself that the other had gone for
good. Then he climbed slowly and seriously to his
place again, and sighed as he settled himself. "Un-
stable as water thou shalt not excel ! " he muttered.
"'Now I know why there was only one egg."
Meanwhile Tiguonville, after putting a hundred
yards between himself and his bedfellow, plunged
into the first dark entry which presented itself. Hur-
UNSTABLE. 97
riedly, and with a frowning face, he cut off his left
sleeve from shoulder to wrist ; and this act, by dis-
closing his linen, put him in possession of the white
sleeve which he had once involuntarily donned, and
once discarded. The white cross on the cap he
could not assume, for he was bareheaded. But he
had little doubt that the sleeve would suffice, and
with a bold demeanour he made his way northward
until he reached again the Eue Ferrouerie.
Excited groups were wandering up and down the
street, and, fearing to traverse its crowded narrows,
he went by lanes parallel with it as far as the Rue St.
Denis, which he crossed. Everywhere he saw houses
gutted and doors burst in, and traces of a cruelty and
a fanaticism almost incredible. Near the Eue des
Lombards he saw a dead child, stripped stark and
hanged on the hook of a cobbler's shutter. A little
further on in the same street he stepped over the
body of a handsome young woman, distinguished by
the length and beauty of her hair. To obtain her
bracelets, her captors had cut off her hands ; after-
wards but God knows how long afterwards a
passer-by, more pitiful than his fellows, had put her
out of her misery with a spit, which still remained
plunged in her body.
M. de Tignonville shuddered at the sight, and at
others like it. He loathed the symbol he wore, and
himself for wearing it ; and more than once his better
nature bade him return and play the nobler part.
Once he did turn with that intention. But he had set
his mind on comfort and pleasure, and the value of
these things is raised, not lowered, by danger and
uncertainty. Quickly his stoicism oozed away; he
turned again. Barely avoiding the rush of a crowd
7
98 COUNT HANNIBAL.
of wretches who were bearing a swooning victim to the
river, he hurried through the Rue des Lombards and
reached in safety the house beside the "Golden Maid."
He had no doubt now on which side of the "Maid "
Madame St. Lo lived; the house was plain before
him. He had only to knock. But in proportion as
he approached his haven, his anxiety grew. To lose
all, with all in his grasp, to fail upon the threshold,
was a thing which bore no looking at; and it was
with a nervous hand and eyes cast fearfully behind
him that he plied the heavy iron knocker which
adorned the door.
He could not turn his gaze from a knot of ruffians,
who were gathered under one of the tottering gables
on the farther side of the street. They seemed to be
watching him, and he fancied though the distance
rendered this impossible that he could see suspicion
growing in their eyes. At any moment they might
cross the roadway, they might approach, they might
challenge him. And at the thought he knocked and
knocked again. Why did not the porter come ?
Ay, why ? For now a score of contingencies came
into the young man's mind and tortured him. Had
Madame St. Lo withdrawn to safer quarters and closed
the house? Or, good Catholic as she was, had she
given way to panic, and determined to open to no one ?
Or was she ill? Or had she perished in the general
disorder? Or
And then, even as the men began to slink towards
him, his heart leapt. He heard a footstep heavy and
slow move through the house. It came nearer and
nearer. A moment, and an iron-grated Judas-hole in
the door slid open, and a servant, an elderly man,
sleek and respectable, looked out at him.
UNSTABLE. 99
Tignonville could scarcely speak for excitement.
"Madame St. Lo"?" lie muttered tremulously. "I
come to her from her cousin the Comte de Tavannes.
Quick ! quick ! if you please. Open to me ! "
"Monsieur is alone? "
"Yes! Yes!"
The man nodded gravely and slid back the bolts.
He allowed M. de Tignonville to enter, then with care
he secured the door, and led the way across a small
square court, paved with red tiles and enclosed by
the house, but open above to the sunshine and the
blue sky. A gallery which ran round the upper floor
looked on this court, in which a great quiet reigned,
broken only by the music of a fountain. A vine
climbed on the wooden pillars which supported the
gallery, and, aspiring higher, embraced the wide
carved eaves, and even tapestried with green the
three gables that on each side of the court broke the
sky-line. The grapes hung nearly ripe, and amid
their clusters and the green lattice of their foliage
Tignonville's gaze sought eagerly but in vain the
laughing eyes and piquant face of his new mistress.
For with the closing of the door, and the passing from
him of the horrors of the streets, he had entered, as
by magic, a new and smiling world ; a world of tennis
and roses, of tinkling voices and women's wiles, a
world which smacked of Florence and the South, and
love and life ; a world which his late experiences had
set so far away from him, his memory of it seemed a
dream. Now, as he drank in its stillness and its fra-
grance, as he felt its safety and its luxury lap him
round once more, he sighed. And with that breath
he rid himself of much.
The servant led him to a parlour, a cool shady room
100 COUNT HANNIBAL.
on the farther side of the tiny quadrangle, and, mut-
tering something inaudible, withdrew. A moment
later a frolicsome laugh, and the light flutter of a
woman's skirt as she tripped across the court,
brought the blood to his cheeks. He went a step
nearer to the door, and his eyes grew bright.
CHAPTER X.
MADAME ST. LO.
So far excitement had supported Tignonville in his
escape. It was only when he knew himself safe, when
he heard Madame St. Lo's footstep in the courtyard
and knew that in a moment he would see her, that he
knew also that he was failing for want of food. The
room seemed to go round with him ; the window to
shift, the light to flicker. And then again, with
equal abruptness, he grew strong and steady and per-
fectly master of himself. Nay, never had he felt a
confidence in himself so overwhelming or a capacity
so complete. The triumph of that which he had
done, the knowledge that of so many he, almost
alone, had escaped, filled his brain with a delicious
and intoxicating vanity. When the door opened, and
Madame St. Lo appeared on the threshold, he ad-
vanced holding out his arms. He expected that she
would fall into them.
But Madame only backed and curtseyed, a mis-
chievous light in her eyes. "A thousand thanks,
Monsieur! 7 ' she said, "but you are more ready than
I ! " And she remained by the door.
"I have come to you through all! " he cried, speak-
ing loudly because of a humming in his ears. "They
are lying in the streets ! They are dying, are dead,
are hunted, are pursued, are perishing ! But I have
come through all to you ! "
102 COUNT HANNIBAL.
She curtseyed anew. "So I see, Monsieur!" she
answered. "I am nattered!" But she did not ad-
vance, and gradually, light-headed as he was, he be-
gan to see that she looked at him with an odd close-
ness. And he took offence.
"I say, Madame, I have come to you!" he repeat-
ed. "And you do not seem pleased ! "
She came forward a step and looked at him still
more oddly. a Oh, yes," she said. "I am pleased,
M. de Tignonville. It is what I intended. But tell
me how you have fared. You are not hurt ? "
"Not a hair!" he cried boastfully. And he told
her in a dozen windy sentences of the adventure of
the hay-cart and his narrow escape. He wound up
with a foolish meaningless laugh.
" Then you have not eaten for thirty-six hours ? "
she said. And when he did not answer, "I under-
stand," she continued, nodding and speaking as to a
child. And she rang a silver handbell and gave an
order. She addressed the servant in her usual tone,
but to Tiguonville's ear her voice seemed to fall to a
whisper. Her figure she was small and fairy-like
began to sway before him ; and then in a moment, as
it seemed to him, she Avas gone, and he was seated at
a table, his trembling fingers grasping a cup of wine
which the elderly servant who had admitted him was
holding to his lips. On the table before him were a
spit of partridges and a cake of white bread. When
he had swallowed a second mouthful of wine which
cleared his eyes as by magic the man urged him to
eat. And he fell to with an appetite that grew as he
ate.
By and by, feeling himself again, he became aware
that two of Madame's women were peering at him
MADAME ST. LO. 103
through the open doorway. He looked that way and
they fled giggling into the court; but in a moment
they were back again, and the sound of their tittering
drew his eyes anew to the door. It was the custom of
the day for ladies of rank to wait on their favourites
at table; and he wondered if Madame were with
them, and why she did not come and serve him
herself.
But for a while longer the savour of the roasted
game took up the major part of his thoughts; and
when prudence warned him to desist, and he sat
back, satisfied after his long fast, he was in no mood
to be critical. Perhaps for somewhere in the house
he heard a lute Madame was entertaining those
whom she could not leave ? Or deluding some who
might betray him if they discovered him 1
From that his mind turned back to the streets and
the horrors through which he had passed ; but for
a moment and no more. A shudder, an emotion of
prayerful pity, and he recalled his thoughts. In
the quiet of the cool room, looking on the sunny,
vine -clad court, with the tinkle of the lute and the
murmurous sound of women's voices in his ears, it
was hard to believe that the things from which he
had emerged were real. It was still more unpleasant,
and as futile, to dwell on them. A day of reckoning
would come, and, if La Tribe were right, the cause
would rally, bristling with pikes and snorting with
war-horses, and the blood spilled in this wicked city
would cry aloud for vengeance. But the hour was
not yet. He had lost his mistress, and for that atone-
ment must be exacted. But in the present another
mistress awaited him, and as a man could only die
once, and might die at any minute, so he could
104 COUNT HANNIBAL.
only live once and in the present. Then vogue la
gcdere !
As he roused himself from this brief reverie and
fell to wondering how long he was to be left to him-
self, a rosebud tossed by an unseen hand struck him
on the breast and dropped to his knees. To seize it
and kiss it gallantly, to spring to his feet and look
about him were instinctive movements. But he could
see no one ; and, in the hope of surprising the giver,
he stole to the window. The sound of the lute and
the distant tinkle of laughter persisted. The court,
save for a page, who lay asleep on a bench in the
gallery, was empty. Tignonville scanned the boy
suspiciously; a male disguise was often adopted by
the court ladies, and if Madame would play a prank
on him, this was a thing to be reckoned with. But
a boy it seemed to be, and after a while the young
man went back to his seat.
Even as he sat down, a second flower struck him
more sharply in the face, and this time he darted not
to the window but to the door. He opened it quickly
and looked out, but again he was too late.
"I shall catch you presently, ma rmie/"he mur-
mured tenderly, with intent to be heard. And he
closed the door. But, wiser this time, he waited with
his hand on the latch until he heard the rustling of a
skirt, and saw the line of light at the foot of the door
darkened by a shadow. That moment he flung the
door wide, and, clasping the wearer of the skirt in his
arms, kissed her lips before she had time to resist.
Then he fell back as if he had been shot! For
the wearer of the skirt, she whom he had kissed, was
Madame St. Lo's woman, and behind her stood Ma-
dame herself, laughing, laughing, laughing with all
MADAME ST. LO. 105
the gay abandonment of her light little heart. "Oh,
the gallant gentleman!" she cried, and clapped her
hands effusively. "Was eA*er recovery so rapid ?
Or triumph so speedy? Suzanne, my child, you sur-
pass Venus. Your charms conquer before they are
seen ! "
M. de Tignonville had put poor Suzanne from him
as if she burned; and hot and embarrassed, cursing
his haste, he stood looking awkwardly at them.
"Madame," he stammered at last, "you know quite
well that I
"Seeing is believing! "
"That I thought it was you ! "
" Oh, what I have lost ! " she replied. And she
looked archly at Suzanne, who giggled and tossed her
head.
He was growing angry. "But, Madame," he pro-
tested, "you know "
"I know what I know, and I have seen what I
have seen ! " Madame answered merrily. And she
hummed,
"Ce fut le plus grand jour d'este
Que m'embrassa la belle Suzanne!
"Oh, yes, I know what I know!" she repeated.
And she fell again to laughing immoderately ; while
the pretty piece of mischief beside her hung her head,
and, putting a finger in her mouth, mocked him with
an affectation of modesty.
The young man glowered at them between rage and
embarrassment. This was not the reception, nor this
the hero's return to which he had looked forward.
And a doubt began to take form in his mind. The
mistress he had pictured would not laugh at kisses
106 COUNT HANNIBAL.
given to another; nor forget in a twinkling the
straits through which he had come to her, the hell
from which he had plucked himself! Possibly the
court ladies held love as cheap as this, and lovers but
as playthings, butts for their wit, and pegs on which
to hang their laughter. But but he began to doubt,
and, perplexed and irritated, he showed his feelings.
"Madame," he said stiffly, "a jest is an excellent
thing. But pardon me if I say that it is ill played on
a fasting man."
Madame desisted from laughter that she might
speak. "A fasting man?" she cried. "And he has
eaten two partridges ! "
"Fasting from love, Madame."
Madame St. Lo held up her hands. "And it's not
two minutes since he took a kiss ! "
He winced, was silent a moment, and then seeing
that he got nothing by the tone he had adopted he
cried for quarter. "A little mercy, Madame, as you
are beautiful," he said, wooing her with his eyes.
"Do not plague me beyond what a man can bear.
Dismiss, I pray you, this good creature whose charms
do but set off yours as the star leads the eye to the
moon and make me the happiest man in the world
by so much of your company as you will vouchsafe to
give me."
"That may be but a very little," she answered, let-
ting her eyes fall coyly, and affecting to handle the
tucker of her low ruff. But he saw that her lip
twitched ; and he could have sworn that she mocked
him to Suzanne, for the girl giggled.
Still by an effort he controlled his feelings. " Why
so cruel ? " he murmured, in a tone meant for her
alone, and with a look to match. "You were not so
MADAME ST. LO. 107
hard when I spoke with you in the gallery, two even-
ings ago, Madame."
"Was I not?" she asked. "Did I look like this?
And this?" And, languishing, she looked at him
very sweetly after two fashions.
"Something."
" Oh, then I meant nothing ! " she retorted with
sudden vivacity. And she made a face at him,
laughing under his nose. " I do that when I mean
nothing, Monsieur ! Do you see ? But you are Gas-
con, and given, I fear, to flatter yourself."
Then he saw clearly that she played with him : and
resentment, chagrin, pique got the better of his cour-
tesy. "I flatter myself?" he cried, his voice choked
with rage. " It may be I do now, Madame, but did I
flatter myself when you wrote me this note ? " And
he drew it out and flourished it in her face. "Did I
imagine when I read this? Or is it not in your hand?
It is a forgery, perhaps," he continued bitterly. "Or
it means nothing? Nothing, this note bidding me
be at Madame St. Lo's at an hour before midnight
it means nothing? At an hour before midnight,
Madame ! "
"On Saturday night? The night before last
night? "
"On Saturday night, the night before last night!
But Madame knows nothing of it? Nothing, I sup-
pose?"
She shrugged her shoulders and smiled cheerfully
on him. "Oh, yes, I wrote it," she said. "But what
of that, M. de Tignonville? "
"What of that?"
"Yes, Monsieur, what of that? Did you think it
was written out of love for you ? "
108 COUNT HANNIBAL.
He was staggered for the moment by her coolness.
"Out of what, then?" he cried hoarsely. "Out of
what, then, if not out of love ? "
" Why, out of pity, my little gentleman ! " she an-
swered sharply. "And trouble thrown away it
seems. Love ! " And she laughed so merrily and
spontaneously it cut him to the heart. "No; but you
said a dainty thing or two, and smiled a smile ; and
like a fool, and like a woman, I was sorry for the in-
nocent calf that bleated so prettily on its way to the
butcher's! And I would lock you up and save your
life, I thought, until the blood-letting was over.
Now you have it, M. de Tignouville, and I hope you
like it."
Like it, when every word she uttered stripped him
of the selfish illusions in which he had wrapped him-
self against the blasts of ill-fortune 1 ? Like it, when
the prospect of her charms had bribed him from the
path of fortitude, when for her sake he had been false
to his mistress, to his friends, to his faith, to his
cause ? Like it, when he knew as he listened that all
was lost, and nothing gained not even this poor,
unworthy, shameful compensation 1 ? Like it? No
wonder that words failed him, and he glared at her in
rage, in misery, in shame.
"Oh, if you don't like it," she continued, tossing
her head after a momentary pause, "then you should
not have come ! It is of no profit to glower at me,
Monsieur. You do not frighten me."
"I would I would to God I had not come!" he
groaned.
"And, I dare say, that you had never seen me
since you cannot win me ! "
"That too," he exclaimed.
MADAME ST. LO. 109
She was of an extraordinary levity, and at that
after staring at him a moment she broke into shrill
laughter. "A little more, and I'll send you to my
cousin Hannibal ! " she said. "You do not know how
anxious he is to see you. Have you a mind, " with a
waggish look, "to play bride's man, M. de Tignon-
ville? Or will you give away the bride? It is not
too late, though soon it will be ! "
He winced, and from red grew pale. "What do
you mean ? " he stammered. And, averting his eyes
in shame, seeing now all the littleness, all the base-
ness of his position, "Has he married her?" he
continued.
"Ho, ho!" she cried in triumph. "I've hit you
now, have I, Monsieur? I've hit you! " And mock-
ing him, "Has he married her?" she lisped. "No;
but he will marry her, have no fear of that ! He will
marry her. He waits but to get a priest. "Would you
like to see what he says?" she continued, playing
with him as a cat plays with a mouse. " I had a note
from him yesterday. Would you like to see how wel-
come you'll be at the wedding? " And she flaunted a
piece of paper before his eyes.
" Give it me, " he said.
She let him seize it the while she shrugged her
shoulders. "It's your affair, not mine," she said.
"See it if you like, and keep it if you like. Cousin
Hannibal wastes few words."
That was true, for the paper contained but a dozen
or fifteen words, and an initial by way of signa-
ture. "I may need your shaveling to-morrow after-
noon. Send him, and Tignonville in safeguard if he
come. H."
"I can guess what use he has for a priest," she
110 COUNT HANNIBAL.
said. "It is not to confess him, I warrant. It's
long, I fear, since Hannibal told his beads."
M. de Tignonville swore. "I would I had the con-
fessing of him ! " he said between his teeth.
She clapped her hands in glee. "Why should you
not?" she cried. "Why should you not? 'Tis time
yet, since I am to send to-day and have not sent.
Will you be the shaveling to go confess or marry
him?" And she laughed recklessly. "Will you, M.
de Tiguonville? The cowl will mask you as well as
another, and pass you through the streets better than
a cut sleeve. He will have both his wishes, lover and
clerk in one then. And it will be pull monk, pull
Hannibal with a vengeance."
Tiguonville gazed at her, and as he gazed courage
and hope awoke in his eyes. What if, after all, he
could undo the past? What if, after all, he could
retrace the false step he had taken, and place him-
self again where he had been by Tier side? "If you
meant it ! " he exclaimed, his breath coming fast. "If
you only meant what you say, Madame."
"If?" she answered, opening her eyes. "And
why should I not mean it ? "
"Because," he replied slowly, "cowl or no cowl,
when I meet your cousin
"'Twill go hard with him?" she cried, with a
mocking laugh. "And you think I fear for him.
That is it, is it?"
He nodded.
"I fear just so much for him!" she retorted with
contempt. "Just so much!" And coming a step
nearer to Tignouville she snapped her small white fin-
gers under his nose. "Do you see? No, M. de Tig-
nonville," she continued, "you do not know Count
MADAME ST. LO. Ill
Hannibal if you think that he fears, or that any fear
for him. If you will beard the lion in his den, the
risk will be yours, not his! "
The young man's face glowed. "I take the risk! "
he cried. "And I thank you for the chance; that,
Madame, whatever betide. But "
"But what?" she asked, seeing that he hesitated
and that his face fell.
"If he afterwards learn that you have played him
a trick," he said, "will he not punish you? "
"Punish me?"
He nodded.
Madame laughed her high disdain. "You do not
yet know Hannibal de Tavannes," she said. "He
does not war with women. "
CHAPTER XI.
A BARGAIN.
IT is the wont of the sex to snatch at an ell where
an inch is offered, and to press an advantage in cir-
cumstances in which a man, acknowledging the claims
of generosity, scruples to ask for more. The habit,
now ingrained, may have sprung from long depend-
ence on the male, and is one which a hundred in-
stances, from the time of Judith downward, prove to
be at its strongest where the need is greatest.
When Mademoiselle de Vrillac came out of the
hour-long swoon into which her lover's defection had
cast her, the expectation of the worst was so strong
upon her that she could not at once credit the re-
spite which Madame Carlat hastened to announce.
She could not believe that she still lay safe, in her
own room above stairs ; that she was in the care of
her own servants, and that the chamber held no pres-
ence more hateful than that of the good woman who
sat weeping beside her.
As was to be expected, she came to herself sighing
and shuddering, trembling with nervous exhaustion.
She looked for Mm, as soon as she looked for any;
and even when she had seen the door locked and
double-locked, she doubted doubted, and shook and
hid herself in the hangings of the bed. The noise of
the riot and rapine which prevailed in the city, and
which reached the ear even in that locked room
A BABGAIK 113
and although the window, of paper, with an upper
pane of glass, looked into a courtyard was enough
to drive the blood from a woman's cheeks. But it
was fear of the house, not of the street, fear from
within, not from without, which impelled the girl into
the darkest corner and shook her wits. She could
not believe that even this short respite was hers, until
she had repeatedly heard the fact confirmed at Madame
Carlat's mouth.
"You are deceiving me ! " she cried more than once.
And each time she started up in fresh terror. "He
never said that he would not return until to-mor-
row ! "
"He did, my lamb, he did!" the old woman an-
swered with tears. "Would I deceive you? "
"He said he would not return? "
"He said he would not return until to-morrow.
You had until to-morrow, he said."
"And then f "
"He would come and bring the priest with him,"
Madame Carlat replied sorrowfully.
" The priest ? To-morrow ! " Mademoiselle cried.
"The priest!" and she crouched anew with hot eyes
behind the hangings of the bed, and, shivering, hid
her face.
But this for a time only. As soon as she had made
certain of the respite, and that she had until the mor-
row, her courage rose, and with it the instinct of
which mention has been made. Count Hannibal had
granted a respite ; short as it was, and no more than
the barest humanity required, to grant one at all was
not the act of the mere butcher who holds the trem-
bling lamb, unresisting, in his hands. It was an act
no more, again be it said, than humanity required
114 COUNT HANNIBAL.
and yet au act which bespoke an expectation of
some return, of some correlative advantage. It was
not in the part of the mere brigand. Something had
been granted. Something short of the utmost in the
captor's power had been exacted. He had shown that
there were things he would not do.
Then might not something more be won from him?
A further delay, another point ; something, no matter
what, which could be turned to advantage. With
the brigand it is not possible to bargain. But who
gives a little may give more ; who gives a day may
give a week ; who gives a week may give a month.
And a mouth? Her heart leapt up. A month
seemed a lifetime, an eternity, to her who had but
until to-morrow !
Yet there was one consideration which might have
daunted a spirit less brave. To obtain aught from
Tavannes it was needful to ask him, and to ask him
it was needful to see him ; and to see him before that
to-morrow which meant so much to her. It w r as nec-
essary, in a word, to run some risk ; but without risk
the card could not be played, and she did not hesi-
tate. It might turn out that she was wrong, that the
man was not only pitiless and without bowels of
mercy, but lacked also the shred of decency for which
she gave him credit, and on which she counted. In
that case, if she sent for him but she would not con-
sider that case.
The position of the window, while it increased the
women's safety, debarred them from all knowledge
of what was going forward, except that which their
ears afforded them. They had no means of judging
whether Tavannes remained in the house or had sal-
lied forth to play his part in the work of murder.
A BABGAIK 115
Madame Carlat, indeed, had no desire to know any-
thing. In that room above stairs, with the door
double-locked, lay a hope of safety in the present, and
of ultimate deliverance ; there she had a respite from
terror, as long as she kept the world outside. To
her, therefore, the notion of sending for Tavannes, or
communicating with him, came as a thunderbolt.
"Was her mistress mad? Did she wish to court her
fate ? To reach Tavaunes they must apply to his rid-
ers, for Carlat and the men-servants were confined
above. Those riders were grim, brutal men, who
might resort to rudeness on their own account. And
Madame, clinging in a paroxysm of terror to her mis-
tress, suggested all manner of horrors, one on top of
the other, until she increased her own terror tenfold.
And yet, to do her justice, nothing that even her
frenzied imagination suggested exceeded the things
which the streets of Paris, fruitful mother of horrors,
were witnessing at that very hour. As we now know.
For it was noon or a little more of Sunday, Au-
gust the twenty-fourth, "a holiday, and therefore the
people could more conveniently find leisure to kill
and plunder." From the bridges, and particularly
from the stone bridge of Notre Dame while they lay
safe in that locked room, and Tignonville crouched in
his haymow Huguenots less fortunate were being
cast, bound hand and foot, into the Seine. On the
river bank Spire Niquet, the bookman, was being
burnt over a slow fire, fed with his own books. In
their houses, Eamus the scholar and Goujon the sculp-
tor than whom Paris has neither seen nor deserved
a greater were being butchered like sheep ; and in
the Valley of Misery, now the Quai de la Megisserie,
seven hundred persons who had sought refuge in the
116 COUNT HANNIBAL.
prisons were being beaten to death with bludgeons.
Nay, at this hour a little sooner or a little later,
what matters it? M. Tignonville's own cousin, Ma-
dame d'Yverne, the darling of the Louvre the day
before, perished in the hands of the mob; and the
sister of M. de Taverny, equally ill-fated, died in the
same fashion, after being dragged through the streets.
Madame Carlat, then, went not a whit beyond the
mark in her argument. But Mademoiselle had made
up her mind, and was not to be dissuaded.
"If I am to be Monsieur's wife," she said with
quivering nostrils, "shall I fear his servants? "
And opening the door herself, for the others would
not, she called. The man who answered was a Nor-
man; and short of stature, and wrinkled and low-
browed of feature, with a thatch of hair and a full
beard, he seemed the embodiment of the women's ap-
prehensions. Moreover, his patois of the cider-land
was little better than German to them ; their southern,
softer tongue was sheer Italian to him. But he
seemed not ill-disposed, or Mademoiselle's air over-
awed him ; and presently she made him understand,
and with a nod he descended to carry her message.
Then Mademoiselle's heart began to beat; and beat
more quickly when she heard his step alas! she
knew it already, knew it from all others on the
stairs. The table was set, the card must be played,
to win or lose. It might be that with the low, opinion
he held of women he would think her reconciled to
her lot ; he would think this an overture, a step to-
wards kinder treatment, one more proof of the incon-
stancy of the lower and the weaker sex, made to be
men's playthings. And at that thought her eyes grew
hot with rage. But if it were so, she must still put
A BARGAIN. 117
tip with it. She must still put up with it ! She had
sent for him, and he was coming he was at the door !
He entered, and she breathed more freely. For
once his face lacked the sneer, the look of smiling
possession, which she had come to know and hate.
It was grave, expectant, even suspicious ; still harsh
and dark, akin, as she now observed, to the low-
browed, furrowed face of the rider who had sum-
moned him. But the offensive look was gone, and
she could breathe.
He closed the door behind him, but he did not
advance into the room. "At your pleasure, Ma-
demoiselle?" he said simply. "You sent for me, I
think."
She was on her feet, standing before him with
something of the subinissiveness of Eoxana before her
conqueror. "I did," she said; and stopped at that,
her hand to her side as if she could not continue.
But presently in a low voice, "I have heard," she
went on, "what you said, Monsieur, after I lost con-
sciousness."
"Yes?" he said; and was silent. Nor did he lose
his watchful look.
" I am obliged to you for your thought of me, " she
continued in a faint voice, "and I shall be still fur-
ther obliged I speak to you thus quickly and thus
early if you will grant me a somewhat longer time."
"Do you mean if I will postpone our marriage? "
"Yes, Monsieur."
" It is impossible ! "
" Do not say that, " she cried, raising her voice im-
pulsively. " I appeal to your generosity. And for a
short, a very short, time only."
"It is impossible," he answered quietly. "And
118 COUNT HANNIBAL.
for reasons, Mademoiselle. In the first place I can
more easily protect my wife. In the second, I am
even now summoned to the Louvre, and should be on
my way thither. By to-morrow evening, unless I am
mistaken in the business on which I am required, I
shall be on my way to a distant province with royal
letters. It is essential that our marriage take place
before I go."
" Why ? " she asked stubbornly.
He shrugged his shoulders. " Why? " he repeated.
" Can you ask, Mademoiselle, after the events of last
night? Because, if you please, I do not wish to share
the fate of M. de Tignonville. Because in these days
life is uncertain, and death too certain. Because it
was our turn last night, and it may be the turn of
your friends to-morrow night ! "
"Then some have escaped? " she cried.
He smiled. "I am glad to find you so shrewd," he
replied. " In an honest wife it is an excellent qual-
ity. Yes, Mademoiselle; one or two."
"Who? Who? I pray you tell me."
"M. de Montgomery, who slept beyond the river,
for one; and the Vidame, and some wdth him. M.
de Birou, whom I count a Huguenot, and who holds
the Arsenal in the King's teeth, for another. And a
few more. Enough, in a word. Mademoiselle, to keep
us wakeful. It is impossible, therefore, for me to
postpone the fulfilment of your promise."
"A promise on conditions!" she retorted, in rage
that she could win no more. And every line of her
splendid figure, every tone of her voice flamed sud-
den, hot rebellion. "I do not go for nothing! You
gave me the lives of all in the house, Monsieur ! Of
all!" she repeated with passion. "And all are not
A BABGAIN. 119
here ! Before I marry you, you must show me M. de
Tignoiiville alive and safe ! "
He shrugged his shoulders. "He has taken himself
off, "he said. "It is naught to me what happens to
him now."
" It is all to me ! " she retorted.
At that he glared at her, the veins of his forehead
swelling suddenly. But after a seeming struggle with
himself he put the insult by, perhaps for future reck-
oning and account. "I did what I could," he said
sullenly. "Had I willed it he had died there and
then in the room below. I gave him his life. If he
has risked it anew and lost it, it is naught to me. "
"It was his life you gave me," she repeated stub-
bornly. "His life and the others. But that is not
all," she continued; "you promised me a minister."
He nodded, smiling sourly to himself, as if this
confirmed a suspicion he had entertained. "Or a
priest," he said.
"No, a minister."
"If one could be obtained. , If not, a priest."
"No, it was to be at my will ; and I will a minister!
I will a minister ! " she cried passionately. "Show me
M. Tiguonville alive, and bring me a minister of my
faith, and I will keep my promise, M. de Tavannes.
Have no fear of that. But otherwise, I will not. "
"You will not? " he cried. "You will not? "
"No!"
"You will not marry me? "
"No!"
The moment she had said it fear seized her, and she
could have fled from him, screaming. The flash of
his eyes, the sudden passion of his face, burned them-
selves into her memory. She thought for a second
120 COUNT HANNIBAL.
that he would spring on her and strike her down.
Yet though the women behind her held their breath,
she faced him, and did not quail ; and to that, she
fancied, she owed it that he controlled himself.
"You will not?" he repeated, as if he could not un-
derstand such resistance to his will as if he could
not credit his ears. "You will not? " But after that,
when he had said it three times, he laughed ; a laugh,
however, with a snarl in it that chilled her blood.
"You bargain, do you?" he said. "You will have
the ^ast tittle of the price, will you? And have
thought of this and that to put me off, and to gain
time until your lover, who is all to you, come to save
you ? Oh, clever girl ! clever ! But have you thought
where you stand woman? Do you know that if I
gave the word to my people they would treat you as
the commonest baggage that tramps the Froidmantel ?
Do you know that it rests with me to save you, or to
throw you to the wolves whose ravening you hear ? "
And he pointed to the window. l i Minister ? Priest ? "
he continued. " Mon Dieu, Mademoiselle, I stand as-
tonished at my moderation. You chatter to me of
ministers and priests, and the one or the other, when
it might be neither ! When you are as much and as
hopelessly in my power to-day as the wench in my
kitchen ! You ! You flout me, and make terms with
me ! You ! "
And he came so near her with his dark harsh face,
his tone rose so menacing on the last word, that her
nerves, shattered before, gave way, and, unable to
control herself, she flinched with a low cry, thinking
he would strike her.
He did not follow, nor move to follow; but he
laughed a low laugh of content. And his eyes de-
A BAKGAIK 121
voured her. "Ho! ho!" he said. "We are not so
brave as we pretend to be, it seems. And yet you
dared to chaffer with me? You thought to thwart
me Tavannes! Mon Dieu, Mademoiselle, to what
did you trust? To what did you trust? Ay, and to
what do you trust? "
She knew that by the movement, which fear had
forced from her, she had jeopardised everything.
That she stood to lose all and more than all which she
had thought to win by a bold front. A woman less
brave, of a spirit less firm, would have given up the
contest, and have been glad to escape so. But this
woman, though her bloodless face showed that she
knew what cause she had for fear, and though her
heart was, indeed, sick with sheer terror, held her
ground at the point to which she had retreated. She
played her last card. "To what do I trust?" she
muttered with trembling lips.
"Yes, Mademoiselle," he answered, between his
teeth. "To what do you trust that you play with
Tavannes?"
"To his honour, Monsieur," she answered faintly.
"And to your promise."
He looked at her with his mocking smile. "And
yet," he sneered, "you thought a moment ago that I
was going to strike you. You thought that I should
beat you ! And now it is my honour and my promise !
Oh, clever, clever, Mademoiselle ! 'Tis so that women
make fools of men. I knew that something of this
kind was on foot when you sent for me, for I know
women and their ways. But, let me tell you, it is an
ill time to speak of honour when the streets are red !
And of promises when the King's word is 'No faith
with a heretic ! ' "
122 COUNT HANNIBAL.
"Yet you will keep yours," she said bravely.
He did not answer at once, and hope which was al-
most dead in her breast began to recover ; nay, pres-
ently sprang up erect. For the man hesitated, it was
evident; he brooded with a puckered brow and gloomy
eyes ; an observer might have fancied that he traced
pain as well as doubt in his face. At last: "There
is a thing, " he said slowly and with a sort of glare
at her, "which, it may be, you have not reckoned.
You press me now, and will stand on your terms and
your conditions, your -ifs and your unlesses ! You will
have the most from me, and the bargain and a little
beside the bargain ! But I would have you think if
you are wise. Bethink you how it will be between
us when you are my wife if you press me so now,
Mademoiselle. How will it sweeten things then?
How will it soften them ? And to what, I pray you,
will you trust for fair treatment then, if you will be
so against me now ? "
She shuddered. "To the mercy of my husband,"
she said in a low voice. And her chin sank on her
breast.
" You will be content to trust to that ? " he answered
grimly. And his tone and the lifting of his brow
promised little clemency. "Bethink you! 'Tis your
rights now, and your terms, Mademoiselle ! And then
it will be only my mercy Madame."
"I am content," she muttered faintly.
"And the Lord have mercy on my soul, is what
you would add," he retorted, "so much trust have
you in my mercy! And you are right! You are
right, since you have played this trick on me. But
as you will. If you will have it so, have it so ! You
shall stand on your conditions now ; you shall have
A BABGAIK 123
your pennyweight and full advantage, and the rigour
of the pact. But afterwards afterwards, Madame
de Tavannes "
He did not finish his sentence, for at the first word
which granted her petition, Mademoiselle had sunk
down on the low wooden window-seat beside which
she stood, and, cowering into its farthest corner, her
face hidden on her arms, had burst into violent weep-
ing. Her hair, hastily knotted up in the hurry of the
previous night, hung in a thick plait to the curve of
her waist ; the nape of her neck showed beside it milk-
white. The man stood awhile contemplating her in
silence, his gloomy eyes watching the pitiful move-
ment of her shoulders, the convulsive heaving of her
figure. But he did not offer to touch her, and at
length he turned about. First one and then the other
of her women quailed and shrank under his gaze ; he
seemed about to add something. But he did not
speak. The sentence he had left unfinished, the long
look he bent on the weeping girl as he turned from
her, spoke more eloquently of the future than a score
of orations.
" Afterwards, Madame de Tavannes I "
CIIAPTEB XII.
IN THE HALL OF THE LOUYRE.
IT is a strange thing that love or passion, if the
sudden fancy for Mademoiselle which had seized
Count Hannibal be deemed unworthy of the higher
name should so entirely possess the souls of those
who harbour it that the greatest events and the most
astounding catastrophes, even measures which set
their mark for all time on a nation, are to them of
importance only so far as they affect the pursuit of
the fair one.
As Tavannes, after leaving Mademoiselle, rode
through the paved lanes, beneath the gabled houses,
and under the shadow of the Gothic spires of his day,
he saw a score of sights, moving to pity, or wrath, or
wonder. He saw Paris as a city sacked ; a slaughter-
house, where for a week a masque had moved to
stately music; blood on the nailed doors and the
close-set window bars ; and at the corners of the ways
strewn garments, broken weapons, the livid dead in
heaps. But he saw all with eyes which in all and
everywhere, among living and dead, sought only
Tignonville; Tignonville first, and next a heretic
minister, with enough of life in him to do his office.
Probably it was to this that one man hunted
through Paris owed his escape that day. He sprang
from a narrow passage full in Tavannes' view, and,
hair on end, his eyes starting from his head, ran
blindly as a hare will run when chased along the
IN THE HALL OF THE LOUYEE. 125
street to meet Count Hannibal's company. The
man's face was wet with the dews of death, his lungs
seemed cracking, his breath hissed from him as he
ran. His pursuers were hard on him, and, seeing
him headed by Count Hannibal's party, yelled in
triumph, holding him for dead. And dead he would
have been within thirty seconds had Tavannes played
his part. But his thoughts were elsewhere. Either
he took the poor wretch for Tignonville, or for the
minister on whom his mind was running ; at any rate
he suffered him to slip under the belly of his horse ;
then, to make matters worse, he wheeled to follow
him in so untimely and clumsy a fashion that his
horse blocked the way and stopped the pursuers in
their tracks. The quarry slipped into an alley and
vanished. The hunters stood and blasphemed, and
even for a moment seemed inclined to resent the mis-
take. But Tavannes smiled; a broader smile light-
ened the faces of the six iron-clad men behind him ;
and for some reason the gang of ruffians thought bet-
ter of it and slunk aside.
There are hard men, who feel scorn of the things
which in the breasts of others excite pity. Tavannes'
lip curled as he rode on through the streets, looking
this way and that, and seeing what a King twenty-
two years old had made of his capital. His lip curled
most of all when he came, passing between the two
tennis-courts, to the east gate of the Louvre, and
found the entrance locked and guarded, and all com-
munication between city and palace cut off. Such a
proof of unkingly panic, in a crisis wrought by the
King himself, astonished him less a few minutes later,
when, the keys having been brought and the door
opened, he entered the courtyard of the fortress.
126 COUNT HANNIBAL.
Within and about the door of the gatehouse some
three-score archers and arquebusiers stood to their
arms; not in array, but in disorderly groups, from
which the babble of voices, of feverish laughter, and
strained jests rose without ceasing. The westering
sun, of which the beams just topped the farther side
of the quadrangle, fell slantwise on their armour,
and heightened their exaggerated and restless move-
ments. To a calm eye they seemed like men acting
in a nightmare. Their fitful talk and disjointed ges-
tures, their sweating brows and damp hair, no less than
the sullen, brooding silence of one here and there,
bespoke the abnormal and the terrible. There were
livid faces among them, and twitching cheeks, and
some who swallowed much; and some again vho
bared their crimson arms and bragged insanely of the
part they had played. But perhaps the most striking
thing was the thirst, the desire, the demand for news,
and for fresh excitement. In the space of time it
took him to pass through them, Count Hannibal
heard a dozen rumours of what was passing in the
city; that Montgomery and the gentlemen who had
slept beyond the river had escaped on horseback in
their shirts ; that Guise had been shot in the pursuit ;
that he had captured the Vidame de Chartres and all
the fugitives ; that he had never left the city ; that he
was even then entering by the Porte de Bucy. Again
that Biron had surrendered the Arsenal, that he had
threatened to fire on the city, that he was dead, that
with the Huguenots who had escaped he was march-
ing on the Louvre, that
And then Tavaunes passed out of the blinding sun-
shine, and out of earshot of their babble, and had
plain in his sight across the quadrangle, the new
IN THE HALL OF THE LOUVKE. 127
facade, Italian, graceful, of the Eenaissance; which
rose in smiling contrast with the three dark Gothic
sides that now, the central tower removed, frowned
unimpeded at one another. But what was this which
lay along the foot of the new Italian wall? This,
round which some stood, gazing curiously, while
others strewed fresh sand about it, or after long
downward-looking glanced up to answer the question
of a person at a window?
Death ; and over death death in its most cruel as-
pect a cloud of buzzing, whirling flies, and the
smell, never to be forgotten, of much spilled blood.
From a doorway hard by came shrill bursts of hyster-
ical laughter; and with the laughter plumped out,
even as Tavannes crossed the court, a young girl,
thrust forth it seemed by her fellows, for she turned
about and struggled as she came. Once outside she
hung back, giggling and protesting, half willing, half
unwilling ; and meeting Tavannes' eye thrust her way
in again with a whirl of her petticoats, and a shriek.
But before he had taken four paces she was out again.
He paused to see who she was, and his thoughts
involuntarily went back to the woman he had left
weeping in the upper room. Then he turned about
again and stood to count the dead. He identified
Piles, identified Pardaillan, identified Soubise whose
corpse the murderers had robbed of the last rag and
Touchet and St. Galais. He made his reckoning with
an unmoved face, and with the same face stopped and
stared, and moved from one to another ; had he not
seen the slaughter about il le petit homme" at Jarnac,
and the dead of three pitched fields ? But when a by-
stander, smirking obsequiously, passed him a jest on
Soubise, and with his finger pointed the jest, he had
128 COUNT HANNIBAL.
the same hard unmoved face for the gibe as for the
dead. Arid the jester shrank away, abashed and per-
plexed by his stare and his reticence.
Half way up the staircase to the great gallery or
guardroom above, Count Hannibal found his brother,
the Marshal, huddled together in drunken slumber
on a seat in a recess. In the gallery to which he
passed ^n without awakening him, a crowd of cour-
tiers and ladies, with arquebusiers and captains of the
quarters, walked to and fro, talking in whispers ; or
peeped over shoulders towards the inner end of the
hall, where the querulous voice of the King rose now
and again above the hum. As Tavannes moved that
way, Nangay, in the act of passing out, booted and
armed for the road, met him and almost jostled him.
"Ah, well met, M. le Comte," he sneered, with as
much hostility as he dared betray. " The King has
asked for you twice."
"I am going to him. And you? Whither in such
a hurry, M. Nangay ? "
"To Chatillon."
"On pleasant business?"
"Enough that it is on the King's!" Nangay re-
plied with unexpected temper. "I hope that you
may find yours as pleasant ! " he added with a grin.
And he went on.
The gleam of malice in the man's eye warned Ta-
vannes to pause. He looked round for someone who
might be in the secret, saw the Provost of the Mer-
chants and approached him. "What's amiss, M. le
Charron?" he asked. "Is not the affair going as it
should?"
" 'Tis about the Arsenal, M. le Comte, " the Provost
answered busily. "M. de Biron is harbouring the
IN THE HALL OF THE LOUVEE. 129
vermin there. He has lowered the portcullis and
pointed his culverins over the gate and will not yield
it or listen to reason. The King would bring him to
terms, but no one will venture himself inside with the
message. Eats in a trap, you know, bite hard, and
care little whom they bite."
" I begin to understand. "
"Precisely, M. le Comte. His Majesty would have
sent M. de Nangay. But he elected to go to Chatil-
lon, to seize the young brood there. The Admiral's
children, you comprehend."
"Whose teeth are not yet grown! He was wise."
"To be sure, M. de Tavannes, to be sure. But the
King was annoyed, and on top of that came a priest
with complaints, and if I may make so bold as to ad-
vise you, you will not "
But Tavannes fancied that he had caught the gist
of the difficulty, and with a nod he moved on ; and
so he missed the point of the warning which the other
had it in his mind to give. A moment and he
reached the inner circle, and there halted, discon-
certed, nay, taken aback. For as soon as he showed
his face, the King, who was pacing to and fro like a
caged beast, before a table at which three clerks knelt
on cushions, espied him and stood still. "With a
glare of something like madness in his eyes, Charles
raised his hand with a shaking finger and singled him
out.
"So, by G d, you are there!" he cried, with a
volley of blasphemy. And he signed to those about
Count Hannibal to stand away from him. "You are
there, are you f And you are not afraid to show your
face ? I tell you, it's you and such as you bring us
into contempt! so that it is said everywhere Guise
9
130 COUNT HANNIBAL.
does all and serves God, and we follow because we
must! It's you, and such as you, are stumbling-
blocks to our good folk of Paris! Are you traitor,
sirrah?" he continued with passion, "or are you of
our brother Alencon's opinions, that you traverse our
orders to the damnation of your soul and our dis-
credit? Are you traitor? Or are you heretic? Or
what are you? God in heaven, will you answer me,
man, or shall I send you where you will find your
tongue ? "
"I know not of what your Majesty accuses me,"
Count Hannibal answered, with a scarcely perceptible
shrug of the shoulders.
"I? 'Tis not I," the King retorted. His hair
hung damp on his brow, and he dried his hands con-
tinually ; while his gestures had the ill-measured and
eccentric violence of an epileptic. "Here, you ! Speak,
father, and confound him ! "
Then Tavaunes discovered on the farther side of
the circle the priest whom his brother had ridden
down that morning. Father Pezelay's pale hatchet-
face gleamed paler than ordinary ; and a great band-
age hid one temple and part of his face. But, below
the bandage, the flame of his eyes was not lessened,
nor the venom of his tongue. To the King he had
come for no other would deal with his violent oppo-
nent; to the King's presence! and, as he prepared to
blast his adversary, now his chance was come, his
long lean frame, in its narrow black cassock, seemed
to grow longer, leaner, more baleful, more snake-
like. He stood there a fitting representative of the
dark fanaticism of Paris, which Charles and his suc-
cessor the last of a doomed line alternately used as
tool or feared as master ; and to which the most de-
IN THE HALL OF THE LOUVRE. 131
based and the most immoral of courts paid, in its
sober hours, a vile and slavish homage. Even in
the midst of the drunken, shameless courtiers who
stood, if they stood for anything, for that other in-
fluence of the day, the Renaissance he was to be
reckoned with; and Count Hannibal knew it. He
knew that in the eyes not of Charles only, but of nine
out of ten who listened to him, a priest was more
sacred than a virgin, and a tonsure than all the
virtues of spotless innocence.
" Shall the King give with one hand and withdraw
with the other ? " the priest began, in a voice hoarse
yet strident, a voice borne high above the crowd on
the wings of passion. "Shall he spare of the best of
the men and the maidens whom God hath doomed,
whom the Church hath devoted, whom the King hath
given 1 Is the King's hand shortened or his word an-
nulled that a man does as he forbiddeth and leaves
undone what he cornmandeth ? Is God mocked ?
Woe, woe unto you," he continued, turning swiftly,
arms uplifted, towards Tavannes, "who please your-
self with the red and white of their maidens and take
of the best of the spoil, sparing where the King's
word is 'Spare not!' Who strike at Holy Church
with the sword ! Who "
"Answer, sirrah!" Charles cried, spurning the
floor in his fury. He could not listen long to any
man. "Is it so? Is it so? Do you do these things? "
Count Hannibal shrugged his shoulders and was
about to answer, when a thick, drunken voice rose
from the crowd behind him. "Is it what? Eh! Is
it what?" it droned. And a figure with bloodshot
eyes, disordered beard, and rich clothes awry, forced
its way through the obsequious circle. It was Marshal
132 COUNT HANNIBAL.
Tavannes. "Eh, what? You'd beard the King,
would you ? " he hiccoughed truculently, his eyes on
Father Pezelay, his hand on his sword. " Were you
a priest teu times
"Silence!" Charles cried, almost foaming with
rage at this fresh interruption. "It's not he, fool!
'Tis your pestilent brother."
"Who touches my brother touches Tavannes! " the
Marshal answered with a menacing gesture. He was
sober enough, it appeared, to hear what was said, but
not to comprehend its drift ; and this caused a titter,
which immediately excited his rage. He turned and
seized the nearest laugher by the ear. " Insolent! 7 '
he cried. " I will teach you to laugh when the King
speaks! Puppy! Who laughs at his Majesty or
touches my brother has to do with Tavannes ! "
The King, in a rage that almost deprived him of
speech, stamped the floor twice. "Idiot!" he cried.
" Imbecile ! Let the man go ! 'Tis not he ! ' Tis your
heretic brother, I tell you ! By all the Saints ! By
the body of " and he poured forth a flood of
oaths. "Will you listen to me and be silent! Will
you your brother "
" If he be not your Majesty's servant, I will kill
him with this sword ! " the irrepressible Marshal
struck in. "As I have killed ten to-day! Ten!"
And, staggering back, he only saved himself from
falling by clutching Chicot about the neck.
"Steady, my pretty Mar6chale !" the jester cried,
chucking him under the chin with one hand, while
with some difficulty he supported him with the other
f or he, too, was far from sober
" Pretty Margot, toy with me,
Maiden bashful "
IN THE HALL OF THE LOUYEE. 133
"Silence!" Charles cried, darting forth his long
arms in a fury of impatience. "God, have I killed
every man of sense? Are you all gone mad? Si-
lence! Do you hear? Silence! And let me hear
what he has to say, " with a movement towards Count
Hannibal. "And look you, sirrah," he continued
with a curse, "see that it be to the purpose ! "
"If it be a question of your Majesty's service,"
Tavauues answered. "And obedience to your Ma-
jesty's orders, I am deeper in it than he who stands
there!" with a sign towards the priest. "I give my
word for that. And I will prove it."
"How, sir?" Charles cried. "How, how, how?
How will you prove it ? "
"By doing for you, sire, what he will not do!"
Tavannes answered scornfully. "Let him stand out,
and if he will serve his Church as I will serve my
King
" Blaspheme not ! " cried the priest.
"Chatter not!" Tavannes retorted hardily, "but
do! Better is he," he continued, "who takes a city
than he who slays women ! Nay, sire, " he went on
hurriedly, seeing the King start, " be not angry, but
hear me ! You would send to Biron, to the Arsenal ?
You seek a messenger, sire ? Then let the good father
be the man. Let him take your Majesty's will to
Biron, and let him see the Grand Master face to face,
and bring him to reason. Or, if he will not, I will !
Let that be the test!"
"Ay, ay!" cried Marshal de Tavannes, "you say
well, brother ! Let him ! "
"And if he will not, I will!" Tavannes repeated.
"Let that be the test, sire."
The King wheeled suddenly to Father Pezelay.
134 COUNT HANNIBAL.
"You hear, father? " he said. "What say you! "
The priest's face grew sallow, and more sallow.
He knew that the walls of the Arsenal sheltered men
whose hands no convention and no order of Birou's
would keep from his throat, were the grim gate and
frowning culverins once passed; men who had seen
their women and children, their wives and sisters im-
molated at his word, and now asked naught but to
stand face to face and eye to eye with him and tear
him limb from limb before they died! The chal-
lenge, therefore, was one-sided and unfair; but for
that very reason it shook him. The astuteness of the
man who, taken by surprise, had conceived this snare
filled him with dread. He dared not accept, and he
scarcely dared to refuse the offer. And meantime
the eyes of the courtiers, who grinned in their beards,
were on him. At length he spoke, but it was in a
voice which had lost its boldness and assurance.
"It is not for me to clear myself," he cried, shrill
and violent, "but for those who are accused, for those
who have belied the King's word, and set at naught
his Christian orders. For you, Count Hannibal,
heretic, or no better than heretic, it is easy to say ' I
go. ' For you go but to your own, and your own will
receive you ! "
"Then you will not go? " with a jeer.
" At your command ? No ! " the priest shrieked
with passion. " His Majesty knows whether I serve
him."
"I know," Charles cried, stamping his foot in a
fury, "'that you all serve me when it pleases you!
That you are all sticks of the same faggot, wood of
the same bundle, hell -babes in your own business, and
sluggards in mine ! You kill to-day and you'll lay it
IN THE HALL OF THE LOUVEE. 135
tome to-morrow! Ay, you will! you will!" he re-
peated frantically, and drove home the asseveration
with a fearful oath. " The dead are as good servants
as you! Foucauld was better! Foucauld? Fou-
cauld? Ah, my God!"
And abruptly in presence of them all, with the
sacred name, which he so often defiled, on his lips,
Charles turned, and covering his face burst into
childish weeping ; while a great silence fell on all
on Bussy with the blood of his cousin Kesiiel on his
point, on Fervacques, the betrayer of his friend, on
Chicot, the slayer of his rival, on Cocconnas the cruel
on men with hands unwashed from the slaughter,
and on the shameless women who lined the walls ; on
all who used this sobbing man for their stepping-
stone, and, to attain their ends and gain their pur-
poses, trampled his dull soul in blood and mire.
One looked at another in consternation. Fear grew
in eyes that a moment before were bold; cheeks
turned pale that a moment before were hectic. If he
changed as rapidly as this, if so little dependence
could be placed on his moods or his resolutions, who
was safe 1 ? Whose turn might it not be to-morrow 1 ?
Or who might not be held accountable for the deeds
done this day? Many, from whom remorse had
seemed far distant a while before, shuddered and
glanced behind them. It was as if the dead who lay
stark without the doors, ay, and the countless dead of
Paris, with whose shrieks the air was laden, had
flocked in shadowy shape into the hall ; and there,
standing beside their murderers, had whispered with
their cold breath in the living ears, "A reckoning!
A reckoning ! As I am, thou shalt be ! "
It v.'as Count Hannibal who broke the spell and the
136 COUNT HANNIBAL.
silence, and with his hand on his brother's shoulder
stood forward. "Nay, sire," he cried, in a voice
which rang defiant in the roof, and seemed to chal-
lenge alike the living and the dead, "if all deny the
deed, yet will not I ! What we have done we have
done! So be it! The dead are dead! So be it!
For the rest, your Majesty has still one servant who
will do your will, one soldier whose life is at your
disposition! I have said I will go, and I go, sire.
And you, churchman," he continued, turning in bit-
ter scorn to the priest, "do you go too to church!
To church, shaveling ! Go, watch and pray for us !
Fast and flog for us! Whip those shoulders, whip
them till the blood runs down ! For it is all, it seems,
you will do for your King ! "
Charles turned. "Silence, railer!" he said in a
broken voice. " Sow no more troubles ! Already," a
shudder shook his tall ungainly form, "I see blood,
blood, blood everywhere ! Blood ! Ah, God, shall I
'from this time see anything else? But there is no
turning back. There is no undoing. So, do you go
to Biron. And do you," he went on, sullenly ad-
dressing Marshal Tavannes, "take him and tell him
what it is needful he should know."
"'Tis done, sire!" the Marshal cried with a hic-
cough. "Come, brother!"
But when the two, the courtiers making quick way
for them, had passed down the hall to the door, the
Marshal tapped Hannibal's sleeve. "It was touch
and go, " he muttered ; it was plain he had been more
sober than he seemed. "Mind you, it does not do
to thwart our little master in his fits! Eemember
that another time, or worse will come of it, brother.
As it is, you came out of it finely and tripped that
IN THE HALL OF THE LOUVEE. 137
black devil's heels to a marvel ! But you won't be so
mad as to go to Biron ? "
"Yes/' Count Hannibal answered coldly. "I shall
go."
"Better not! Better not!" the Marshal answered.
" 'Twill be easier to go in than to come out with a
whole throat! Have you taken wild cats in the
hollow of a tree? The young first, and then the
she-cat? Well, it will be that! Take my advice,
brother. Have after Montgomery, if you please, ride
with Nancay to Chatillon he is mounting now go
where you please out of Paris, but don't go there!
Biron hates us, hates me. And for the King, if he
do not see you for a few days, 'twill blow over in a
week. "
Count Hannibal shrugged his shoulders. "~No," he
said, "I shall go. ;;
The Marshal stared a moment. "Morbleu!" he
said, "why? 'Tis not to please the King, I know.
What do you think to find there, brother? "
"A minister," Hannibal answered gently. "I want
one with life in him, and they are scarce in the
open. So I must to covert after him. " And, twitch-
ing his sword-belt a little nearer to his hand, he
passed across the court to the gate, and to his horses.
The Marshal went back laughing, and, slapping his
thigh as he entered the hall, jostled by accident a
gentleman who was passing out.
"What is it?" the Gascon cried hotly; for it was
Chicot he had jostled.
" Who touches my brother touches Tavannes ! " the
Marshal hiccoughed. And, smiting his thigh anew,
he went off into another fit of laughter.
CHAPTEE XIII.
DIPLOMACY.
WHERE the old wall of Paris, of which no vestige
remains, ran down on the east to the north bank of
the river, the space in the angle between the Seine
and the ramparts beyond the Rue St. Pol wore at
this date an aspect typical of the troubles of the time.
Along the waterside the gloomy old Palace of St. Pol,
once the residence of the mad King Charles the Sixth
and his wife, the abandoned Isabeau de Baviere
sprawled its maze of mouldering courts and ruined
galleries, a dreary monument of the Gothic days
which were passing from France. Its spacious curti-
lage and dark pleasaunces covered all the ground be-
tween the river and the Rue St. Antoine ; and north
of this, under the shadow of the eight great towers of
the Bastille, which looked, four outward to check the
stranger, four inward to bridle the town, a second
palace, beginning where St. Pol ended, carried the
realm of decay to.the city wall.
This second palace was the Hotel des Touruelles,
a fantastic medley of turrets, spires, and gables, that
equally with its neighbour recalled the days of the
English domination ; it had been the abode of the Re-
gent Bedford. From his time it had remained for a
hundred years the town residence of the kings of
France; but the death of Henry II., slain in its lists
by the lance of the same Montgomery who was this
DIPLOMACY. 139
day fleeing for his life before Guise, had given his
widow a distaste for it. Catherine de Medicis, her
sons, and the Court had abandoned it; already its
gardens lay a tangled wilderness, its roofs let in the
rain, rats played where kings had slept; and in "our
palace of the Tournelles" reigned only silence and
decay. Unless, indeed, as was whispered abroad, the
grim shade of the eleventh Louis sometimes walked
in its desolate precincts.
In the innermost angle between the ramparts and
the river, shut off from the rest of Paris by the de-
caying courts and enceintes of these forsaken palaces,
stood the Arsenal. Destroyed in great part by the
explosion of a powder-mill a few years earlier, it was
in the main new ; and by reason of its river frontage,
which terminated at the ruined tower of Billy, and
its proximity to the Bastille, it was esteemed one of
the keys of Paris. It was the appanage of the Mas-
ter of the Ordnance, and within its walls M. de Bi-
ron, a Huguenot in politics, if not in creed, who held
the office at this time, had secured himself on the first
alarm. During the day he had admitted a number of
refugees, whose courage or good luck had led them to
his gate ; and as night fell on such a carnage as the
hapless city had not beheld since the great slaughter
of the Armaguacs, one hundred and fifty-four years
earlier the glow of his matches through the dusk,
and the sullen tramp of his watchmen as they paced
the walls, indicated that there was still one place in
Paris where the King's will did not run.
In comparison of the disorder which prevailed in
the city, a deadly quiet reigned here; a stillness so
chill that a timid man must have stood and hesitated
to approach. But a stranger who about nightfall rode
140 COUNT HA15TNIBAL.
down the street towards the entrance, a single foot-
man running at his stirrup, only nodded a stern ap-
proval of the preparations. As he drew nearer he cast
an attentive eye this way and that ; nor stayed until
a hoarse challenge brought him up when he had come
within six horses' lengths of the Arsenal gate. He
reined up then, and raising his voice, asked in clear
tones for M. de Biron.
"Go," he continued boldly, "tell the Grand Master
that one from the King is here, and would speak with
him."
"From the King of France? " the officer on the gate
asked.
"Surely! Is there more than one King in France?"
A curse and a bitter cry of "King? King Herod! "
were followed by a muttered discussion that, in the
ears of one of the two who waited in the gloom below,
boded little good. The two could descry figures mov-
ing to and fro before the faint red light of the smoul-
dering matches; and presently a man on the gate
kindled a torch, and held it so as to fling its light
downward. The stranger's attendant cowered behind
the horse. "Have a care, my lord!" he whispered.
"They are aiming at us! "
If so the rider's bold front and unmoved demeanour
gave them pause. Presently, "I will send for the
Grand Master " the man who had spoken before an-
nounced. "In whose name, monsieur? "
"No matter," the stranger answered. "Say, one
from the King."
"You are alone? "
"I shall enter alone."
The assurance seemed to be satisfactory, for the
man answered "Good!" and after a brief delay a
DIPLOMACY. 141
wicket in the gate was opened, the portcullis creaked
upward, and a plank was thrust across the ditch. The
horseman waited until the preparations were com-
plete ; then he slid to the ground, threw his rein to
the servant, and boldly walked across. In an instant
he left behind him the dark street, the river, and
the sounds of outrage, which the night breeze bore
from the farther bank, and found himself within the
vaulted gateway, in a bright glare of light, the centre
of a ring of gleaming eyes and angry faces.
The light blinded him for a few seconds ; but the
guards, on their side, were in no better case. For the
stranger was masked ; and in their ignorance who it
was looked at them through the slits in the black vel-
vet they stared, disconcerted, and at a loss. There
were some there with naked weapons in their hands
who would have struck him through had they known
who he was ; and more who would have stood aside
while the deed was done. But the uncertainty that
and the masked man's tone paralysed them. For
they reflected that he might be any one. Conde,
indeed, stood too small, but Navarre, if he lived,
might fill that cloak ; or Guise, or Anjou, or the King
himself. And while some would not have scrupled
to strike the blood royal, more would have been
quick to protect and avenge it. And so before the
dark uncertainty of the mask, before the riddle of the
smiling eyes which glittered through the slits, they
stared irresolute ; until a hand, the hand of one bolder
than his fellows, was raised to pluck away the screen.
The unknown dealt the fellow a buffet with his
fist. "Down, rascal!" he said hoarsely. "And
you" to the officer "show me instantly to M. de
Biron!"
142 COUNT HANNIBAL.
But the lieutenant, who stood iu fear of his men,
looked at him doubtfully. "Nay," he said, "not so
fast ! " And one of the others, taking the lead, cried,
"No! We may have no need of M. de Biron. Your
name, monsieur, first."
With a quick movement the stranger gripped the
officer's wrist. "Tell your master," he said, "that
he who clasped his wrist thus on the night of Pente-
cost is here, and would speak with him ! And say,
mark you, that I will come to him, not he to me ! "
The sign and the tone imposed upon the boldest.
Two-thirds of the watch were Huguenots, who burned
to avenge the blood of their fellows ; and these, over-
riding their officer, had agreed to deal with the intru-
der, if a Papegot, without recourse to the Grand Mas-
ter, whose moderation they dreaded. A knife-thrust
in the ribs, and another body in the ditch why not,
when such things were done outside ? But even these
doubted now; and M. Peridol, the lieutenant, read-
ing in the eyes of his men the suspicions which he
had himself conceived, was only anxious to obey, if
they would let him. So gravely was he impressed,
indeed, by the bearing of the unknown that he
turned when he had withdrawn, and came back to
assure himself that the men meditated no harm in his
absence ; nor until he had exchanged a whisper with
one of them would he leave them and go.
While he was gone on his errand the envoy leaned
against the wall of the gateway, and, with his chin
sunk on his breast and his mind fallen into reverie,
seemed unconscious of the dark glances of which he
was the target. He remained in this position until
the officer came back, followed by a man with a lan-
tern. Their coming roused the unknown, who, in-
DIPLOMACY. 143
vited to follow Peridol, traversed two courts without
remark, and in the same silence entered a building in
the extreme eastern corner of the enceinte abutting
on the ruined Tour de Billy. Here, in an upper
floor, the Governor of the Arsenal had established his
temporary lodging.
The chamber into which the stranger was intro-
duced betrayed the haste in which it had been pre-
pared for its occupant. Two silver lamps which
hung from the beams of the unceiled roof shed light
on a medley of arms and inlaid armour, of parch-
ments, books, and steel caskets, which encumbered
not the tables only, but the stools and chests that,
after the fashion of that day, stood formally along
the arras. In the midst of the disorder, on the bare
floor, walked the man who, more than any other, had
been instrumental in drawing the Huguenots to Paris
and to their doom. It was not wonderful that the
events of the day, the surprise and horror still rode
his mind ; nor that even he who passed for a model of
stiffness and reticence betrayed for once the indigna-
tion which filled his breast. Until the officer had
withdrawn and closed the door he did, indeed, keep
silence ; standing beside the table and eyeing his vis-
itor with a lofty port and a stern glance. But the
moment he was assured that they were alone he
spoke.
" Your Highness may unmask now, " he said, mak-
ing no effort to hide his contempt. "Yet were you
well advised to take the precaution, since you had
hardly come at me in safety without it. Had those
who keep the gate seen you, I would not have an-
swered for your Highness's life! The more shame,"
he continued vehemently, " on the deeds of this day
144 COUNT HANNIBAL.
which have compelled the brother of a King of France
to hide his face in his own capital and in his own for-
tress. For I dare to say, Monsieur, what no other
will say, now the Admiral is dead. You have
brought back the days of the Armagnacs. You have
brought bloody days and an evil name on France,
and I pray God that you may not pay in your turn
what you have exacted. But if you continue to be
advised by M. de Guise, this I will say, Monsieur "
and his voice fell low and stern. "Burgundy slew
Orleans, indeed; but he came in his turn to the
Bridge of Moutereau. "
"You take me for Monsieur? " the unknown asked.
And it was plain that he smiled under his mask.
Biron's face altered. "I take you," he answered
sharply, "for him whose sign you sent me."
"The wisest are sometimes astray," the other an-
swered with a low laugh. And he took off his mask.
The Grand Master started back, his eyes sparkling
with anger. "M. de Tavannes?" he cried, and for a
moment he was silent in sheer astonishment. Then,
striking his hand on the table, "What means this
trickery ! " he asked.
" It is of the simplest, " Tavannes answered coolly.
"And yet, as you just now said, I had hardly come
at you without it. And I had to come at you. No,
M. de Biron," he added quickly, as Biron in a rage
laid his hand on a bell which stood beside him on the
table, "you cannot that way undo what is done."
"I can at least deliver you," the Grand Master
answered, in heat, "to those who will deal with you
as you have dealt with us and ours. "
"It will avail you nothing," Count Hannibal re-
plied soberly. "For see here, Grand Master, I come
DIPLOMACY. 145
from the King. If you are at war with him, and
hold his fortress in his teeth, I am his ambassador
and sacrosanct. If you are at peace with him. and
hold it at his will, I am his servant, and safe also."
"At peace and safe?" Biroii cried, his voice trem-
bling with indignation. "And are those safe or at
peace who came here trusting to his word, who lay in
his palace and slept in his beds? Where are they,
and how have they fared, that you dare appeal to the
law of nations, or he to the loyalty of Biron ? And
for you to beard me, whose brother to-day hounded
the dogs of this vile city on the noblest in France,
who have leagued yourself with a crew of foreigners
to do a deed which will make our country stink in the
nostrils of the world when we are dust! You, to
come here and talk of peace and safety ! M. de Ta-
vannes " and he struck his hand on the table "you
are a bold man. I know why the King had a will to
send you, but I know not why you had the will to
come. "
"That I will tell you later," Count Hannibal an-
swered coolly. "For the King, first. My message is
brief, M. de Biron. Have you a mind to hold the
scales in France ? "
"Between?" Biron asked contemptuously.
" Between the Lorraiuers and the Huguenots. "
The Grand Master scowled fiercely. "I have
played the go-between once too often," he growled.
"It is no question of going between, it is a question
of holding between, " Tavannes answered coolly. " It
is a question but, in a word, have you a mind, M.
de Biron, to be Governor of Eochelle? The King,
having dealt the blow that has been struck to-day,
looks to follow up severity, as a wise ruler should,
10
146 COUNT HANNIBAL.
with indulgence. And to quiet the minds of the
Eochellois he would set over them a ruler at once ac-
ceptable to them or war must come of it and faith-
ful to his Majesty. Such a man, M. de Biron, will in
such a post be Master of the Kingdom ; for he will
hold the doors of Janus, and as he bridles his sea-
dogs, or unchains them, there will be peace or war in
France. "
"Is all that from the King's mouth? " Biron asked
with sarcasm. But his passion had died down. He
was grown thoughtful, suspicious ; he eyed the other
intently as if he would read his heart.
"The offer is his, and the reflections are mine,"
Tavaunes answered drily. "Let me add one more.
The Admiral is dead. The King of Navarre and the
Prince of Conde are prisoners. Who is now to bal-
ance the Italians and the Guises'? The Grand Master
if he be wise and content to give the law to France
from the citadel of Eochelle."
Biron stared at the speaker in astonishment at his
frankness. "You are a bold man," he cried at last.
"But timeo Danaos et dona ferentes," he continued bit-
terly. "You offer, sir, too much."
"The offer is the King's."
"And the conditions'? The price? "
"That you remain quiet, M. de Biron."
" In the Arsenal ? "
"In the Arsenal. And do not too openly counter-
act the King's will. That is all."
The Grand Master looked puzzled. "I will give
up no one," he said. "No one! Let that be under-
stood. "
"The King requires no one."
A pause. Then, "Does M. de Guise know of the
DIPLOMACY. 147
offer ? " Biron inquired ; and his eye grew bright.
He hated the Guises and was hated by them. It was
there he was a Huguenot.
"He has gone far to-day," Count Hannibal an-
swered drily. "And if no worse come of it should
be content. Madame Catherine knows of it. "
The Grand Master was aware that Marshal Ta-
vannes depended on the Queen-mother; and he
shrugged his shoulders. "Ay, 'tis like her policy,"
he muttered. "'Tis like her!" And pointing his
guest to a cushioned chest which stood against the
wall, he sat down in a chair beside the table and
thought awhile, his brow wrinkled, his eyes dream-
ing. By-and-by he laughed sourly. "You have
lighted the fire, "he said, " and would fain I put it
out,"
" We would have you hinder it spreading."
"You have done the deed and are loth to pay the
blood-money. That is it, is it? "
"We prefer to pay it to M. de Biron," Count Han-
nibal answered civilly.
Again the Grand Master was silent awhile. At
length he looked up and fixed Tavannes with eyes
keen as steel. "What is behind?" he growled.
"Say, man, what is it? What is behind? "
"If there be aught behind, I do not know it," Ta-
vannes answered steadfastly.
M. de Biron relaxed the fixity of his gaze. "But
you said that you bad an object? " he returned.
"I had in being the bearer of the message."
"What was it?"
"My object? To learn two things."
"The first, if it please you? " The Grand Master's
chin stuck out a little, as he spoke.
148 COUNT HANNIBAL.
" Have you in the Arsenal a M. de Tignonville, a
gentleman of Poitou ? "
"I have not," Biron answered curtly. "The sec-
ond?"
"Have you here a Huguenot minister f "
" I have not. And if I had I should not give him
up," he added firmly.
Tavannes shrugged his shoulders. "I have a use
for one," he said carelessly. "But it need not harm
him."
"For what, then, do you need him 1"
"To marry me."
The other stared. "But you are a Catholic," he
said.
"But she is a Huguenot," Tavannes answered.
The Grand Master did not attempt to hide his
astonishment. "And she sticks on that?" he ex-
claimed. "To-day?"
" She sticks on that. To-day. "
"To-day? NomdeDieu! To-day! Well," brush-
ing the matter aside after a pause of bewilderment,
"any way, I cannot help her. I have no minister
here. If there be aught else I can do for her "
"Nothing, I thank you," Tavannes answered.
"Then it only remains for me to take your answer to
the King ? " And he rose politely, and taking his
mask from the table prepared to assume it.
M. de Biron gazed at him a moment without speak-
ing, as if he pondered on the answer he should give.
At length he nodded, and rang the bell which stood
beside him.
" The mask ! " he muttered in a low voice as foot-
steps sounded without. And, obedient to the hint,
Tavannes disguised himself. A second later the offl-
DIPLOMACY. 149
cer who had introduced him opened the door and
entered.
^Peridol," M. de Biron said he had risen to his
feet "I have received a message which needs confir-
mation ; and to obtain this I must leave the Arsenal.
I am going to the house you will remember this
of Marshal Tavannes, who will be responsible for my
person ; in the meantime this gentleman will remain
under strict guard in the south chamber upstairs.
You will treat him as a hostage, with all respect, and
will allow him to preserve his incognito. But if I do
not return by noon to-morrow, you will deliver him
to the men below, who will know how to deal with
him."
Count Hannibal made no attempt to interrupt him,
nor did he betray the discomfiture which he undoubt-
edly felt. But as the Grand Master paused, " M. de
Biron, " he said, in a voice harsh and low, " you will
answer to me for this ! " And his eyes glittered
through the slits in the mask.
" Possibly, but not to-day or to-morrow!" Biron
replied, shrugging his shoulders contemptuously.
" Peridol ! see the gentleman bestowed as I have or-
dered, and then return to me. Monsieur," with a
bow, half courteous, half ironical, "let me commend
to you the advantages of silence and your mask."
And he waved his hand in the direction of the door.
A moment Count Hannibal hesitated. He was in
the heart of a hostile fortress where the resistance of
a single man armed to the teeth must have been fu-
tile ; and he was unarmed, save for a poniard. Nev-
ertheless, for a moment the impulse to spring on Bi-
ron, and with the dagger at his throat to make his
life the price of a safe passage, was strong. Then
150 COUNT HANNIBAL.
for with the warp of a harsh and passionate character
were interwrought an odd shrewdness and some things
little suspected he resigned himself. Bowing grave-
ly, he turned with dignity, and in silence followed the
officer from the room.
Peridol had two men with lanterns in waiting at
the door. From one of these the lieutenant took the
light, and, with an air at once sullen and deferential,
led the way up the stone staircase to the floor over
that in which M. de Biron had his lodging. Ta-
vannes followed ; the two guards came last, carrying
the second lantern. At the head of the staircase,
whence a bare passage ran north and south, the pro-
cession turned right-handed, and, passing two doors,
halted before the third and last, which faced them at
the end of the passage. The lieutenant unlocked it
with a key which he took from a hook beside the
doorpost. Then, holding .up his light, he invited his
charge to enter.
The room was not small, but it was low in the roof,
and prison-like, it had bare walls and sinoke-niarks
on the ceiling. The window, set in a deep recess, the
floor of which rose a foot above that of the room, was
unglazed ; and through the gloomy orifice the night
wind blew in, laden even on that August evening
with the dank mist of the river flats. A table, two
stools, and a truckle bed without straw or covering
made up the furniture; but Peridol, after glancing
round, ordered one of the men to fetch a truss of
straw and the other to bring up a pitcher of wine.
While they were gone Tavannes and he stood silently
waiting, until, observing that the captive's eyes
sought the window, the lieutenant laughed.
"No bars?" he said. "No, monsieur, and no need
DIPLOMACY. 151
of them. You will not go by that road, bars or no
bars. "
" What is below?" Count Hannibal asked careless-
ly. "The river?"
"Yes, monsieur," with a grin, "but not water.
Mud, and six feet of it, soft as Christmas porridge,
but not so sweet. I've known two puppies thrown in
under this window that did not weigh more than a fat
pullet apiece. One was gone before you could count
fifty, and the other did not live thrice as long nor
would have lasted that time, but that it fell on the
first and clung to it. "
Tavannes dismissed the matter with a shrug, and,
drawing his cloak about him, set a stool against the
wall and sat down. The men who brought in the
wine and the bundle of straw were inquisitive, and
would have loitered, scanning him stealthily; but
Peridol hurried them away. The lieutenant himself
stayed only to cast a glance round the room and to
mutter that he would return when his lord returned ;
then, with a "Good night" which said more for his
manners than his good will, he followed them out.
A moment later the grating of the key in the lock and
the sound of the bolts as they sped home told Tavan-
nes that he was a prisoner.
CHAPTEE XIV.
TOO SHORT A SPOON.
COUNT HANNIBAL remained seated, his chin sunk on
his breast, until his ear assured him that the three
men had descended the stairs to the floor below.
Then he rose, and, taking the lantern from the table,
on which Peridol had placed it, he went softly to the
door, which, like the window, stood in a recess in
this case the prolongation of the passage. A brief
scrutiny satisfied him that escape that way was im-
possible, and he turned, after a cursory glance at the
floor and ceiling, to the dark, windy aperture which
yawned at the end of the apartment. Placing the
lantern on the table, and covering it with his cloak,
he mounted the window recess, and, stepping to the
unguarded edge, looked out.
He knew, rather than saw, that Peridol had told
the truth. The smell of the aguish flats which
fringed that part of Paris rose strong in his nostrils.
He guessed that the sluggish arm of the Seine which
divided the Arsenal from the lie des Louviers crawled
below ; but the night was dark, and it was impossible
to discern land from water. He fancied that he could
trace the outline of the island an uninhabited place,
given up to wood piles ; but the lights of the college
quarter beyond it, which rose feebly twinkling, to
the crown of St. Genevieve, confused his sight and
rendered the nearer gloom more opaque. From that
TOO SHORT A SPOON. 153
direction and from the Cit6 to his right came sounds
which told of a city still heaving in its blood-stained
sleep, and even in its dreams planning further ex-
cesses. Now a distant shot, and now a faint murmur
on one of the bridges, or a far-off cry, raucous, sud-
den, curdled the blood. But even of what was pass-
ing under cover of the darkness, he could leam little ;
and after standing awhile with a hand on either side
of the window he found the night air chill. He
stepped back, and, descending to the floor, uncovered
the lantern and set it on the table. His thoughts
travelled back to the preparations he had made the
night before with a view to securing Mademoiselle's
person, and he considered, with a grim smile, how lit-
tle he had foreseen that within twenty-four hours he
would himself be a prisoner. Presently, finding his
mask oppressive, he removed it, and, laying it on the
table before him, sat scowling at the light.
Biron had jockeyed him cleverly. Well, the worse
for Armand de Gontaut de Biron if after this adven-
ture the luck went against him ! But in the mean-
time 1 In the meantime his fate was sealed if harm
befell Biron. And what the King's real mind in
Birou's case was, and what the Queen -Mother's, he
could not say ; just as it was impossible to predict
how far, when they had the Grand Master at their
mercy, they would resist the temptation to add him
to the victims. If Biron placed himself at once in
Marshal Tavannes' hands, all might be well. But if
he ventured within the long arm of the Guises, or
went directly to the Louvre, the fact that with the
Grand Master's fate Count Hannibal's was bound up,
would not weigh a straw. In such crises the great
sacrificed the less great, the less great the small, with-
154 COUNT HANNIBAL.
out a scruple. And the Guises did not love Count
Hannibal; he was not loved by many. Even the
strength of his brother the Marshal stood rather in
the favour of the King's heir, for whom he had won
the battle of Jariiac, than intrinsically ; and, durable
in ordinary times, might snap in the clash of forces
and interests which the desperate madness of this day
had let loose on Paris.
It was not the peril in which he stood, however
though, with the cold clear eye of the man who had
often faced peril, he appreciated it to a nicety that
Count Hannibal found least bearable, but his enforced
inactivity. He had thought to ride the whirlwind
and direct the storm, and out of the danger of others
to compact his own success. Instead he lay here, not
only powerless to guide his destiny, which hung on
the discretion of another, but unable to stretch forth
a finger to further his plans.
As he sat looking darkly at the lantern, his mind
followed Biron and his riders through the midnight
streets : along St. Autoine and La Verrerie, through
the gloomy narrows of the Eue la Ferronerie, and so
past the house in the Eue St. Honore where Made-
moiselle sat awaiting the morrow sat awaiting Tig-
nouville, the minister, the marriage ! Doubtless there
were still bands of plunderers roaming to and fro ; at
the barriers troops of archers stopping the suspected ;
at the windows pale faces gazing down; at the gates
of the Temple, and of the walled enclosures which
largely made up the city, strong guards set to prevent
invasion. Biron would go with sufficient to secure
himself; and unless he encountered with the body-
guard of Guise his passage would quiet the town.
But was it so certain that she was safe ? He knew his
TOO SHOET A SPOOK. 155
men, and while he had been free he had not hesitated
to leave her in their care. But now that he could not
go, now that he could not raise a hand to help, the
confidence which had not failed him in straits more
dangerous grew weak. He pictured the things which
might happen, at which, in his normal frame of mind,
he would have laughed. Now they troubled him so
that he started at a shadow, so that he quailed at a
thought. He, who last night, when free to act, had
timed his coming and her rescue to a minute ! Who
had rejoiced in the peril, since with the glamour of
such things foolish women were taken ! Who had not
flinched when the crowd roared most fiercely for her
blood !
Why had he suffered himself to be trapped! Why
indeed? And thrice in passion he paced the room.
Long ago the famous Nostradamus had told him that
he would live to be a king, but of the smallest king-
dom in the world. "Every man is a king in his
coffin," he had answered. "The grave is cold and
your kingdom shall be warm," the wizard had re-
joined. On which the courtiers had laughed, prom-
ising him a Moorish island and a black queen. And
he had gibed with the rest, but secretly had taken
note of the sovereign counties of France, their rulers
and their heirs. Now he held the thought in horror,
foreseeing no county, but the cage under the stifling
tiles at Loches, in which Cardinal Balue and many
another had worn out their hearts.
He came to that thought not by way of his own
peril, but of Mademoiselle's ; which affected him in
so novel a fashion that he wondered at his folly.
At last, tired of watching the shadows which the
draught set dancing on the wall, he drew his cloak
156 COUNT HANNIBAL.
about him and lay down on the straw. He had kept
vigil the previous night, and in a few minutes, with a
campaigner's ease, he was asleep.
Midnight had struck. About two the light in the
lantern burned low in the socket, and with a soft
sputtering went out. For an hour after that the room
lay still, silent, dark; then slowly the grey dawn,
the greyer for the river mist which wrapped the
neighbourhood in a clammy shroud, began to creep
into the room and discover the vague shapes of things.
Again an hour passed, and the sun was rising above
Montreuil, and here and there the river began to
shimmer through the fog. But in the room it was
barely daylight when the sleeper awoke, and sat up,
his face expectant. Something had roused him. He
listened.
His ear, and the habit of vigilance which a life
of danger instils, had not deceived him. There were
men moving in the passage ; men who shuffled their
feet impatiently. Had Biron returned! Or had
aught happened to him, and were these men come to
avenge him? Count Hannibal rose and stole across
the boards to the door, and, setting his ear to it, lis-
tened.
He listened while a man might count a hundred
and fifty, counting slowly. Then, for the third part
of a second, he turned his head, and his eyes travelled
the room. He stooped again and listened more close-
ly, scarcely breathing. There were voices as well as
feet to be heard now ; one voice he thought it was
Peridol's which held on long, now low, now rising
into violence. Others were audible at intervals, but
only in a growl or a bitter exclamation, that told of
minds made up and hands which would not be re-
TOO SHOET A SPOON. 157
strained. He caught his own name, Tavannes the
mask was useless then ! And once a noisy movement
which came to nothing, foiled, he fancied, by Peridol.
He knew enough. He rose to his full height, and
his eyes seemed a little closer together ; an ugly smile
curved his lips. His gaze travelled over the objects
in the room, the bare stools and table, the lantern, the
wine pitcher; beyond these, in a corner, the cloak
and straw on the low bed. The light, cold and grey,
fell cheerlessly on the dull chamber, and showed it in
harmony with the ominous whisper which grew in the
gallery ; with the stern-faced listener who stood, his
one hand on the door. He looked, but he found
nothing to his purpose, nothing to serve his end,
whatever his end was ; and with a quick light step he
left the door, mounted the window recess, and, poised
on the very edge, looked down.
If he thought to escape that way his hope was des-
perate. The depth to the water-level was not, he
judged, twelve feet. But Peridol had told the truth.
Below lay not water, but a smooth surface of viscid
slime, here luminous with the florescence of rotten-
ness, there furrowed by a tiny runnel of moisture
which sluggishly crept across it to the slow stream
beyond. This quicksand, vile and treacherous,
lapped the wall below the window, and more than ac-
coitnted for the absence of bars or fastenings. But,
leaning far out, he saw that it ended at the angle of
the building, at a point twenty feet or so to the right
of his position.
He sprang to the floor again, and listened an in-
stant ; then, with guarded movements for there was
fear in the air, fear in the silent room, and at any
moment the rush might be made, the door burst in
158 COUNT HANNIBAL.
lie set the lantern and wine pitcher on the floor, and
took up the table in his arms. He began to carry it
to the window, but, halfway thither, his eye told him
that it would not pass through the opening, and he
set it down again and glided to the bed. Again he
was thwarted ; the bed was screwed to the floor. An-
other might have despaired at that, but he rose with
no sign of dismay, and listening, always listening, he
spread his cloak on the floor, and deftly, with as lit-
tle noise and rustling as might be, he piled the straw
in it, compressed the bundle, and, cutting the bed-
cords with his dagger, bound all together with them.
In three steps he was in the embrasure of the win-
dow, and, even as the men in the passage thrust the
lieutenant aside and with a sudden uproar came down
to the door, he flung the bundle lightly and carefully
to the right so lightly and carefully, and with so
nice and deliberate a calculation, that it seemed odd
it fell beyond the reach of an ordinary leap.
An instant and he was on the floor again. The
men had to unlock, to draw back the bolts, to draw
back the door which opened outwards; their num-
bers, as well as their savage haste, impeded them.
When they burst in at last, with a roar of "To the
river! To the river! " burst in a rush of struggling
shoulders and lowered pikes, they found him stand-
ing, a solitary figure, on the further side of the table,
his arms folded. And the sight of the passive figure
for a moment stayed them.
"Say your prayers, child of Satan ! " cried the lead-
er, waving his weapon. "We give you one minute! "
"Ay, one minute!" his followers chimed in. "Be
ready ! "
"You would murder me?" he said with dignity.
TOO SHOET A SPOOK 159
And when they shouted assent, "Good ! " he answered.
"It is between you and M. de Biroii, whose guest I
am. But" with a glance which passed round the
ring of glaring eyes and working features "I would
leave a last word for some one. Is there any one
here who values a safe-conduct from the King? 'Tis
for two men coming and going for a fortnight. " And
he held up a slip of paper.
The leader cried "To hell with his safe-conduct!
Say your prayers ! "
But all were not of his mind; on one or two of the
crimson savage faces the faces, for the most part, of
honest men maddened by their wrongs flashed an
avaricious gleam. A safe-conduct? To avenge, to
slay, to kill and to go safe ! For some minds such a
thing has an invincible fascination. A man thrust
himself forward. "Ay, I'll have it!" he cried.
"Give it here!"
"It is yours," Count Hannibal answered, "if you
will carry ten words to Marshal Tavannes when I
am gone."
The man's neighbour laid a restraining hand on his
shoulder. "And Marshal Tavannes will pay you
finely," he said.
But Maudron, the man who had offered, shook off
the hand. "If I take the message! " he muttered in
a grim aside. "Do you think me mad? " And then
aloud he cried, "Ay, I'll take your message! Give
me the paper."
"You swear you will take it? "
The man had no intention of taking it, but he per-
jured himself and went forward. The others would
have pressed round too, half in envy, half in scorn ;
but Tavannes by a gesture stayed them. "Gentle-
160 COUNT HANNIBAL.
men, I ask a minute only, "he said. "A minute for
a dying man is not much. Your friends had as
much." And the fellows, acknowledging the claim
and assured that their victim could not escape, let
Maudron go round the table to him.
The man was in haste and ill at ease, conscious of
his evil intentions and the fraud he was practising ;
and at once greedy to have, yet ashamed of the
bargain he was making. His attention was divided
between the slip of paper, on which his eyes fixed
themselves, and the attitude of his comrades ; he paid
little heed to Count Hannibal, whom he knew to be
unarmed. Only when Tavannes seemed to ponder
on his message, and to be fain to delay, " Go on, " he
muttered with brutal frankness; "your time is up! "
Tavannes started, the paper slipped from his fin-
gers. Maudron saw a chance of getting it without
committing himself, and quick as the thought leapt
up in his mind he stooped, and grasped the paper,
and would have leapt back with it ! But quick as he,
and quicker, Tavauues too stooped, gripped him by
the waist, and with a prodigious effort, and a yell in
which all the man's stormy nature, restrained to a
part during the last few minutes, broke forth, he
flung the ill-fated wretch head first through the win-
dow.
The movement carried Tavannes himself even
while his victim's scream rang through the chamber
into the embrasure. An instant he hung on the
verge; then, as the men, a moment thunderstruck,
sprang forward to avenge their comrade, he leapt out,
jumping for the struggling body that had struck the
mud, and now lay in it face downwards.
He alighted on it, and drove it deep into the quak-
TOO SHORT A SPOOK 161
ing slime ; but he himself bounded off right-handed.
The peril was appalling, the possibility untried, the
chance one which only a doomed man would have
taken. But he reached the straw-bale, and it gave
him a momentary, a precarious footing. He could
not regain his balance, he could not even for an in-
stant stand upright on it. But from its support he
leapt on convulsively, and as a pike, flung from above,
wounded him in the shoulder, he fell his length in the
slough but forward, with his outstretched hands
resting on soil of a harder nature. They sank, it is
true, to the elbow, but he dragged his body forward
on them, and forward, and freeing one by a last effort
of strength he could not free both, and, as it was,
half his face was submerged he reached out another
yard, and gripped a balk of wood, which projected
from the corner of the building for the purpose of
fending off the stream in flood-time.
The men at the window shrieked with rage as he
slowly drew himself from the slough, and stood from
head to foot a pillar of mud. Shout as they might,
they had no firearms, and, crowded together in the
narrow embrasure, they could take no aim with their
pikes. They could only look on in furious impo-
tence, flinging curses at him until he passed from
their view, behind the angle of the building.
Here for a score of yards a strip of hard foreshore
ran between mud and wall. He struggled along it
until he reached the end of the wall ; then with a
shuddering glance at the black heaving pit from
which he had escaped, and which yet gurgled above
the body of the hapless Maudron a tribute to horror
which even his fierce nature could not withhold he
turned and painfully climbed the river-bank. The
11
162 COUNT HANNIBAL.
pike-wound in his shoulder was slight, but the effort
had been supreme ; the sweat poured from his brow,
his visage was grey and drawn. Nevertheless, when
he had put fifty paces between himself and the build-
ings of the Arsenal he paused, and turned. He saw
that the men had run to other windows which looked
that way ; and his face lightened and his form dilated
with triumph.
He shook his fist at them. "Ho, fools! " he cried,
"you kill not Tavannes so! Till our next meeting at
Montf aucon, fare you well 1 "
CHAPTER XV.
THE BROTHER OF ST. MAGLOIRE.
As the exertion of power is for the most part pleas-
ing, so the exercise of that which a woman possesses
over a man is especially pleasant. "When in addition
a risk of no ordinary kind has been run, and the
happy issue has been barely expected above all
when the momentary gain seems an augury of final
victory it is impossible that a feeling akin to exul-
tation should not arise in the mind., however black
the horizon, and however distant the fair haven.
The situation in which Count Hannibal left Made-
moiselle de Vrillac will be remembered. She had pre-
vailed on him ; but in return he had bowed her to the
earth, partly by subtle threats, and partly by sheer
savagery. He had left her weeping, with the words
"Madame de Tavannes" ringing doom in her ears,
and the dark phantom of his will pointing onward to
an inevitable future. Had she abandoned hope, it
would have been natural
But the girl was of a spirit not long nor easily
cowed; and Tavannes had not left her half an hour
before the reflection, that so far the honours of the
day were hers, rose up to console her. In spite of his
power and her impotence, she had imposed her will
upon his ; she had established an influence over him,
she had discovered a scruple which stayed him, and a
limit beyond which he would not pass. In the result
164 COUNT HANNIBAL.
she might escape ; for the conditions which he had
accepted with an ill grace, might prove beyond his
fulfilling. She might escape! True, many in her
place would have feared a worse fate and harsher
handling. But there lay half the merit of her vic-
tory. It had left her not only in a better position, but
with a new confidence in her power over her adver-
sary. He would insist on the bargain struck between
them ; within its four corners she could look for no
indulgence. But if the conditions proved to be be-
yond his power, she believed that he would spare her:
with an ill grace, indeed, w r ith such ferocity and
coarse reviling as her woman's pride might scarcely
support. But he would spare her.
And if the worst befell her ? She would still have
the consolation of knowing that from the cataclysm
which had overwhelmed her friends she had ransomed
those most dear to her. Owing to the position of her
chamber, she saw nothing of the excesses to which
Paris gave itself up during the remainder of that day,
and to w r hich it returned with unabated zest on the
following morning. But the Carlats and her women
learned from the guards below what was passing ; and
quaking and cowering in their corners fixed fright-
ened eyes on her, who was their stay and hope.
How could she prove false to them? How doom
them to perish, had there been no question of her
lover?
Of him she sat thinking by the hour together. She
recalled with solemn tenderness the moment in which
he had devoted himself to the death w r hich came but
halfway to seize them ; nor was she slow to forgive
his subsequent withdrawal, and his attempt to rescue
her in spite of herself. She found the impulse to die
THE BEOTHEE OF ST. MAGLOIEE. 165
glorious ; the withdrawal for the actor was her lover
a thing done for her, which he would not have done
for himself, and which she quickly forgave him. The
revulsion of feeling which had conquered her at the
time, and led her to tear herself from him, no longer
moved her much ; while all in his action that might
have seemed in other eyes less than heroic, all in his
conduct in a crisis demanding the highest that
smacked of common or mean, vanished, for she still
clung to him. Clung to him, not so much with the
passion of the mature woman, as with the maiden and
sentimental affection of one who has now no hope of
possessing, and for whom love no longer spells life
but sacrifice.
She had leisure for these musings, for she was left
to herself all that day, and until late on the following
day. Her own servants waited on hei, ard it was
known that below stairs Count Hannibal's riders kept
sullen ward behind barred doors and shuttered win-
dows, refusing admission to all who came. Now and
again echoes of the riot which filled the streets with
bloodshed reached her ears: or word of the more
striking occurrences was brought to her by Madame
Carlat. And early on this second day, Monday, it
was whispered that M. de Tavannes had not returned,
and that the men below were growing uneasy.
At last, when the suspense below and above was
growing tense, it was broken. Footsteps and voices
were heard ascending the stairs, the trampling and
hubbub were followed by a heavy knock ; perforce
the door was opened. While Mademoiselle, who had
risen, awaited with a beating heart she knew not
what, a cowled father, in the dress of the monks of
St. Magloire, stoo4 on the threshold, and, crossing
166 COUNT HANNIBAL.
himself, muttered the words of benediction. He en-
tered slowly.
No sight could have been more dreadful to Made-
moiselle; for it set at naught the conditions which
she had so hardly exacted. What if Count Hannibal
were behind, were even now mounting the stairs,
prepared to force her to a marriage before this shave-
ling? Or ready to proceed, if she refused, to the last
extremity'? Sudden terror taking her by the throat
choked her; her colour fled, her hand flew to her
breast. Yet, before the door had closed on Bigot,
she had recovered herself.
"This intrusion is not by M. de Tavannes' orders! "
she cried, stepping forward haughtily. "This person
has no business here. How dare you admit him ? "
The Norman showed his bearded visage a moment
at the door. "My lord's orders," he muttered sul-
lenly. And he closed the door on them.
She had a Huguenot's hatred of a cowl ; and, in
this crisis, her reasons for fearing it. Her eyes
blazed with indignation. " Enough ! " she cried,
pointing with a gesture of dismissal to the door.
"Go back to him who sent you ! If he will insult me,
let him do it to my face! If he will perjure himself,
let him forswear himself in person. Or, if you come
on your own account," she continued, flinging pru-
dence to the winds, " as your brethren came to Phil-
ippa de Luns, to offer me the choice you offered her,
I give you her answer ! If I had thought of myself
only, I had not lived so long ! And rather than bear
your presence or hear your arguments '
She came to a sudden, odd, quavering pause on the
word; her lips remained parted, she swayed an in-
stant on her feet. The next moment Madame Carlat,
THE BROTHER OF ST. MAGLOIRE. 167
to whom the visitor had turned his shoulder, doubted
her eyes, for Mademoiselle was in the monk's arms!
"Clotilde! Clotilde!" he cried, and held her to
him.
For the monk was M. de Tignonville! Under
the owl was the lover with whom Mademoiselle's
thoughts had been engaged. In this disguise, and
armed with Tavanues' note to Madame St. Lo which
the guards below knew for Count Hannibal's hand,
though they were unable to decipher the contents
he had found no difficulty in making his way to
her.
He had learned before he entered that Tavannes
was abroad, and was aware therefore that he ran lit-
tle risk. His betrothed, on the other hand, who
knew nothing of his adventures in the interval, saw
in him one who came to her at the greatest risk,
across unnumbered perils, through streets swimming
with blood. And though she had never embraced
him save in the crisis of the massacre, though she had
never called him by his Christian name, in the joy of
this meeting she abandoned herself to him, she clung
to him weeping, she forgot for the time his defection,
and thought only of him who had returned to her so
gallantly, who brought into the room a breath of Poi-
tou, and the sea, and the old days, and the old life ;
and at the sight of whom the horrors of the last two
days fell from her for the moment.
And Madame Carlat wept also, and in the room
was a sound of weeping. The least moved was, for
a certainty, M. de Tignonville himself, who, as we
know, had gone through much that day. But even
his heart swelled, partly with pride, partly with
thankfulness that he had returned to one who loved
168 COUNT HANNIBAL.
him so well. Fate had been kinder to him than he
deserved ; but he need not confess that now. When
he had brought off the coup which he had in his mind,
he would hasten to forget that he had entertained
other ideas.
Mademoiselle had been the first to be carood away ;
she was also the first to recover herself. "I had for-
gotten," she cried suddenly. "I had forgotten," and
she wrested herself from his embrace with violence,
and stood panting, her face white, her eyes aff righted.
"I must not! And you I had forgotten that too!
To be here, monsieur, is the worst office you can do
me. You must go! Go, monsieur, in mercy I beg of
you, while it is possible. Every moment you are
here, every moment you spend in this house, I shud-
der."
"You need not fear for me," he said, in a tone of
bravado. He did not understand.
"I fear for myself!" she answered. And then,
wringing her hands, divided between her love for him
and her fear for herself, " Oh, forgive me ! " she said.
"You do not know that he has promised to spare me,
if he cannot produce you, and and a minister!
He has granted me that; but I thought when you
entered that he had gone back on his word, and sent
a priest, and it maddened me ! I could not bear to
think that I had gained nothing. Now you under-
stand, and you will pardon me, monsieur 1 ? If he
cannot produce you I am saved. Go then, leave me,
I beg, without a moment's delay."
He laughed derisively as he turned back his cowl
and squared his shoulders. "All that is over!" he
said, "over and done with, sweet! M. de Tavaunes
is at this moment a prisoner in the Arsenal. On my
THE BEOTHEE OF ST. MAGLOIEE. 169
way hither I fell in with M. de Biron, and he told me.
The Grand Master, who would have had me join his
company, had been all night at Marshal Tavannes'
hotel, where he had been detained longer than he
expected. He stood pledged to release Count Han-
nibal on his return, but at iny request he consented
to hold him one hour, and to do also a little thing
for me."
The glow of hope which had transfigured her face
faded slowly. "It will not help," she said, "if he
find you here."
"He will not! Nor you!"
"How, monsieur?"
"In a few minutes," he explained he couid not
hide his exultation, "a message will come from the
Arsenal in the name of Tavanues, bidding the monk
he sent to you bring you to him. A spoken message,
corroborated by my presence, should suffice: 'Bid the
monk who is now with Mademoiselle, ' it will run, 'bring
her to me at the Arsenal, and let four pikes guard them
hither.'' When I begged M. de Biron to do this, he
laughed. 'I can do better,' he said. ' They shall
bring one of Count Hannibal's gloves, which he left
on my table. Always supposing my rascals have
done him no harm, which God forbid, for I am an-
swerable. ' ;
Tignonville, delighted with the stratagem which the
meeting with Biron had suggested, could see 110 flaw
in it. She could, and though she heard him to the
end, no second glow of hope softened the lines of her
features. With a gesture full of dignity, which took
in not only Madame Carlat and the waiting-woman
who stood at the door but the absent servants, "And
what of these?" she said. "What of these? You
170 COUNT HANNIBAL.
forgot them, monsieur. You do not think, you can-
not have thought, that I would abandon them ? That
I would leave them to such mercy as he, defeated,
might extend to them ? No, you forgot them. "
He did not know what to answer, for the jealous
eyes of the frightened waiting-woman, fierce with the
fierceness of a hunted animal, were on him. The
Caiiat and she had heard, could hear. At last, " Bet-
ter one than none ! " he muttered, in a voice so low
that if the servants caught his meaning it was but in-
distinctly. "I have to think of you."
"And I of them," she answered firmly. ".Nor is
that all. Were they not here, it could not be. My
word is passed though a moment ago, monsieur, in
the joy of seeing you I forgot it. And how," she
continued, "if I keep not my word, can I expect him
to keep his? Or how, if I am ready to break the
bond, on this happening which I never expected, can
I hold him to conditions which he loves as little as
little as I love him?"
Her voice dropped piteously on the last words;
her eyes, craving her lover's pardon, sought his. But
rage, not pity or admiration, was the feeling roused
in Tignonville's breast. He stood staring at her,
struck dumb by folly so immense. At last, "You
cannot mean this," he blurted out. "You cannot
mean, Mademoiselle, that you intend to stand on that !
To keep a promise wrung from you by force, by
treachery, in the midst of such horrors as he and his
have brought upon us ! It is inconceivable ! "
She shook her head. "I promised," she said.
"You were forced to it."
"But the promise saved our lives."
"From murderers! From assassins! " he protested.
THE BEOTHEE OF ST. MAGLOIEE. 171
She shook her head. "I cannot go back," she said
firmly; "I cannot.-"
"Then you are willing to marry him," he cried in
ignoble anger. "That is it! Nay, you must wish to
marry him! For, as for his conditions, Mademoi-
selle," the young man continued, with an insulting-
laugh, "you cannot think seriously of them. He
keep conditions and you in his power! He, Count
Hannibal! But for the matter of that, and were he
in the mind to keep them, what are they I There axe
plenty of ministers. I left one only this morning. I
could lay my hand on one in five minutes. He has
only to find one therefore and to find me ! "
"Yes, monsieur," she cried, trembling with wound-
ed pride, "it is for that reason I implore you to go.
The sooner you leave me, the sooner you place your-
self in a position of security, the happier for me !
Every moment that you spend here, you endanger
both yourself and me ! "
" If you will not be persuaded
"I shall not be persuaded," she answered firmly,
"and you do but" alas! her pride began to break
down, her voice to quiver, she looked piteously at
him "by staying here make it harder for me to
to "
"Hush!" cried Madame Carlat, "Hush!" And
as they started and turned towards her she was at the
end of the chamber by the door, almost out of earshot
she raised a warning hand. "Listen!" she mut-
tered, "some one has entered the house."
"'Tis my messenger from Biron," Tignonville an-
swered sullenly. And he drew his cowl over his face,
and, hiding his hands in his sleeves, moved towards
the door. But on the threshold he turned and
172 . COUNT HANNIBAL.
held out his arms. He could not go thus. "Made-
moiselle! Clotilde!" he cried with passion, "for
the last time, listen to me, come with me. Be per-
suaded ! "
"Hush!" Madame Carlat interposed again, and
turned a scared face on them. "It is no messenger!
It is Tavannes himself: I know his voice." And she
wrung her hands. " Oh, mon Dieu, mon Dieu, what
are we to do ? " she continued, panic-stricken. And
she looked all ways about the room.
CHAPTEE XVI.
AT CLOSE QUARTERS.
FEAR leapt into Mademoiselle's eyes, but she com-
manded herself. She signed to Madame Carlat to be
silent, and they listened, gazing at one another, hop-
ing against hope that the woman was mistaken. A
long moment they waited, and some were beginning
to breathe again, when the strident tones of Count
Hannibal's voice rolled up the staircase, and put an
end to doubt. Mademoiselle grasped the table and
stood supporting herself by it. "What are we to
do? " she muttered. "What are we to do? " and she
turned distractedly towards the women. The cour-
age which had supported her in her lover's absence
had abandoned her now. "If he finds him here I am
lost! I am lost!"
"He will not know me," Tignonville muttered.
But he spoke uncertainly; and his gaze, shifting hith-
er and thither, belied the boldness of his words.
Madame Carlat's eyes flew round the room ; on her
for once the burden seemed to rest. Alas ! the room
had no second door, and the windows looked on a
courtyard guarded by Tavannes' people. And even
now Count Hannibal's step rang on the stair! his
hand was almost on the latch. The woman wrung
her hands ; then, a thought striking her, she darted
to a corner where Mademoiselle's robes hung on pegs
against the wall.
174 COUNT HANNIBAL.
"Here!" she cried, raising them. "Behind these!
He may not be seen here ! Quick, monsieur, quick !
Hide yourself ! "
It was a forlorn hope the suggestion of one
who had not thought out the position; and, what-
ever its promise, Mademoiselle's pride revolted
against it.
"No," she cried. "Not there! " while Tiguonville,
who knew that the step was useless, since Count Han-
nibal must have learned that a monk had entered,
held his ground.
"You could not deny yourself! " he muttered hur-
riedly.
"And a priest with me?" she answered; and she
shook her head.
There was no time for more, and even as Mademoi-
selle spoke Count Hannibal's knuckles tapped the
door. She cast a last look at her lover. He had
turned his back on the window ; the light no longer
fell on his face. It was possible that he might pass
unrecognised, if Tavannes' stay was brief; at any
rate the risk must be run. In a half -stifled voice she
bade her woman, Javette, open the door.
Count Hannibal bowed low as he entered ; and he
deceived the others. But he did not deceive her.
He had not crossed the threshold before she repented
that she had not acted on Tignonville's suggestion,
and denied herself. For what could escape those
hard keen eyes, which swept the room, saw all, and
seemed to see nothing those eyes in which there
dwelt even now a glint of cruel humour ? He might
deceive others, but she who panted within his grasp,
as the wild bird palpitates in the hand of the fowler,
was not deceived! He saw, he knew! although, a
AT CLOSE QUAETEES. 175
he bowed, and smiling, stood upright, he looked only
at her.
"I expected to be with you before this," he said
courteously, "but I have been detained. First, Ma-
demoiselle, by some of your friends, who were re-
luctant to part with me ; then by some of your ene-
mies, who, finding me in no handsome case, took me
for a Huguenot escaped from the river, and drove me
to shifts to get clear of them. However, now I am
come, I have news."
"News?" she muttered with dry lips. It could
hardly be good news.
"Yes, Mademoiselle, of M. de Tignonville, " he an-
swered. " I have little doubt that I shall be able to
produce him this evening, and so to satisfy one of
your scruples. And as I trust that this good father, "
he went on, turning to the ecclesiastic, and speaking
with the sneer from which he seldom refrained, Cath-
olic as he was, when he mentioned a priest, "has by
this time succeeded in removing the other, and per-
suading you to accept his ministrations "
"No! " she cried impulsively.
"No?" with a dubious smile, and a glance from
one to the other. "Oh, I had hoped better things.
But he still may? He still may. I am sure he may.
In which case, Mademoiselle, your modesty must par-
don me if I plead urgency, and fix the hour after sup-
per this evening for the fulfilment of your promise."
She turned white to the lips. "After supper?"
she gasped.
"Yes, Mademoiselle, this evening. Shall I say
at eight o'clock? "
In horror of the thing which menaced her, of the
thing from which only two hours separated her, she
176 COUNT HANNIBAL.
could find no words but those which she had already
used. The worst was upon her; worse than the
worst could not befall her. "But he has not per-
suaded me ! " she cried, clenching her hands in pas-
sion. " He has not persuaded me ! "
" Still he may, Mademoiselle."
"He will not! " she cried wildly. "He will not! "
The room was going round with her. The preci-
pice yawned at her feet ; its naked terrors turned her
brain. She had been pushed nearer, and nearer, and
nearer ; struggle as she might she was on the verge.
A mist rose before her eyes, and though they thought
she listened she understood nothing of what was pass-
ing. When she came to herself after the lapse of a
minute, Count Hannibal was speaking.
"Permit him another trial, "he was saying in a tone
of bland irony. " A short time longer, Mademoiselle !
One more assault, father! The weapons of the
Church could not be better directed or to a more
worthy object; and, successful, shall not fail of due
recognition and an earthly reward."
And while she listened, half fainting, with a hum-
ming in her ears, he was gone. The door closed on
him, and the three Mademoiselle's woman had with-
drawn when she opened to him looked at one an-
other. The girl parted her lips to speak, but she
only smiled piteously ; and it was M. de Tignonville
who broke the silence, in a tone which betrayed rather
relief than any other feeling.
"Come, all is not lost yet," he said briskly. "If I
can escape from the house "
"He knows you," she answered.
"What?"
"He knows you," Mademoiselle repeated in a tone
AT CLOSE QUAETEES. 177
almost apathetic. "I read it in his eyes. He knew
you at once: and knew, too," she added bitterly,
"that he had here under his hand one of the two
things he required."
"Then why did he hide his knowledge?" the
young man retorted sharply.
"Why?" she answered. "To induce me to waive
the other condition in the hope of saving you. Oh ! "
she continued in a tone of bitter raillery, "he has the
cunning of hell, of the priests! You are no match
for him, monsieur. Kor I ; nor any of us. And "
with a gesture of despair "he will be my master!
He will break me to his will and to his hand ! I shall
be his! His, body and soul, body and soul!" she
continued drearily, as she sank into a chair and,
rocking herself to and fro, covered her face. "I
shall be his ! His till I die ! "
The man's eyes burned, and the pulse in his tem-
ples beat wildly. "But you shall not," he exclaimed.
"I may be no match for him in cunning, you say
well. But I can kill him. And I will ! " He paced
up and down. "I will ! "
"You should have done it when he was here," she
answered, half in scorn, half in earnest.
"It is not too late," he cried; and then he stopped,
silenced by the opening door. It was Javette who
entered.
They looked at her, and before she spoke were on
their feet. Her face, white and eager, marking some-
thing besides fear, announced that she brought news.
She closed the door behind her, and in a moment it
was told.
"Monsieur can escape, if he is quick," she cried in
a low tone ; and they saw that she trembled with ex-
12
178 COUNT HANNIBAL.
citemeut. "They are at supper. But he must be
quick ! He must be quick ! "
"Is not the door guarded!"
"It is, but "
"And he knows! Your mistress says that he
knows that I am here. "
For a moment Javette looked startled. "It is pos-
sible," she muttered. "But he has gone out."
Madame Carlat clapped her hands. "I heard the
door close," she said, "three minutes ago."
"And if monsieur can reach the room in which he
supped last night, the window that was broken is
only blocked " she swallowed once or twice in her
excitement " with something he can move. And
then monsieur is in the street, where his cowl will
protect him."
"But Count Hannibal r s men? " he asked eagerly.
"They are eating in the lodge by the door."
"Ha! And they cannot see the other room from
there?"
Javette nodded. Her tale told, she seemed to be
unable to add a word. Mademoiselle, who knew her
for a craven, wondered that she had found courage
either to note what she had or to bring the news.
But as Providence had been so good to them as to put
it into this woman's head to act as she had, it behoved
them to use the opportunity the last, the very last
opportunity they might have.
She turned to Tignonville. "Oh, go!" she cried
feverishly. "Go, I beg! Go now, monsieur! The
greatest kindness you can do me is to place yourself
as quickly as possible beyond his reach." A faint
colour, the flush of hope, had returned to her cheeks.
Her eyes glittered.
AT CLOSE QTJAETEES. 179
"Eight, Mademoiselle!" he cried, obedient for
once. "I go! And do you be of good courage." He
held her hand an instant, then, moving to the door,
he opened it and listened. They all pressed behind
him to hear. A murmur of voices, low and distant,
mounted the staircase and bore out the girl's tale;
apart from this the house was silent. Tignonville
cast a last look at Mademoiselle, and, with a gesture
of farewell, glided a-tiptoe to the stairs and began to
descend, his face hidden in his cowl. They watched
him reach the angle of the staircase, they watched
him vanish beyond it ; and still they listened, looking
at one another when a board creaked or the voices
below were hushed for a moment.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE DUEL.
AT the foot of the staircase Tignonville paused.
The droning Norman voices of the men on guard
issued from an open door a few paces before him on
the left. He caught a jest, the coarse chuckling
laughter which attended it, and the gurgle of ap-
plause which followed ; and he knew that at any mo-
ment one of the men might step out and discover
him. Fortunately the door of the room with the
shattered window was almost within reach of his
hand on the right side of the passage, and he stepped
softly to it. He stood an instant hesitating, his hand
on the latch ; then, alarmed by a movement in the
guard-room, as if some were rising, he pushed the
door in a panic, slid into the room, and shut the door
behind him. He was safe, and he had made no noise ;
but at the table, at supper, with his back to him and
his face to the partly closed window, sat Count Han-
nibal !
The young man's heart stood still. For a long
minute he gazed at the Count's back, spellbound and
unable to stir. Then, as Tavannes ate on without
looking round, he began to take courage. Possibly
he had entered so quietly that he had not been heard,
or possibly his entrance was taken for that of a ser-
vant. In either case, there was a chance that he
THE DUEL. 181
might retire after the same fashion ; arid he had actu-
ally raised the latch, and was drawing the door to
him with infinite precaution, when Tavanues' voice
struck him, as it were, in the face.
"Pray do not admit the draught, M. de Tignon-
ville," he said, without looking round. "In your
cowl you do not feel it, but it is otherwise with me. "
The unfortunate Tignouville stood transfixed, glar-
ing at the back of the other's head. For an instant
he could not find his voice. At last "Curse you! " he
hissed in a transport of rage. "Curse you ! You did
know, then? And she was right."
"If you mean that I expected you, to be sure, mon-
sieur," Count Hannibal answered. "See, your place
is laid. You will not feel the air from without there.
The very becoming dress which you have adopted se-
cures you from cold. But do you not find it some-
what oppressive this summer weather? "
"Curse you! " the young man cried, trembling.
Tavannes turned and looked at him with a dark
smile. "The curse may fall," he said, "but I fancy
it will not be in consequence of your petitions, mon-
sieur. And now, were it not better you played the
man?"
"If I were armed," the other cried passionately,
"you would not insult me ! "
"Sit down, sir, sit down," Count Hannibal an-
swered sternly. "We will talk of that presently. In
the meantime I have something to say to you. Will
you not eat?"
But Tiguonville would not.
"Very well," Count Hannibal answered; and he
went on with Ms supper, "I am indifferent whether
you eat or not. It is enough for me that you are one
182 COUNT HANNIBAL.
of the two things I lacked an hour ago ; and that I
have you, M. de Tignonville. And through you I
look to obtain the other."
"What other?" Tignonville cried.
"A minister," Tavannes answered, smiling. "A
minister. There are not many left in Paris of your
faith. But you met one this morning, I know ! "
"II I met one?"
" Yes, monsieur, you ! And can lay your hand on
him in five minutes, you know. "
M. de Tignonville gasped. His face turned a shade
paler. "You have a spy," he cried. "You have a
spy upstairs ! "
Tavannes raised his cup to his lips, and drank.
When he had set it down, "It may be," he said, and
he shrugged his shoulders. "I know, it boots not
how I know. It is my business to make the most of
my knowledge and of yours ! "
M. de Tignonville laughed rudely. "Make the
most of your own," he said; "you will have none of
mine. "
"That remains to be seen," Count Hannibal an-
swered. u Carry your mind back two days, M. de
Tignonville. Had I gone to Mademoiselle de Vrillac
last Saturday and said to her ' Marry me, or promise
to marry me, ' what answer would she have given ? "
"She would have called you an insolent!" the
young man replied hotly. "And I "
"No matter what you would have done!" Tavan-
nes said. "Suffice it that she would have answered
as you suggest. Yet to-day she has given me her
promise."
"Yes, "the young man retorted, "in circumstances
in which no man of honour "
THE DUEL. 183
"Let us say in peculiar circumstances."
"Well?"
"Which still exist! Mark me, M. de Tignonville, "
Count Hannibal continued, leaning forward and eye-
ing the young man with meaning, "which still exist!
And may have the same effect on another's will as on
hers! Listen! Do you hear?" And rising from his
seat with a darkening face, he pointed to the partly
shuttered window, through which the measured tramp
of a body of men came heavily to the ear. "Do you
hear, monsieur? Do you understand? As it was
yesterday it is to-day ! They killed the President La
Place this morning ! And they are searching ! They
are still searching ! The river is not yet full, nor the
gibbet glutted! I have but to open that window
and denounce you, and your life would hang by no
stronger thread than the life of a mad dog which they
chase through the streets ! "
The younger man had risen also. He stood con-
fronting Tavannes, the cowl fallen back from his face,
his eyes dilated. "You think to frighten me! " he
cried. "You think that I am craven enough to sac-
rifice her to save myself. You "
"You were craven enough to draw back yester-
day, when you stood at this window and waited for
death!" Count Hannibal answered brutally. "You
flinched then, and may flinch again ! "
"Try me!" Tignonville retorted, trembling with
passiou. "Try me!" And then, as the other stared
at him and made no movement, "But you dare not!"
lie cried. " Yon dare not ! "
"No?"
"No! For if I die you lose her! " Tiguouville re-
plied in a voice of triumph. "Ha, ha! I touch you
184 COUNT HANNIBAL.
there! " he continued. "You dare not, for my safety
is part of the price, and is more to you than it is to
myself! You may threaten, M. de Tavannes, you
may bluster, and shout and point to the window"
and he mocked, with a disdainful mimicry, the
other's gesture "but my safety is more to you than
to me ! And 'twill end there ! "
"You believe that?"
"I know it!"
In two strides Count Hannibal was at the window.
He seized a great piece of the boarding which closed
one half of the opening ; he wrenched it away. A
flood of evening light burst in through the aperture,
and fell on and heightened the flushed passion of his
features, as he turned again to his opponent. "Then
if you know it," he cried vehemently, "in God's
name act upon it ! " And he pointed to the window.
"Act upon it?"
" Ay, act upon it ! " Tavannes repeated, with a
glance of flame. "The road is open! If you would
save your mistress, behold the way ! If you would
save her from the embrace she abhors, from the eyes
under which she trembles, from the hand of a master,
there lies the way ! And it is not her glove only you
will save, but herself, her soul, her body! So," he
continued with a certain wildness and in a tone
wherein contempt and bitterness were mingled, "to
the lions, brave lover! Will you your life for her
honour ? Will you death that she may live a maid ?
Will you your head to save her finger? Then, leap
down! leap down! The lists are open, the sand is
strewed ! Out of your own mouth I have it that if
you perish she is saved! Then out, monsieur! Cry
'I am a Huguenot! ' And God's will be done! "
THE DUEL. 185
Tignonville was livid. "Rather, your will!" he
panted. " Your will, you devil ! Nevertheless "
" You will go ! Ha ! ha ! You will go ! "
For an instant it seemed that he would go. Stung
by the challenge, wrought on by the contempt in
which Tavannes held him, he shot a look of hate at
the tempter ; he caught his breath, and laid his hand
on the edge of the shuttering as if he would leap out.
But it goes hard with him who has once turned
back from the foe. The evening light, glancing cold
on the burnished pike-points of a group of archers
who stood near, caught his eye and went chill to his
heart. Death, not in the arena, not in the sight of
shouting thousands, but in this darkening street, with
an enemy laughing from the window, death with no
revenge to follow, with no certainty that after all she
would be safe, such a death could be compassed only
by pure love the love of a child for a parent, of a
parent for a child, of a man for the one woman in the
world !
He recoiled. "You would not spare her!" he
cried, his face damp with sweat for he knew now
that he would not go. "You want to be rid of me!
You would fool me, and then "
"Out of your own mouth you are convict!" Count
Hannibal retorted gravely. "It was you who said it!
But still I swear it ! Shall I swear it to you ? "
But Tignonville recoiled another step and was
silent.
"No? O preux chevalier, O gallant knight! I
knew it! Do you think that I did not know with
whom I had to deal?" And Count Hannibal burst
into harsh laughter, turning his back on the other,
as if he no longer counted. "You will neither die
186 COUNT HANNIBAL.
with her nor for her ! You were better in her petti-
coats and she in your breeches ! Or no, you are best
as you are, good father! Take my advice, M. de Tig-
nonville, have done with arms ; and with a string of
beads, and soft words, and talk of Holy Mother
Church, you will fool the women as surely as the best
of them ! They are not all like my cousin, a flouting,
gibing, jeering woman you had poor fortune there,
I fear?"
"If I had a sword!" Tignonville hissed, his face
livid "with rage. "You call me coward, because I
will not die to please you. But give me a sword, and
I will show you if I aru a coward ! "
Tavannes stood still. "You are there, are you?"
he said in an altered tone. " I "
"Give me a sword," Tignonville repeated, hold-
ing out his open trembling hands. "A sword! A
sword! 'Tis easy taunting an unarmed man, but "
"You wish to fight?"
"I ask no more ! No more ! Give me a sword," he
urged, his voice quivering with eagerness. "It is
you who are the coward ! "
Count Hannibal stared at him. "And what am I
to get by fighting you ?" he reasoned slowly. "You
are in iny power. I can do with you as I please. I
can call from this window and denounce you, or I
can summon my men '
* ' Coward ! Coward ! "
"Ay? Well, I will tell you what I will do," with
a subtle smile. "I will give you a sword, M. de Tig-
nonville, and I will meet you foot to foot here, in
this room, on a condition."
"What is it? What is it?" the young man cried
with incredible eagerness. "Name your condition ! "
THE DUEL. 187
"That if I get the better of you, you find me a min-
ister. "
"I find you a "
"A minister. Yes, that is it. Or tell me where I
can find one."
The young man recoiled. "Never! " he said.
"You know where to find one."
"Never! Never!"
"You can lay your hand on one in five minutes,
you know."
"I wiU not."
"Then I shall not fight you! " Count Hannibal an-
swered coolly; and he turned from him, and back
again. "You will pardon me if I say, M. de Tignon-
ville, that you are in as many minds about fighting as
about dying! I do not think that you would have
made your fortune at Court. Moreover, there is a
thing which I fancy you have not considered. If we
fight you may kill me, in which case the condition
will not help me much. Or I which is more like-
ly " he added with a harsh smile, "may kill you, and
again I am no better placed. "
The young man's, pallid features betrayed the con-
flict in his breast. To do him justice, his hand itched
for the sword-hilt he was brave enough for that ; he
hated, and only so could he avenge himself. But the
penalty if he had the worse! And yet what of it?
He was in hell now, in a hell of humiliation, shame,
defeat, tormented by this fiend ! 'Twas only to risk
a lower hell.
At last, "I will do it!" he cried hoarsely. "Give
me a sword and look to yourself."
" You promise ? "
"Yes, yes, I promise!"
188 COUNT HANNIBAL.
"Good," Count Hannibal answered suavely; "but
we cannot fight so, we must have more light," and
striding to the door he opened it, and calling the Nor-
man bade him move the table and bring caudles a
dozen candles ; for in the narrow streets the light was
waning, and in the half -shuttered room it was grow-
ing dusk. Tignonville, listening with a throbbing
brain, wondered that the attendant expressed no sur-
prise and said no word until Tavannes added to his
orders one for a pair of swords.
Then, "Monsieur's sword is here," Bigot answered
in his half-intelligible patois. " He left it here yes-
ter morning."
"You are a good fellow, Bigot," Tavannes an-
swered, with a gaiety and good-humour which aston-
ished Tiguouville. "And one of these days you shall
marry Suzanne."
The Norinau smiled sourly and went in search of
the weapon.
"You have a poniard? " Count Hannibal continued
in the same tone of unusual good temper, which had
already struck Tignonville. "Excellent! Will you
strip, then, or as we are ? Very good, monsieur ; in
the unlikely evthit of fortune declaring for you, you
will be in a better condition to take care of yourself.
A man running through the streets in his shirt is ex-
posed to inconveniences ! " And he laughed gaily.
"While he laughed the other listened ; and his rage
began to give place to wonder. A man who regarded
as a pastime a sword and dagger conflict between four
walls, who, having his adversary in his power, was
ready to discard the advantage, to descend into the
lists, and to risk life for a whim, a fancy such a
man was outside his experience, though in Poitou in
THE DUEL. 189
those days of war were men reckoned brave. For
what, he asked himself as he waited, had Tavaunes to
gain by fighting? The possession of Mademoiselle 1 ?
But Mademoiselle, if his passion for her overwhelmed
him, was in his power; and if his promise were a bar-
rier which seemed inconceivable in the light of his
reputation he had only to wait, and to-morrow, or
the next day, or the next, a minister would be found,
and without risk he could gain that for which he was
now risking all.
Tignonville did not know that it was in the other's
nature to find pleasure in such utmost ventures.
Nevertheless the recklessness to which Tavannes' ac-
tion bore witness had its effect upon him. By the
time the young man's sword arrived something of his
passion for the conflict had evaporated ; and though
the touch of the hilt restored his determination, the
locked door, the confined space, and the unaccus-
tomed light went a certain distance towards substitut-
ing despair for courage.
The use of the dagger in the duels of that day,
however, rendered despair itself formidable. And
Tignonville, when he took his place, appeared any-
thing but a mean antagonist. He had removed his
robe and cowl, and lithe and active as a cat he stood
as it were on springs, throwing his weight now on
this foot and now on that, and was continually in
motion. The table bearing the caudles had been
pushed against the window, the boarding of which
had been replaced by Bigot before he left the room.
Tignonville had this, and consequently the lights, on
his dagger hand; and he plumed himself on the
advantage, considering his point the more difficult to
follow.
190 COUNT HANNIBAL.
Count Hannibal did not seem to notice this, how-
ever. " Are you ready 1" he asked. And then,
"On guard! " he cried, and he stamped the echo to
the word. But, that done, instead of bearing the
other down with a headlong rush characteristic of
the man as Tiguouville feared he held off warily,
stooping low ; and when his slow opening was met by
one as cautious, he began to taunt his antagonist.
"Come!" he cried, and feinted half-heartedly.
" Come, monsieur, are we going to fight, or play at
fighting?"
"Fight yourself, then!" Tignonville answered, his
breath quickened by excitement and growing hope.
" 'Tis not I hold back ! " And he lunged, but was put
aside.
"Ca! ca!" Tavannes retorted; and he lunged and
parried in his turn, but loosely and at a distance.
Aftei which the two moved nearer the door, their
eyes glittering as they watched one another, their
knees bent, the sinews of their backs straining for the
leap. Suddenly Tavannes thrust, and leapt away,
and as his antagonist thrust in return the Count
swept the blade aside with a strong parry, and for a
moment seemed to be on the point of falling on Tig-
nonville with the poniard. But Tignonville retired
his right foot nimbly, which brought them front to
front again. And the younger man laughed.
"Try again, M. le Comte!" he said. And, with
the word, he dashed in himself quick as light ; for a
second the blades ground on one another, the daggers
hovered, the two suffused faces glared into one anoth-
er ; then the pair disengaged again. The blood trick-
led from a scratch on Count Hannibal's neck; half an
inch to the right and the point had found his throat.
THE DUEL. 191
And Tignonville, elated, laughed anew, and swaying
from side to side on his hips, watched with growing
confidence for a second chance. Lithe as one of the
leopards Charles kept at the Louvre, he stooped lower
and lower, and more and more with each moment
took the attitude of the assailant, watching for an
opening; while Count Hannibal, his face dark and
his eyes vigilant, stood increasingly on the defence.
The light was waning a little, the wicks of the caudles
were burning long ; bnt neither noticed it or dared to
remove his eyes from the other's. Their laboured
breathing found an echo on the farther side of the
door, but this again neither observed.
"Well?" Count Hannibal said at last. "Are you
coming ? "
"When I please," Tignonville answered; and he
feinted but drew back. The other did the same, and
again they watched one another, their eyes seeming
to grow smaller and smaller. Gradually a smile had
birth on Tiguonville's lips. He thrust ! It was par-
ried! He thrust again parried! Tavannes r grown
still more cautious, gave a yard. Tignonville pushed
on, but did not allow confidence to master caution.
He began, indeed, to taunt his adversary ; to flout and
jeer him. But it was with a motive.
For suddenly, in the middle of a sentence, he re-
peated the peculiar thrust which had been successful
before. This time, however, Tavannes was ready.
He put aside the blade with a quick parade, and in-
stead of making a riposte sprang within the other's
guard. The two came face to face and breast to
shoulder, and struck furiously with their daggers.
Count Hannibal was outside his opponent's sword
and had the advantage. Tignonville' s dagger fell,
192 COUNT HANNIBAL.
but glanced off the metalwork of the other's hilt ; Ta-
vaimes' fell swift and hard between the young man's
eyes. The Huguenot flung up his hands and stag-
gered back, falling his length on the floor.
In an instant Count Hannibal was on his breast,
and had knocked away his dagger. Then, "You own
yourself vanquished?" he cried.
The young man, blinded by the blood which trick-
led down his face, made a sign with his hands.
Count Hannibal rose to his feet again, and stood a
moment looking at his foe without speaking. Pres-
ently he seemed to be satisfied. He nodded, and
going to the table dipped a napkin in water. He
brought it, and carefully supporting Tignonville's
head, laved his brow. "It is as I thought," he said,
when he had stanched the blood. "You are not hurt,
man. You are stunned. It is no more than a
bruise. "
The young man was coming to himself. "But I
thought " he muttered, and broke off to pass his
hand over his face. Then he got up slowly, reeling a
little, "I thought it was the point," he muttered.
"No, it was the pommel," Tavannes answered
drily. "It would not have served me to kill you.
I could have done that ten times."
Tignouville groaned, and, sitting down at the table,
held the napkin to his aching head. One of the can-
dles had been overturned in the struggle and lay on
the floor, flaring in a little pool of grease. Tavannes
set his heel upon it ; then, striding to the farther end
of the room, he picked up Tignonville's dagger and
placed it beside his sword on the table. He looked
about to see if aught else remained to do, and, finding
nothing, he returned to Tignonville's side.
THE DUEL. 193
"Now, monsieur," he said in a voice hard and con-
strained, " I must ask you to perform your part of
the bargain. "
A groan of anguish broke from the unhappy man.
And yet he had set his life on the cast ; what more
could he have done? "You will not harm him?" he
muttered.
"He shall go safe," Count Hannibal replied
gravely.
"And " he fought a moment with his pride,
then blurted out the words, "you will not tell her
that it was through me you found him? "
"I will not," Tavannes answered in the same tone.
He stooped and picked up the other's robe and cowl,
which had fallen from a chair so that as he spoke
his eyes were averted. "She shall never know
through me," he said.
And Tignonville, his face hidden in his hands, told
him.
13
CHAPTER XVIH.
ANDKOMEDA, PERSEUS BEING ABSENT.
LITTLE by little while they fought below the
gloom had thickened, and night had fallen in the
room above. But Mademoiselle would not have can-
dles brought. Seated in the darkness, on the upper-
most step of the stairs, her hands clasped about her
knees, she listened and listened, as if by that action
she could avert misfortune ; or as if, by going so far
forward to meet it, she could turn aside the worst.
The women shivering in the darkness about her
would fain have struck a light and drawn her back
into the room, for they felt safer there. But she was
not to be moved. The laughter and chatter of the
men in the guard-room, the coming and going of
Bigot as he passed, below but out of sight, had no
terrors for her ; nay, she breathed more freely on the
bare open landing of the staircase than in the close
confines of a room which her fears made hateful to
her. Here at least she could listen, her face unseen ;
and listening she bore the suspense more easily.
A turn in the staircase, with the noise which pro-
ceeded from the guard-room, rendered it difficult to
hear what happened in the closed room below. But
she thought that if an alarm were raised there she
must hear it ; and as the moments passed and nothing
happened, she began to feel confident that her lover
had made good his escape by the window.
ANDEOMEDA, PEESEUS BEING ABSENT. 195
Presently she got a fright. Three or four men came
from the guard-room and went, as it seemed to her,
to the door of the room with the shattered easement.
She told herself that she had rejoiced too soon, and
her heart stood still. She waited for a rush of feet,
a cry, a struggle. But except an uncertain muffled
sound which lasted for some minutes, and was fol-
lowed by a dull shock, she heard nothing more. And
presently the men went back whispering, the noise in
the guard-room which had been partially hushed
broke forth anew, and perplexed but relieved she
breathed again. Surely he had escaped by this time.
Surely by this time he was far away, in the Arsenal,
or in some place of refuge! And she might take
courage, and feel that for this day the peril was over-
past.
"Mademoiselle will have the lights now?" one of
the women ventured.
"No! no!" she answered feverishly, and she con-
tinued to crouch where she was on the stairs, bathing
herself and her burning face in the darkness and cool-
ness of the stairway. The air entered freely through
a window at her elbow and the place was fresher,
were that all, than the room she had left. Javette
began to whimper, but she paid no heed to her; a
man came and went along the passage below, and she
heard the outer door unbarred, and the jarring tread
of three or four men who passed through it. Biit all
without disturbance; aaad afterwards the house was
quiet again. And as on this Monday evening the
prime virulence of the massacre had begun to abate
though it held after a fashion to the end of the
week Paris without was quiet also. The sounds
which had chilled her heart at intervals during two
196 COUNT HANNIBAL.
days were no longer heard. A feeling almost of
peace, almost of comfort a drowsy feeling, that was
three parts a reaction from excitement took posses-
sion of her. In the darkness her head sank lower
and lower on her knees. And half an hour passed,
while Javette whimpered, 'and Madame Carlat slum-
bered, her broad back propped against the wall.
Suddenly Mademoiselle opened her eyes, and saw,
three steps below her, a strange man whose upward
way she barred. Behind him came Carlat, and be-
hind him Bigot, lighting both ; and in the confusion
of her thoughts as she rose to her feet the three, all
staring at her in a common amazement, seemed a
company. The air entering through the open win-
dow beside her blew the flame of the caudle this way
and that, and added to the nightmare character of the
scene ; for by the shifting light the men seemed to
laugh one moment and scowl the next, and their
shadows were now high and now low on the wall. In
truth they were as much amazed at coming on her in
that place as she at their appearance ; but they were
awake, and she newly roused from sleep ; and the ad-
vantage was with them.
" What is it? " she cried in a panic. " What is it? "
"If Mademoiselle will return to her room? " one of
the men said courteously.
"But what is it? " She was frightened.
"If Mademoiselle "
Then she turned without more and went back into
the room, and the three followed, and her woman and
Madame Carlat. She stood resting one hand on the
table while Javette with shaking fingers lighted the
caudles. Then, "Now, monsieur," she said in a hard
voice, "if you will tell me your business? "
ANDROMEDA, PERSEUS BEING ABSENT. 197
"You do not know me?" The stranger's eyes
dwelt kindly and pitifully on her.
She looked at him steadily, crushing down the
fears which knocked at her heart. "No," she said.
"And yet I think I have seen you."
"You saw me a week last Sunday," the stranger
answered sorrowfully. "My name is La Tribe. I
preached that day, Mademoiselle, before the King of
Navarre. I believe that you were there."
For a moment she stared at him in silence, her lips
parted. Then she laughed, a laugh which set the
teeth on edge. "Oh, he is clever!" she cried. "He
has the wit of the priests ! Or the devil ! But you
come too late, monsieur ! You come too late ! The
bird has flown. "
"Mademoiselle "
" I tell you the bird has flown ! " she repeated ve-
hemently. And her laugh of joyless triumph rang
through the room. "He is clever, but I have out-
witted him ! I have "
She paused and stared about her wildly, struck by
the silence ; struck, too, by something solemn, some-
thing pitiful in the faces that were turned on her.
And her lip began to quiver. "'What?" she mut-
tered. "Why do you look at me so? He has not"
she turned from one to another "he has not been
taken?"
"M. Tignonville?"
She nodded.
"He is below."
"Ah!" she said.
They expected to see her break down, perhaps to
see her fall. But she only groped blindly for a chair
and sat. And for a moment there was silence in the
198 COUNT HANNIBAL.
room. It was the Huguenot minister who broke it in
a tone formal and solemn.
"Listen, all present! " he said slowly. "The ways
of God are past finding out. For two days in the
midst of great perils I have been preserved by His
hand and fed by His bounty, and I am told that I
shall live if, in this matter, I do the will of those who
hold me in their power. But be assured and heark-
en all, " he continued, lowering his voice to a sterner
note. "Bather than marry this woman to this man
against her will if indeed in His sight such marriage
can be rather than save my life by such base com-
pliance, I will die not once but ten times ! See. I
am ready ! I will make no defence ! " And he
opened his arms as if to welcome the stroke. "If
there be trickery here, if there has been practising
below, where they told me this and tyiat, it shall not
avail ! Until I hear from Mademoiselle's own lips
that she is willing, I will not say over her so much as
Yea, yea, or Nay, nay ! "
"She is willing!" '
La Tribe turned sharply, and beheld the speaker.
It was Count Hannibal, who had entered a few sec-
onds earlier, and had taken his stand within the
door.
"She is willing! " Tavannes repeated quietly. And
if, in this moment of the fruition of his schemes, he
felt his triumph, he masked it under a face of sombre
purpose. "Do you doubt me, man? "
"From her own lips! " the other replied, undaunted
and few could say as much by that harsh pres-
ence. " From no other's !"
"Sirrah, you "
"I can die. And you can no more, my lord!" the
ANDROMEDA, PERSEUS BEING ABSENT. 199
minister answered bravely. "You have no threat
can move me."
"I am not sure of that," Tavannes answered, more
blandly. " But had you listened to me and been less
anxious to be brave, M. La Tribe, where no danger
is, you had learned that here is no call for heroics!
Mademoiselle is willing, and will tell you so."
"With her own lips?"
Count Hannibal raised his eyebrows. " With her
own lips, if you will, " he said. And then, advanc-
ing a step and addressing her, with unusual gravity,
"Mademoiselle de Vriltoc," he said, "you hear what
this gentleman requires. Will you be pleased to con-
firm what I have said ? "
She did not answer, and in the intense silence
which held the room in its freezing grasp a woman
choked, another broke into weeping. The colour
ebbed from the cheeks of more than one; the men
fidgeted on their feet.
Count Hannibal looked round, his head high.
"There is no call for tears," he said; and whether he
spoke in irony or in a strange obtuseness was known
only to himself. " Mademoiselle is in no hurry and
rightly to answer a question so momentous. Under
the pressure of utmost peril, she passed her word;
the more reason that, now the time has come to re-
deem it, she should do so at leisure and after thought.
Since she gave her promise, monsieur, she has had
more than one opportunity of evading its fulfilment.
But she is a Vrillac, and I know that nothing is far-
ther from her thoughts. "
He was silent a moment; and then "Mademoi-
selle," he said, "I would not hurry you."
Her eyes were closed, but at that her lips moved.
20u COUNT HANNIBAL.
"I am willing," she whispered. And a fluttering
sigh, of relief, of pity, of God knows what, filled the
room.
"You are satisfied, M. La Tribe? "
"I do not "
"Man! " With a growl as of a tiger, Count Hanni-
bal dropped the mask. In two strides he was at the
minister's side, his hand gripped his shoulder; his
face, flushed with passion, glared into his. "Will
you play with lives!" he hissed. "If you do not
value your own, have you no thought of others'? Of
these? Look and count! Have you no bowels? If
she will save them, will not you? "
"My own I do not value."
"Curse your own!" Tavauues cried in furious
scorn. And he shook the other to and fro. "Who
thought of your life? Will you doom these? Will
you give them to the butcher? "
"My lord," La Tribe answered, shaken in spite of
himself, "if she be willing "
"She is willing."
"I have nought to say. But I caught her words
indistinctly. And without her consent
" She shall speak more plainly. Mademoiselle
She anticipated him. She had risen, and stood
looking straight before her, seeing nothing. "I am
willing," she muttered with a strange gesture, "if it
must be."
He did not answer.
"If it must be," she repeated slowly, and with a
heavy sigh. And her chin dropped on her breast.
Then, abruptly, suddenly it was a strange thing to
see she looked up. A change as complete as the
change which had come over Count Hannibal a min-
ANDROMEDA, PERSEUS BEIXG ABSENT. 201
ute before came over her. She sprang to his side;
she clutched his arm and devoured his face with
her eyes. "You are not deceiving me"? " she cried.
"You have Tignonville below? You oh, no, no!"
And she fell back from him, her eyes distended, her
voice grown suddenly shrill and defiant, "You have
not! You are deceiving me! He has escaped, and
you have lied to me ! "
If
"Yes, you have lied to me! " It was the last fierce
flicker of hope when hope seemed dead: the last
clutch of the drowning at the straw that floated be-
fore the eyes.
He laughed harshly. "You will be my wife in
five minutes," he said, "and you give me the lie? A
week, and you will know me better ! A month, and
but we will talk of that another time. For the
present," he continued, turning to La Tribe, "do you,
sir, tell her that the gentleman is below. Perhaps
she will believe you. For you know him."
La Tribe looked at her sorrowfully; his heart bled
for her. "I have seen M. de Tignonville," he said.
"And M. le COrnte says truly. He is in the same
case with ourselves, a prisoner."
"You have seen him 1 ? " she wailed.
"I left him in the room below, when I mounted the
stairs."
Count Hannibal laughed, the grim mocking laugh
which seemed to revel in the pain it inflicted. " Will
you have him for a witness?" he cried. "There
could not be a better, for he will not forget. Shall I
fetch him?"
She bowed her head, shivering. "Spare me that,"
she said. And she pressed her hands to her eyes
202 COUNT HANNIBAL.
while an uncontrollable shudder passed over her
frame. Then she stepped forward: "I am ready,"
she whispered. "Do with me as you will ! "
When they had all gone out and closed the door
behind them, and the two whom the minister had
joined were left together, Count Hannibal continued
for a time to pace the room, his hands clasped at his
back, and his head sunk somewhat on his chest. His
thoughts appeared to run in a new channel, and one,
strange to say, widely diverted from his bride and
from that which he had just done. For he did not
look her way, or, for a time, speak to her. He stood
once to snuff a candle, doing it with an absent face ;
and once to look, but still absently, as if he read no
word of it, at the marriage writing which lay, the ink
still wet, upon the table. After each of these inter-
ruptions he resumed his steady pacing to and fro, to
and fro, nor did his eye wander once in the direction
of her chair.
And she waited. The conflict of emotions, the
strife between hope and fear, the final defeat had
stunned her; had left her exhausted, almost apa-
thetic. Yet not quite, nor wholly. For when in his
walk he came a little nearer to her, a chill perspira-
tion broke out on her brow, and shudderings crept
over her ; and when he passed farther from her and
then only, it seemed she breathed again. But the
change lay beneath the surface, and cheated the eye.
Into her attitude, as she sat, her hands clasped on
her lap, her eyes fixed, came no apparent change or
shadow of movement.
Suddenly, with a dull shock, she became aware
that he was speaking.
ANDBOMEDA, PEESEUS BEING ABSENT. 203
" There was need of haste, " he said, his tone
strangely low and free from emotion, "for I am under
bond to leave Paris to-morrow for Angers, whither
I bear letters from the Bang. And as matters stood,
there was no one with whom I could leave you. I
trust Bigot ; he is faithful, and you may trust him,
Madame, fair or foul ! But he is not quick-witted.
Badelon also you may trust. Bear it in mind. Your
woman Javette is not faithful ; but as her life is guar-
anteed she must stay with us until she can be securely
placed. Indeed, I must take all with me with one
exception for the priests and monks rule Paris, and
they do not love me, nor would spare aught at my
word. "
He was silent a few moments. Then he resumed in
the same tone, "You ought to know how we, Tavan-
nes, stand. It is by Monsieur and the Queen -Mother ;
and contra the Guises. We have all been in this mat-
ter ; but the latter push and we are pushed, and the
old crack will reopen. As it is, I cannot answer for
much beyond the reach of my arm. Therefore, we
take all with us except M. Tignonville, who desires
to be conducted to the Arsenal."
She had begun to listen with averted eyes. But as
he continued to speak surprise awoke in her, and
something stronger than surprise amazement, stupe-
faction. Slowly her eyes came to him, and when he
ceased to speak, "Why do you tell me these things! "
she muttered, her dry lips framing the words with
difficulty.
"Because it behoves you to know them," he an-
swered, thoughtfully tapping the table. "I have no
one, save my brother, whom I can trust."
She would not ask him why he trusted her, nor why
204 COUNT HANNIBAL.
he thought he could trust her. For a moment or two
she watched him, while he, with his eyes lowered,
stood in deep thought. At last he looked up and his
eyes met hers. "Come!" he said abruptly and in a
different tone, "we must end this! Is it to be a kiss
or a blow between us ? "
She rose, though her knees shook under her ; and
they stood face to face, her face white as paper.
"What do you mean? " she whispered.
"Is it to be a kiss or a blow? " he repeated. "A
husband must be a lover, Madame, or a master, or
both! I am content to be the one or the other, or
both, as it shall please you. But the one I will be."
"Then, a thousand times, a blow," she cried, her
eyes flaming, "from you! "
He wondered at her courage, but he hid his won-
der. "So be it!" he answered. And before she
knew what he would be at, he struck her sharply
across the cheek with the glove which he held in his
hand. She recoiled with a low cry, and her cheek
blazed scarlet where he had struck it. "So be it!"
he continued sombrely. "The choice shall be yours,
but you will come to me daily for the one or the
other. If I cannot be lover, Madame, I will be mas-
ter. And by this sign I will have you know it, daily,
and daily remember it."
She stared at him, her bosom rising and falling,
in an astonishment too deep for words. But he did
not heed her. He did not look at her again. He
had already turned to the door, and while she looked
he passed through it, he closed it behind him. And
she was alone.
CHAPTER XIX.
IN THE ORLEANNAIS.
"BUT you fear him? "
"Fear him?" Madame St. Lo answered; and, to
the surprise of the Countess, she made a little face of
contempt. "No; why should I fear him'? I fear him
no v more than the puppy leaping at old Sancho's
bridle fears his tall playfellow ! Or than the cloud
you see above us fears the wind before which it
flies ! " She pointed to a white patch, the size of a
man's hand, which hung above the hill on their left
hand and formed the only speck in the blue summer
sky. "Fear him! Not I!" And, laughing gaily,
she put her horse at a narrow rivulet which crossed
the grassy track on which they rode.
"But he is hard!" the Countess murmured in a
low voice, as she regained her companion's side.
"Hard!" Madame St. Lo rejoined with a gesture
of pride. "Ay, hard as the stones in my jewelled
ring ! Hard as flint, or the nether millstone to his
enemies! But to women! Bah! Who ever heard
that he hurt a woman ! "
"Why then is he so feared!" the Countess asked,
her eyes on the subject of their discussion ; a solitary
figure, riding some fifty paces in front of them.
"Because he counts no cost!" her companion an-
swered. "Because he killed Savillon in the court of
the Louvre, though he knew his life the forfeit. He
206 COUNT HANNIBAL.
would have paid the forfeit too, or lost his right
hand, if Monsieur, for his brother the Marshal's sake,
had not intervened. But Savillon had whipped his
dog, you see. Then he killed the Chevalier de Mil-
laud, but 'twas in fair fight, in the snow, in their
shirts. For that, Millaud's sou lay in wait for him
with two, in the passage under the Chatelet; but
Hannibal wounded one, and the others saved them-
selves. Undoubtedly he is feared ! " she added with
the same note of pride in her voice.
The two, who talked, rode at the rear of the little
company which had left Paris at daybreak two days
before, by the Porte St. Jacques. Moving steadily
south-westward by the lesser roads and bridle-tracks
for Count Hannibal seemed averse from the great
road they had lain the second night in a village
three leagues from Bonueval. A journey of two
days on fresh horses is apt to change scenery and eye
alike; but seldom has an alteration in themselves
and all about them as great as that which blessed
this little company, been wrought in so short a time.
From the stifling wyuds and evil-smelling lanes of
Paris, they had passed to the green uplands, the
breezy woods and babbling streams of the upper Or-
leannais ; from sights and sounds the most appalling,
to the solitude of the sandy heath, haunt of the great
bustard, or the sunshine of the hillside, vibrating
with the songs of larks ; from an atmosphere of terror
and gloom to the freedom of God's earth and sky.
Numerous enough they numbered a score of armed
men to defy the lawless bands which had their lairs
in the huge forest of Orleans, they halted where they
pleased : at mid-day under a grove of chestnut-trees,
or among the willows beside a brook; at night, if
IN THE OBL^ANNAIS. 207
they willed it, under God's heaven. Far, not only
from Paris, but from the great road, with its gibbets
and pillories the great road which at that date ran
through a waste, no peasant living willingly within
sight of it they rode in the morning and in the even-
ing, resting in the heat of the day. And though they
had left Paris with much talk of haste, they rode
more at leisure with every league.
For whatever Tavannes' motive, it was plain that
he was iu no hurry to reach his destination. ISTor for
that matter were any of his company. Madame St.
Lo, who had seized the opportunity of escaping from
the capital under her cousin's escort, was in an ill-
humour with cities, and declaimed much on the joys
of a cell in the woods. For the time the coarsest na-
ture and the dullest rider had had enough of alarums
and conflicts.
The whole company, indeed, though it moved in
some fashion of array with an avant and a rear-
guard, the ladies riding together, and Count Hanni-
bal proceeding solitary in the midst, formed as peace-
ful a band, and one as innocently diverted, as if no
man of them had ever grasped pike or blown a
match. There was an old rider among them who had
seen the sack of Kt>ine, and the dead face of the great
Constable, the idol of the Free Companies. But he
had a taste for simples and much skill in them ; and
when Madame had once seen Badelon on his knees in
the grass searching for plants, she lost her fear of
him. Bigot, with his low brow and matted hair, was
the abject slave of Suzanne, Madame St. Lo's woman,
who twitted him mercilessly on his Gorman patois,
and poured the vials of her scorn on him a dozen
times a day. In all, with La Tribe and the Carlats,
208 COUNT HANNIBAL.
Madame St. Lo's servants, and the Countess's follow-
ing, they numbered not far short of two score ; and
when they halted at noon, and under the shadow of
some leafy tree, ate their mid-day meal, or drowsed
to the tinkle of Madame St. Lo's lute, it was diffi-
cult to believe that Paris existed, or that these same
people had so lately left its blood-stained pavements.
They halted this morning a little earlier than
usual. Madame St. Lo had barely answered her com-
panion's question before the subject of their discus-
sion swung himself from old Sancho's back, and stood
waiting to assist them to dismount. Behind him,
where the green valley through which the road passed
narrowed to a rocky gate, an old mill stood among
willows at the foot of a mound. On the mound be-
hind it a ruined castle which had stood siege in the
Hundred Years' War raised its grey walls; and be-
yond this the stream which turned the mill poured
over rocks with a cool rushing sound that proved
irresistible. The men, their 4 horses watered and hob-
bled, went off, shouting like boys, to bathe below the
falls; and after a moment's hesitation Count Hanni-
bal rose from the grass on which he had flung himself.
"Guard that for me, Madame, "lie said. And he
dropped a packet, bravely sealed and tied with a silk
thread, into the Countess's lap. "'Twill be safer
than leaving it in my clothes. Ohe ! " And he
turned to Madame St. Lo. "Would you fancy a life
that was all gipsyiug, cousin ? " And if there was
irony in his voice, there was desire in his eyes.
"There is only one happy man in the world," she
answered, with conviction.
"By name?"
"The hermit of Compiegne."
IN THE OKLEANNAIS. 209
"And in a week you would be wild for a masque ! "
he said cynically. And turning on his heel he fol-
lowed the men.
Madame St. Lo sighed complacently. "Heigho!"
she said. "He's right! We are never content, ma
mie ! When I am trifling in the Gallery my heart is
in the greenwood. And when I have eaten black
bread and drunk spring water for a fortnight I do
nothing but dream of Zainet's, and white mulberry
tarts! And you are in the same case. You have
saved your round white neck, or it has been saved
for you, by not so much as the thickness of Zamet's
pie-crust I declare my mouth is beginning ;o water
for it! and instead of being thankful and making
the best of things, you are thinking of poor Madame
d'Yverne, or dreaming of your calf-love! "
The girl's face for a girl she was, though they
called her Madame began to work. She struggled
a moment with her emotion, and then broke down,
and fell to weeping silently. For two days she had
sat in public and not given way. But the reference
to her lover was too much for her strength.
Madame St. Lo looked at her with eyes which were
not unkindly. "Sits the wind in that quarter!" she
murmured. "I thought so! But there, my dear, if
you don't put that packet in your gown you'll wash
out the address! Moreover, if you ask me, I don't
think the young man is worth it. It is only that
which we have not got we want! "
But the young Countess had borne to the limit of
her powers. With an incoherent word she rose to
her feet, and walked hurriedly away. The thought
of what was and of what might have been, the
thought of the lover who still though he no longer
14
210 COUNT HANNIBAL.
seemed, even to her, the perfect hero held a place
in her heart, filled her breast to overflowing. She
longed for some spot where she could weep unseen,
where the sunshine and the blue sky would not mock
her grief; and seeing in front of her a little clump of
alders, which grew beside the stream, in a bend that
in winter was marshy, she hastened towards it.
Madame St. Lo saw her figure blend with the
shadow of the trees " Quite a la Ronsard, I give my
word!" she murmured. "And now she is out of
sight ! La, la ! I could play at the game myself, and
carve sweet sorrow on the barks of trees, if it were
not so lonesome ! And if I had a man ! "
And gazing pensively at the stream and the wil-
lows, my lady tried to work herself into a proper
frame of mind; now murmuring the name of one
gallant, and now, finding it unsuited, the name of
another. But the soft inflection would break into a
giggle, and finally into a yawn ; and, tired of the at-
tempt, she began to pluck grass and throw it from
her. By-aud-by she discovered that Mad? me Carlat
and the women, who had their place a Lctle apart,
had disappeared ; and affrighted by the solitude and
silence for neither of which she was made she
sprang up and stared about her, hoping to discern
them. Eight and left, however, the sweep of hillside
curved upward to the skyline, lonely and untenauted ;
behind her tho castled rock frowned down on the
rugged gorge and filled it with dispiriting shadow.
Madame St. Lo stamped her foot on the turf.
"The little fool! " she murmured, pettishly. "Does
she think that I am to be murdered that she may fat-
ten on sighs? Oh, come up, Madame, you must be
dragged out of this!" And she started briskly to-
IN THE OKLEANNAIS. 211
wards the alders, intent on gaining company as quick-
ly as possible.
She had gone abont fifty yards, and had as many
more to traverse when she halted. A man, bent
double, was moving stealthily along the farther side
of the brook a little in front of him. Now she saw
him, now she lost him ; now she caught a glimpse of
him again, through a screen of willow branches. He
moved with the utmost caution, as a man moves
who is pursued or in danger ; and for a moment she
deemed him a peasant whom the bathers had dis-
turbed and who was bent on escaping. But when he
came opposite to the alder-bed she saw that that was
his point, for he crouched down, sheltered by a wil-
low, and gazed eagerly among the trees, always with
his back to her ; and then he waved his hand to some-
one in the wood.
Madame St. Lo drew in her breath. As if he had
heard the sound which was impossible the man
dropped down where he stood, crawled a yard or two
on his face, and disappeared.
Madame stared a moment, expecting to see him or
hear him. Then, as nothing happened, she screamed.
She was a woman of quick impulses, essentially femi-
nine ; and she screamed three or four times, standing
where she was, her eyes on the edge of the wood.
"If that does not bring her out, nothing will!" she
thought.
It brought her. An instant, and the Countess ap-
peared, and hurried in dismay to her- side. "What
is it?" the younger woman asked, glancing over
her shoulder; for all the valley, all the hills were
peaceful, and behind Madame St. Lo but the lady
had not discovered it the servants who had re-
212 COUNT HANNIBAL.
turned were laying the meal. "What is it?" she re-
peated anxiously.
" Who was it? " Madame St. Lo asked curtly. She
was quite calm now.
"Who was who?"
"The mau in the wood? "
The Countess stared a moment, then laughed.
"Only the old soldier they call Badelou, gathering
simples. Did you think that he would harm me? "
" It was not old Badelou whom I saw ! " Madame
St. Lo retorted. "It was a younger man, who crept
along the other side of the brook, keeping under
cover. When I first saw him he was there," she con-
tinued, pointing to the place. "And he crept on and
on until he came opposite to you. Then he waved
his hand. "
"To me!"
Madame nodded.
"But if you saw him, who was he?" the Countess
asked.
"I did not see his face," Madame St. Lp answered.
"But he waved to you. That I saw."
The Countess had a thought which slowly flooded
her face with crimson. Madame St. Lo saw the
change, saw the tender light which on a sudden soft-
ened the other's eyes ; and the same thought occurred
to her. And having a mind to punish her companion
for her reticence for she did not doubt that the girl
knew more than she acknowledged she proposed
that they should return and find Badelou, and learn
if he had .seen the man.
" Why ? " Madame Tavannes asked. And she stood
stubbornly, her head high. " Why should we? "
"To clear it up," the elder woman answered mis-
IN THE OBLEANNAIS. 213
chievously. "But perhaps, it were better to tell
your husband and let his nieii search the coppice. "
The colour left the Countess's face as quickly as
it had come. For a moment she was tongue-tied.
Then, "Have we not had enough of seeking and being
sought?" she cried; more bitterly than befitted the
occasion. "Why should we hunt him? I am not
timid, and he did me no harm. I beg, Madame, that
you will do me the favour of being silent on the
matter. "
"Oh, if you insist? But what a pother
"I did not see him, and he did not see me," Madame
de Tavanues answered vehemently. "I fail, there-
fore, to understand why we should harass him, who-
ever he be. Besides, M. de Tavannes is waiting for
us."
"And M. de Tignonville is following us!"
Madame St. Lo muttered under her breath. And
she made a face at the other's back.
She was silent, however; they returned to the
others; and nothing of import, it would seem, had
happened. The soft summer air played ou the meal
laid under the willows as it had played on the meal
of yesterday laid under the chestnut -trees. The
horses grazed within sight, moving now and again,
with a jingle of trappings or a jealous neigh ; the
women's chatter vied with the unceasing sound of the
mill-stream. After dinner, Madame St. Lo touched
the lute, and Badelon Badelou who had seen the
sack of the Colonua's Palace, and been served by
cardinals on the knee fed a water-rat, which had its
home in one of the willow-stumps, with carrot -par-
ings. One by one the men laid themselves to sleep
with their faces on their arms ; and to the eyes all
214 COUNT HANNIBAL.
was as all had been yesterday iu this camp of armed
men living peacefully.
But not to the Countess! She had accepted her
life, she had resigned herself, she had marvelled that
it was no worse. After the horrors of Paris the calm
of the last two days had fallen on her as balm on a
wound. . Worn out in body and mind, she had rested,
and only rested; without thought, almost without
emotion, save for the feeling, half fear, half curi-
osity, which stirred her in regard to the strange
man, her husband. Who on his side left her alone.
But the last hour had wrought a change. Her eyes
were grown restless, her colour came and went. The
past stirred in its shallow ah, so shallow grave;
and dead hopes and dead forebodings, strive as she
might, thrust out hands to plague and torment her.
If the man who sought to speak with her by stealth,
who dogged her footsteps and hung on the skirts of
her party, were Tignonville her lover, who at his
own request had been escorted to the Arsenal before
their departure from Paris then her plight was a
sorry one. For what woman, wedded as she had
been wedded, could think otherwise than indulgently
of his persistence 1 ? And yet, lover and husband!
What peril, what shame the words had often spelled I
At the thought only she trembled and her colour
ebbed. She saw, as one who stands on the brink of
a precipice, the depth which yawned before her.
She asked herself, shivering, if she would ever sink
to that.
All the loyalty of a strong nature, all the virtue of
a good woman revolted against the thought. True,
her husband husband she must call him had not
deserved her love ; but his bizarre magnanimity, the
IN THE OBLEANNAIS. 215
gloomy, disdainful kindness with which he had
crowned possession, even the unity of their interests,
which he had impressed upon her in so strange a
fashion, claimed a return in honour.
To be paid how ? how 1 That was the crux which
perplexed, which frightened, which harassed her.
For, if she told her suspicions, she exposed her lover
to capture by one who had no longer a reason to be
merciful. And if she sought occasion to see Tignon-
ville and so to dissuade him, she did it at deadly risk
to herself. Yet what other course lay open to her if
she would not stand by ? If she would not play the
traitor? If she
"Madame," it washer husband, and he spoke to
her suddenly, "are you not well?" And, looking
up guiltily, she found his eyes fixed curiously on hers.
Her face turned red and white and red again, and
she faltered something and looked from him, but only
to meet Madame St. Lo's eyes. My lady laughed
softly in sheer mischief.
"What is it? " Count Hannibal asked sharply.
But Madame St. Lo's answer was a line of Eonsard.
CHAPTEE XX.
ON THE CASTLE HILL.
THRICE she hummed it, bland and smiling. Then
from the neighbouring group came an interruption.
The wine he had drunk had put it into Bigot's head
to snatch a kiss from Suzanne ; and Suzanne's mod-
esty, which was very nice in company, obliged her to
squeal. The uproar which ensued, the men backing
the man and the women the woman, brought Ta-
vauues to his feet. He did not speak, but a glance
from his eyes was enough. There was not one who
failed to see that something was amiss with him, and
a sudden silence fell on the party.
He turned to the Countess. "You wished to see
the castle?" he said. "You had better go now, but
uot alone. " He cast his eyes over the company, and
summoned La Tribe, who was seated with the Carlats.
"Go with Madame," he said curtly. "She has a
mind to climb the hill. Bear in mind, we start at
three, and do not venture out of hearing. "
"I understand, M. le Comte," the minister an-
swered. He spoke quietly, but there was a strange
light in his face as he turned to go with her.
None the less he was silent until Madame's lagging
feet for all her interest in the expedition was gone
had borne her a hundred paces from the company.
Then, "Who knoweth our thoughts and forerun-
neth all our desires," he murmured. And when she
ON THE CASTLE HILL. 217
turned to him, astonished, "Madame," he continued,
"I have prayed, ah, how I have prayed, for this op-
portunity of speaking to you ! And it has come. I
would it had come this morning, but it has come.
Do not start or look round ; many eyes are on us, and
alas ! I have that to say to you which it will move you
to hear, and that to ask of you which it must task
your courage to perform."
She began to tremble, and stood, looking up the
green slope to the broken grey wall which crowned
its summit. "What is it?" she whispered, com-
manding herself with an effort. "What is if? If it
have aught to do with M. Tignonville "
"It has not!"
In her surprise for although she had put the ques-
tion she had felt no doubt of the answer she started
and turned to him. "It has not?" she exclaimed
almost incredulously.
"No."
"Then what is it, monsieur?" she replied, a little
haughtily. "What can there be that should move
me so ? "
"Life or death, Madame," he answered solemnly.
"Nay, more; for since Providence has given me this
chance of speaking to you, a thing of which, I de-
spaired, I know that the burden is laid on us, and
that it is guilt or it is innocence, according as we re-
fuse the burden or bear it."
" What is it then ? " she cried impatiently. " What
is it?"
" I tried to speak to you this morning. "
"Was it you then, whom Madame St. Lo saw stalk-
ing me before dinner? "
"It was."
218 COUNT HANNIBAL.
She clasped her hands arid heaved a sigh of relief.
" Thank God, monsieur!" she replied. "You have
lifted a weight from me. I fear nothing in compari-
son of that. Nothing ! "
11 Alas," he answered sombrely, "there is much to
fear, for others if not for ourselves! Do you know
what that is which M. de Tavaunes bears always in
his belt? What it is he carries with such care?
What it was he handed to you to keep while he
bathed to-day?"
"Letters from the King."
"Yes, but the import of those letters? "
"No."
"And yet should they be written in letters of
blood ! " the minister exclaimed, his face kindling.
"They should scorch the hands that hold them and
blister the eyes that read them. They are the fire and
the sword ! They are the King's order to do at An-
gers as they have done in Paris. To slay all of the
religion who are found there and they are many!
To spare none, to have mercy neither on the old man
nor the unborn child ! See yonder hawk ! " he con-
tinued, pointing with a shaking hand to a falcon
which hung light and graceful above the valley, the
movement of its wings invisible. "How it disports
itself in the face of the sun ! How easy its way, how
smooth its flight ! But see, it drops upon ite prey in
the rushes beside the brook, and the end of its beauty
is slaughter ! So is it with yonder company ! " His
finger sank until it indicated the little camp seated
toy-like in the green meadow four hundred feet below
them, with every man and horse, and the very camp-
kettle, clear-cut and visible, though diminished by
distance to fairy-like proportions. "So it is with
ON THE CASTLE HILL. 219
yonder company! " he repeated sternly. "They play
and are merry, and one fishes and another sleeps!
But at the end of the journey is death. Death for
their victims, and for them the judgment! "
She stood, as he spoke, in the ruined gateway, a
walled grass-plot behind her and at her feet the
stream, the smiling valley, the alders, and the little
camp. The sky was cloudless, the scene drowsy with
the stillness of an August afternoon. But his words
went home so truly that the sunlit landscape before
the eyes added one more horror to the picture he
called up before the mind.
The Countess turned white and sick. "Are you
sure? " she whispered at last.
"Quite sure."
"Ah, God!" she cried, "are we never to have
peace ? " And turning from the valley, she walked
some distance into the grass court, and stood. After
a time, she turned to him ; he had followed her
doggedly, pace for pace. "What do you want me
to do?" she cried, despair in her voice. "What
can I do ? "
"Were the letters he bears destroyed "
"The letters?"
"Yes, were the letters destroyed," La Tribe an-
swered relentlessly, " he could do nothing ! Nothing!
Without that authority the magistrates of Angers
would not move. He could do nothing. And men
and women and children men and women and chil-
dren whose blood will otherwise cry for vengeance,
perhaps for vengeance on us who might have saved
them will live ! Will live ! " he repeated with a soft-
ening eye. And with an all-embracing gesture he
seemed to call to witness the open heavens, the sun-
220 COUNT HANNIBAL.
shine and the summer breeze which wrapped them
round. "Will live!"
She drew a deep breath. " And you have brought
me here," she said, "to ask me to do this? "
"I was sent here to ask you to do this."
"Why me? Why me!" she wailed, and she held
out her open hands to him, her face wan and colour-
less. " You come to me, a woman ! Why to me ? "
"You are his wife! "
"And he is my husband! "
"Therefore he trusts you," was the unyielding, the
pitiless answer. " You, and you alone, have the op-
portunity of doing this."
She gazed at him in astonishment. "And it is you
who say that?" she faltered, after a pause. "You
who made us one, who now bid me betray him, whom
I have sworn to love? To ruin him whom I have
sworn to honour? "
"I do!" he answered solemnly. "On my head be
the guilt, and on yours the merit."
"Nay, but " she cried quickly, and her eyes glit-
tered with passion "do you take both guilt and
merit! You are a man," she continued, her words
coming quickly in her excitement, "he is but a man!
Why do you not call him aside, trick him apart on
some pretence or other, and when there are but you
two, man to man, wrench the warrant from him?
Staking your life against his, with all those lives for
prize? And save them or perish? Why I, even I, a
woman, could find it in my heart to do that, were he
not my husband ! Surely you, you who are a man,
and young "
"Am no match for him in strength or arms," the
minister answered sadly. "Else would I do it.'
ON THE CASTLE HILL. 221
Else would I stake my life, Heaven knows, as gladly
to save their lives as I sit down to meat! But I
should fail, and if I failed all were lost. Moreover,"
he continued solemnly, "I am certified that this task
has been set for you. It was not for nothing, Ma-
dame, nor to save one poor household that you were
joined to this man ; but to ransom all these lives and
this great city. To be the Judith of our faith, the
saviour of Augers, the "
" Fool ! Fool ! " she cried. " Will you be silent ? "
And she stamped the turf passionately, while her eyes
blazed in her white face. "I am no Judith, and no
madwoman as you are fain to make me. Mad ? " she
continued, overwhelmed with agitation. "My God,
I would I were, and I should be free from this ! "
And, turning, she walked a little way from him with
the gesture of one under a crushing burden.
He waited a minute, two minutes, three minutes,
and still she did not * return. At length she came
back, her bearing more composed ; she looked at him
and her eyes seized his and seemed as if they would
read his soul. "Are you sure," she said, "of what
you have told me ? Will you swear that the contents
of these letters are as you say 1 "
"As I live," he answered gravely. "As God
lives."
"And you know of no other way, monsieur? Of
no other way ? " she repeated slowly and piteously.
"Of none, Madame, of none, I swear."
She sighed deeply, and stood sunk in thought.
Then, "When do we reach Augers?" she asked
heavily.
"The day after to-morrow."
"I have until the day after to-morrow? "
222 COUNT HANNIBAL.
"Yes. To-night we lie near Vend6me."
"And to-morrow night?"
"Near a place called La Fleche. It is possible," he
went on with hesitation for he did not understand
her "that he may bathe to-morrow, and may hand
the packet to you, as he did to-day when I vainly
sought speech with you. If he does that "
"Yes'? " she said, her eyes on his face.
"The taking will be easy. But when he finds you
have it not " he faltered anew "it may go hard
with you."
She did not speak.
" And there, I think, I can help you. If you will
stray from the party, I will meet you and destroy the
letter. That done and would God it were done al-
ready I will take to flight as best I can, and you
will raise the alarm and say that I robbed you of it!
And if you tear your dress "
"No," she said.
He looked a question.
"No!" she repeated in a low voice. "If I betray
him I will not lie to him ! And no other shall pay
the price ! If I ruin him it shall be between him and
me, and no other shall have part in it ! "
He shook his head. "I do not know," he mur-
mured, "what he may do to you! "
"Nor I," she said proudly. "That will be for
him."
Curious eyes had watched the two as they climbed
the hill. For the path ran up the slope to the gap
which served for gate, much as the path leads up to
the Castle Beautiful in old prints of the Pilgrim's
journey; and Madame St. Lo had marked the first
ON THE CASTLE HILL. 223
halt and the second, and, noting every gesture, had
lost nothing of the interview save the words. But
until the two, after pausing a moment, passed out of
sight she made no sign. Then she laughed. And as
Count Hannibal, at whom the laugh was aimed, did
not heed her, she laughed again. And she hummed
the line of Eonsard.
Still he would not be roused, and, piqued, she had
recourse to words. '"I wonder what you would do,"
she said, "if the old lover followed us, and she went
off with him ! "
"She would not go," he answered coldly, and with-
out looking up.
" But if he rode off with her? "
"She would come back on her feet! "
Madame St. Lo's prudence was not proof against
that. She had the woman's inclination to hide a
woman's secret; and she had not intended, when she
laughed, to do more than play with the formidable
man with whom so few dared to play. Now, stung
by his tone and his assurance, she must needs show
him that his trustfulness had no base. And, as so
often happens in the circumstances, she went a little
farther than the facts bore her. "Any way, he has
followed us so far ! " she cried viciously.
"M. deTignonville?"
"Yes. I saw him this morning while you were
bathing. She left me and went into the little cop-
pice. He came down the other side of the brook,
stooping and running, and went to join her."
" How did he cross the brook ? "
Madame St. Lo blushed. "Old Badelon was there,
gathering simples," she said. "He scared him.
And he crawled away."
224 COUNT HANNIBAL.
"Then he did not cross? "
"No. I did not say he did! "
"Nor speak to her? "
"No. But if you think it will pass so next time
you do not know much of women ! "
"Of women generally, not much," he answered,
grimly polite. " Of this woman a great deal ! "
" Yon looked in her big eyes, I suppose ! " Madame
St. Lo cried with heat. "And straightway fell down
and worshipped her ! " She liked rather than dis-
liked the Countess ; but she was of the lightest, and
the least opposition drove her out of her course.
"And you think you know her! And she, if she
could save you from death by opening an eye, would
go with a patch on it till her dying day ! Take my
word for it, monsieur, between her and her lover you
will come to harm. "
Count Hannibal's swarthy face darkened a tone,
and his eyes grew a very little smaller. "I fancy
that he runs the greater risk, " he muttered.
"You may deal with him, but, for her "
"I can deal with her. You deal with some women
with a whip "
"You would whip me, I suppose? "
"Y"es," he said quietly. "It would do you good,
Madame. And with other women otherwise. There
are women who, if they are well frightened, will not
deceive you. And there are others who will not de-
ceive you though they are frightened. Madame de
Tavannes is of the latter kind."
"Wait! Wait and see! " Madame cried in scorn.
"I am waiting."
"Yes! And whereas if you had come to me I could
have told her that about M. Tignouville which would
ON THE CASTLE HILL. 225
have surprised her, you will go on waiting and wait-
ing and waiting until one fine day you'll wake up and
find Madame gone, and
"Then I'll take a wife I can whip! " he answered,
with a look which apprised her how far she had car-
ried it. " But it will not be you, sweet cousin. For
I have no whip heavy enough for your case."
15
CHAPTEE XXI.
WOULD, AND WOULD NOT.
WE noted some way back the ease with which women
use one concession as a stepping-stone to a second;
and the lack of magnanimity, amounting almost to
unscrupulousness, which the best display in their
dealings with a retiring foe. But there are conces-
sions which touch even a good woman's conscience;
and Madame de Tavannes, free by the tenure of a
blow, and with that exception treated from hour to
hour with rugged courtesy, shrank appalled before
the task which confronted her.
To ignore what La Tribe had told her, to remain
passive when a movement on her part might save
men, women, and children from death, and a whole
city from massacre this was a line of conduct so
craven, so selfish that from the first she knew herself
incapable of it. But to take the only other course
open to her, to betray her husband and rob him of
that, the loss of which might ruin him, this needed
not courage only, not devotion only, but a hardness
proof against reproaches as well as against punish-
ment. And the Countess was no fanatic. No haze
of bigotry glorified the thing she contemplated, or
dressed it in colours other than its own. Even while
she acknowledged the necessity of the act and its
ultimate righteousness, even while she owned the ob-
ligation which lay upon her to perform it, she saw it
SHE WOULD, AND WOULD NOT. 227
as he would see it, and saw herself as he would see
her.
True, he had done her a great wrong ; and this in
the eyes of some might pass for punishment. But he
had saved her life where many had perished; and,
the wrong done, he had behaved to her with fantastic
generosity. In return for which she was to ruin him !
It was not hard to imagine what he would say of her,
and of the reward with which she had requited him.
She pondered over it as they rode that evening,
with the westering sun in their eyes and the lengthen-
ing shadows of the oaks falling athwart the bracken
which fringed the track. Across breezy heaths and
over downs, through green bottoms and by hamlets,
from which every human creature fled at their ap-
proach, they ambled on by twos and threes ; riding in
a world of their own, so remote, so different from
the real world from which they came and to which
they must return that she could have wept in an-
guish, cursing God for the wickedness of man which
lay so heavy on creation. The gaunt troopers riding
at ease with swinging legs and swaying stirrups and
singing now a refrain from Eonsard, and now one of
those verses of Marot's psalms which all the world
had sung three decades before wore their most lamb-
like aspect. Behind them Madame St. Lo chattered
to Suzanne of a riding mask which had not been
brought, or planned expedients, if nothing sufficiently
in the mode could be found at Angers. And the
other women talked and giggled, screamed when they
came to fords, and made much of steep places, where
the men must help them. In time of war death's
shadow covers but a day, and sorrow out of sight is
out of mind. Of all the troop whom the sinking sun
228 COUNT HANNIBAL.
left within sight of the lofty towers and vine-clad
hills of Vendome, three only wore faces attuned
to the cruel August week just ending; three only,
like dark beads strung far apart on a gay nun's ros-
ary, rode, brooding and silent, in their places. The
Countess was one ; the others were k_3 two men whose
thoughts she filled, and whose eyes now and again
sought her, La Tribe's with sombre fire in their
depths, Count Hannibal's fraught with a gloomy
speculation, which belied his brave words to Madame
St. Lo.
He, moreover, as he rode, had other thoughts;
dark ones, which did not touch her. And she, too,
had other thoughts at times, dreams of her young
lover, spasms of regret, a wild revolt of heart, a cry
out of the darkness which had suddenly whelmed her.
So that of the three only La Tribe was single-minded.
This day they rode a long league after sunset,
through a scattered oak-wood, where the rabbits
sprang up under their horses' heads and the squirrels
made angry faces at them from the lower branches.
Night was hard upon them when they reached the
southern edge of the forest, and looked across the
dusky open slopes to a distant light or two which
marked where Vendorne stood. "Another league,"
Count Hannibal muttered ; and he bade the men light
fires where they were, and unload the packhorses.
"'Tis pure and dry here," he said. "Set a watch,
Bigot, and let two men go down for water. I hear
frogs below. You do not fear to be moonstruck,
Madame ! "
"I prefer this," she answered in a low voice.
"Houses are for monks and nuns!" he rejoined
heartily. "Give me God's heaven."
SHE WOULD, AND WOULD NOT. 229
"The earth is His, but we deface it," she murmured,
reverting to her thoughts, and unconscious that it was
to him she spoke.
He looked at her sharply, but the fire was not yet
kindled ; and in the gloaming her face was a pale blot
undecipherable. He stood a moment, but she did not
speak again; and Madame St. Lo bustling up, he
moved away to give an order. By-and-by the fires
burned up, and showed the pillared aisle in which,
they sat, small groups dotted here and there on the
floor of Nature's cathedral. Through the shadowy
Gothic vaulting, the groining of many boughs which
met overhead, a rare star twinkled, as through some
clerestory window ; and from the dell below rose in
the night, now the monotonous chanting of the frogs,
and now, as some great bull-frog took the note, a
diapason worthy of a Brescian organ. The darkness
walled all in ; the night was still ; a falling caterpillar
sounded. Even the rude men at the farthest fire
stilled their voices at times; awed, they knew not
why, by the silence and vastness of the night.
The Countess long remembered that vigil for she
lay late awake ; the cool gloom, the faint wood-rus-
tlings, the distant cry of fox or wolf, the soft glow of
the expiring fires that at last left the world to dark-
ness and the stars ; above all, the silent wheeling of
the planets, which spoke indeed of a supreme Euler,
but crushed the heart under a sense of its insignifi-
cance, and of the insignificance of all human revo-
lutions. "Yet, I believe!" she cried, wrestling up-
wards, wrestling with herself. "Though I have seen
what I have seen, yet I believe! "
And though she had to bear what she had to bear,
and do that from which her soul shrank ! The wo-
230 COUNT HANNIBAL.
man, indeed, within her continued to cry out against
this tragedy ever renewed in her path, against this
necessity for choosing evil or good, ease for herself or
life for others. But the moving heavens, pointing
onward to a time when good and evil alike should be
past, strengthened a nature essentially noble ; and be-
fore she slept no shame and no suffering seemed for
the moment at least too great a price to pay for the
lives of little children. Love had been taken from
her life ; the pride which would fain answer generos-
ity with generosity that must go, too !
She felt no otherwise when the day came, and the
bustle of the start and the common round of the jour-
ney put to flight the ideals of the night. But things
fell out in a manner she had not pictured. They
halted before noon on the north bank of the Loir, in
a level meadow with lines of poplars running this
way and that, and filling all the place with the soft
shimmer of leaves. Blue succory, tiny mirrors of the
summer sky, flecked the long grass, and the women
picked bunches of them, or, Italian fashion, twined
the blossoms in their hair. A road ran across the
meadow to a ferry, but the ferryman, alarmed by
the aspect of the party, had conveyed his boat to the
other side and hidden himself.
Presently Madame St. Lo espied the boat, clapped
her hands and must have it. The poplars threw no
shade, the flies teased her, the life of a hermit in a
meadow was no longer to her taste. "Let us go on
the water!" she cried. "Presently you will go to
bathe, monsieur, and leave us to grill ! "
"Two livres to the man who will fetch the boat .! "
Count Hannibal cried. In less than half a minute
three men had thrown off their boots, and were swim-
SHE WOULD, AND WOULD NOT. 231
ming across, amid the laughter and shouts of their
fellows. Iii five minutes the boat was brought.
It was not large and would hold no more than four.
Tavannes' eye fell on Carlat. "You understand a
boat," he said. "Go with Madame St. Lo. And
you, M. La Tribe."
"But you are coming 1 ?" Madame St. Lo cried,
turning to the Countess. "Oh, Madame," with a
curtsey, "you are not? You "
"Yes, I will come," the Countess answered.
"I shall bathe a short distance up the stream,"
Count Hannibal said. He took from his belt the
packet of letters, and as Carlat held the boat for
Madame St. Lo to enter, he gave it to the Countess,
as he had given it to her yesterday. "Have a care of
it, Madame," he said in a low voice, "and do not let
it pass out of your hands. To lose it may be to lose
my head. "
The colour ebbed from her cheeks. In spite of
herself her shaking hand put back the packet. " Had
you not better then give it to Bigot?" she fal-
tered.
"He is bathing."
"Let him bathe afterwards."
"No," he answered almost harshly; he found a
species of pleasure in showing her that, strange as
their relations were, he trusted her. "No; take it,
Madame. Only have a care of it. "
She took it then, hid it in her dress, and he turned
away; and she turned towards the boat. La Tribe
stood beside the stern, holding it for her to enter, and
as her fingers rested an instant on his arm their eyes
met. His were alight, his arm even quivered; and
she shuddered.
232 COUNT HANNIBAL.
She avoided looking at him a second time, and
this was easy, since he took his seat in the bows be-
yond Carlat, who handled the oars. Silently the boat
glided out on the surface of the stream, and floated
downwards, Carlat now and again touching an oar,
and Madame St. Lo chattering gaily in a voice which
carried far on the water. Now it was a flowering
rush she must have, now a green bough to shield her
face from the sun's reflection ; and now they must lie
in some cool, shadowy pool under fern-clad banks,
where the fish rose heavily, and the trickle of a rivu-
let fell down over stones.
It was idyllic. But not to the Countess. Her face
burned, her temples throbbed, her fingers gripped
the side of the boat in the vain attempt to steady her
pulses. The packet within her dress scorched her.
The great city and its danger, Tavannes and his faith
in her, the need of action, the irrevocableness of ac-
tion hurried through her brain. The knowledge that
she must act now or never pressed upon her with
distracting force. Her hand felt the packet, and fell
again nerveless.
"The sun has caught you, ma mie," Madame St. Lo
said. "You should ride in a mask as I do."
"I have not one with me," she muttered, her eyes
on the water.
" And I but an old one. But at Angers "
The Countess heard no more; on that word she
caught La Tribe's eye. He was beckoning to her be-
hind Carlat's back, pointing imperiously to the water,
making signs to her to drop the packet over the side.
When she did not obey she felt sick and faint she
saw through a mist his brow grow dark. He men-
aced her secretly. And still the packet scorched her ;
SHE WOULD, BJSD WOULD NOT. 233
and twice her hand went to it, and dropped again
empty.
On a sudden Madame St. Lo cried out. The bank
on one side of the stream was beginning to rise more
boldly above the water, and at the head of the steep
thus formed she had espied a late rose-bush in bloom ;
nothing would now serve but she must land at once
and plunder it. The boat was put in therefore, she
jumped ashore, and began to scale the bank.
"Go with Madame ! " La Tribe cried, roughly nudg-
ing Carlat in the back. "Do you not see that she
cannot climb the bank! Up, man r up! "
The Countess opened her mouth to cry "No!" but
the word died half -born on her lips; and when the
steward looked at her, uncertain what she had said,
she nodded. " Yes, go ! " she muttered. She was
pale.
"Yes, man, go!" cried the minister, his eyes burn-
ing. And he almost pushed the other out of the boat.
The next second the craft floated from the bank r and
began to drift downwards. La Tribe waited until a
tree interposed and hid them from the two whom they
had left; then he leaned forward. "Now, Madame! "
he cried imperiously. " In God's name, now ! "
" Oh ! " she cried. " Wait ! Wait I I want to think. "
"To think?"
" He trusted me ! " she wailed. " He trusted me !
How can I do it?" Nevertheless, and even while
she spoke, she drew forth the packet.
"Heaven has given you the opportunity! "
" If I could have stolen it ! " she answered.
"Fool!" he returned rocking himself to and fro
and fairly beside himself with impatience. "Why
steal it? It is in your hands! You have it! It i*
234 COUNT HANNIBAL.
Heaven's own opportunity, it is God's opportunity
given to you ! "
For he could not read her mind nor comprehend
the scruple which held her hand. He was single-
minded. He had but one aim, one object. He saw
the haggard faces of brave men hopeless; he heard
the dying cries of women and children. Such an
opportunity of saving God's elect, of redeeming the
innocent, was in his eyes a gift from Heaven. And
having these thoughts and seeing her hesitate hesi-
tate when every movement caused him agony, so
imperative was haste, so precious the opportunity
he could bear the suspense no longer. When she
did not answer he stooped forward, until his knees
touched the thwart on which Carlat had sat; then
without a word he flung himself forward, and, with
one hand far extended, grasped the packet.
Had he not moved, she would have done his will ;
almost certainly she would have done it. But, thus
attacked, she resisted instinctively ; she clung to the
letters. " No ! " she cried. "No! Let go, monsieur I."
And she tried to drag the packet from him.
"Give it me!"
"Let go, monsieur! Do you hear!" she repeated.
And with a vigorous jerk she forced it from him he
had caught it by the edge only and held it behind
her. "Go back, and "
" Give it me ! " he panted.
"I will not!"
"Then throw it overboard! "
"I will not! " she cried again, though his face, dark
with passion, glared into hers, and it was clear that
the man, possessed by one idea only, was no longer
master of himself. "Go back to your place ! "
SHE WOULD, AND WOULD JS T OT. 235
"Give it me," he gasped, "or I will upset the
boat ! " And seizing her by the shoulder he reached
over her, striving to take hold of the packet which
she held behind her. The boat rocked ; and as much
in rage as fear she screamed.
A cry uttered wholly in rage answered hers; it
came from Carlat. La Tribe, however, whose whole
mind was fixed on the packet, did not heed, nor would
have heeded, the steward. But the next moment a
second cry, fierce as that of a wild beast, clove the air
from the lower and farther bank ; and the Huguenot,
recognising Count Hannibal's voice, involuntarily de-
sisted and stood erect. A moment the boat rocked
perilously under him; then for unheeded it had
been drifting that way it softly touched the bank on
which Carlat stood staring and aghast.
La Tribe's chance was gone; he saw that the
steward must reach him before he could succeed in
a second attempt. On the other hand, the under-
growth on the bank was thick, he could touch it with
his hand, and if he fled at once he might escape.
He hung an instant irresolute; then, with a look
which went to the Countess's heart, he sprang ashore,
plunged among the alders, and in a moment was gone.
"After him! After him!" thundered Count Han-
nibal. "After him, man!" and Carlat, stumbling
down the steep slope and through the rough briars,
did his best to obey. But in vain. Before he reached
the water's edge, the noise of the fugitive's retreat had
grown faint. A few seconds and it died away.
CHAPTER XXII.
PLAYING WITH FIEE.
THE impulse of La Tribe's foot as lie landed liad
driven the boat into the stream. It drifted slowly
downward, and if naught intervened would take the
ground on Count Hannibal's side, a hundred and
fifty yards below him. He saw this, and walked
along the bank, keeping pace with it, while the
Countess sat motionless, crouching in the stern of the
craft, her fingers strained about the fatal packet.
The slow glide of the boat, as almost imperceptibly it
approached the low bank ; the stillness of the mirror-
like surface on which it moved, leaving only the
faintest ripple behind it ; the silence for under the
influence of emotion Count Hannibal too was mute
all were in tremendous contrast with the storm which
raged in her breast.
Should she should she even now, with his eyes on
her, drop the letters over the side ? It needed but a
movement. She had only to extend her hand, to re-
lax the tension of her fingers, and the deed was done.
Ft needed only that ; but the golden sands of oppor-
tunity were running out were running out fast.
Slowly and more slowly, silently and more silently,
the boat slid in towards the bank on which he stood,
and still she hesitated. The stillness, and the waiting
figure, and the watching eyes now but a few feet dis-
tant, weighed on her and seemed to paralyse her will.
PLAYING WITH FIEE. 237
A foot, another foot ! A moment and it would be too
late, the last of the sands would hare run out. The
bow of the boat rustled softly through the rushes;
it kissed the bank. And her hand still held the
letters.
"You are not hurt? " he asked curtly.
"No."
"The scoundrel might have drowned you. Was he
mad?"
She was silent. He held out his hand, and she
gave him the packet. "I owe you much," he said,
a ring of gaiety, almost of triumph, in his tone.
" More than you guess, Madame. God made you for
a soldier's wife, and a mother of soldiers. What?
You are not well, I am afraid ? "
"If I could sit down a minute," she faltered. She
was swaying on her feet.
He supported her across the belt of meadow which
fringed the bank, and made her recline against a
tree. Then as his men began to come up for the
alarm had reached them he would have sent two of
them in the boat to fetch Madame St. Lo to her.
But she would not let him. "Your maid, then?" he
said.
"No, monsieur, I need only to be alone a little!
Only to be alone," she repeated, her face averted;
and believing this he sent the men away, and, taking
the boat himself, he crossed over, took in Madame St.
Lo and Carlat, and rowed them to the ferry. Here
the wildest rumours were current. One held that the
Huguenot had gone out of his senses ; another, that
he had watched for this opportunity of avenging his
brethren; a third, that his intention had been to
carry off the Countess and hold her to ransom.
238 COUNT HANNIBAL.
Tavanues himself, from his position on the farther
bank, had seen the packet of letters, and the hand
which withheld them; and he said nothing. Nay,
when some of the men would have crossed to search
for the fugitive, he forbade them, he scarcely knew
why, save that it might please her; and when the
women would have hurried to join her and hear the
tale from her lips he forbade them also.
"She wishes to be alone," he said curtly.
"Alone?" Madame St. Lo cried, in a fever of cu-
riosity. "You'll find her dead, or worse! What?
Leave a woman alone after such a fright as that ! "
"She wishes it."
Madame laughed cynically ; and the laugh brought
a tinge of colour to his brow. "Oh, does she?" she
sneered. " Then I understand ! Have a care, have
a care, or one of these days, monsieur, when you
leave her alone, you'll find them together! "
"Be silent!"
"With pleasure," she returned. "Only when it
happens don't say that you were not warned. You
think that she does not hear from him "
" How can she hear? " The words were wrung from
him.
Madame St. Lo's contempt passed all limits.
"How can she!" she retorted. "You trail a woman
across France, and let her sit by herself, and lie
by herself, and all but drown by herself, and you ask
how she hears from her lover? You leave her old
servants about her, and you ask how she communi-
cates with him?"
"You know nothing! " he snarled.
"I know this," she retorted. "I saw her sitting
this morning, and smiling and weeping at the same
PLAYING WITH FIEE. 239
time! "Was she thinking of you, monsieur? Or of
him I She was looking at the hills through tears ; a
blue mist hung over them, and I'll wager she saw
some one's eyes gazing and some one's hand beckon-
ing out of the blue! "
"Curse you! " he cried, tormented in spite of him-
self. "You love to make mischief! "
"No!" she answered swiftly. "For 'twas not I
made the match. But go your way, go your way,
monsieur, and see what kind of a welcome you'll
get!"
"I will," Count Hannibal growled. And he started
along the bank to rejoin his wife.
The light in his eyes had died down. Yet would
they have been more sombre, and his face more harsh,
had he known the mind of the woman to whom he
was hastening. The Countess had begged to be left
alone; alone, she found the solitude she had craved
a cruel gift. She had saved the packet. She had
fulfilled her trust. But only to experience, the mo-
ment it was too late, the full poignancy of remorse.
Before the act, while the choice had lain with her, the
betrayal of her husband had loomed large ; now she
saw that to treat him as she had treated him was the
true betrayal, and that even for his own sake, and to
save him from a fearful sin, it had become her to
destroy the letters.
Now, it was no longer her duty to him which
loomed large, but her duty to the innocent, to the
victims of the massacre which she might have stayed,
to the people of her faith whom she had abandoned,
to the women and children whose death-warrant she
had preserved. Now, she perceived that a part more
divine had never fallen to woman, nor a responsibil-
240 COUNT HANNIBAL.
ity so heavy been laid upon woman. Nor guilt more
dread!
She writhed in misery, thinking of it. What had
she done I She could hear afar off the sounds of the
camp; an occasional outcry, a snatch of laughter.
And the cry and the laughter rang in her ears, a bit-
ter mockery. This summer camp, to what was it the
prelude? This forbearance on her husband's part, in
what would it end? Were not the one and the other
cruel make-believes ? Two days, and the men who
laughed beside the water would slay and torture with
equal zest. A little, and the husband who now chose
to be generous would show himself in his true colours.
And it was for the sake of such as these that she had
played the coward. That she had laid up for herself
endless remorse. That henceforth the cries of the
innocent would haunt her dreams.
Racked by such thoughts she did not hear his step,
and it was his shadow falling across her feet which
first warned her of his presence. She looked up, saw
him, and involuntarily recoiled. Then, seeing the
change in his face, "Oh! monsieur," she stammered
affrighted, her hand pressed to her side, "I ask your
pardon ! You startled me ! "
"So it seems," he answered. And he stood over
her regarding her drily.
"I am not quite myself yet," she murmured. His
look told her that her start had betrayed her feelings.
Alas, the plan of taking a woman by force has
drawbacks, and among others this one : that he must
be a sanguine husband who deems her heart his, and
a husband without jealousy, whose suspicions are not
aroused by the faintest flush or the lightest word.
He knows that she is his unwillingly, a victim, not a
PLAYING WITH FIEE. 241
mistress ; and behind every bnsh beside the road and
behind every mask in the crowd be espies a rival.
Moreover, where women are in question, who is
always strong 1 ? Or who can say how long he will
pursue this plan or that"? A man of sternest temper,
Count Hannibal had set out on a path of conduct
carefully and deliberately chosen ; knowing and he
still knew that if he abandoned it he had little to
hope, if the less to fear. But the proof of fidelity
which the Countess had just given him had blown to
a white heat the smouldering flame in his heart, and
Madame St. Lo's gibes, which should have fallen as
cold water alike on his hopes and his passion, had
but fed the desire to know the best. For all that, he
might not have spoken now, if be had not caught her
look of affright; strange as it sounds, that look,
which of all things should have silenced him and
warned him that the time was not yet, stung him out
of patience. Suddenly the man in him carried him
away.
"You still fear me, then!" he said, in a voice
hoarse and unnatural. "Is it for what I do or for
what I leave undone that yon hate me, Madame?
Tell me, I beg, for "
"For neither!" she said, trembling. His eyes,
hot and passionate, were on her, and the blood had
mounted to his brow. "For neither! I do not hate
you, monsieur ! "
"You fear me then! I am right in that."
"I fear that which you carry with you," she stam-
mered, speaking on impulse and scarcely knowing
what she said.
He started, and his expression changed. "So?" he
exclaimed. "So? You know what I carry, do you?
242 COUNT HANNIBAL.
And from whom 1 From whom ? " he continued in a
tone of menace, "if you please, did you get that
knowledge ? "
"From M. La Tribe," she muttered. She had not
meant to tell him. Why had she told him ?
He nodded. "I might have known it," he said.
"I more than suspected it. Therefore I should be
the more beholden to you for saving the letters.
But" he paused and laughed harshly "it was out
of no love for me you saved them. That, too, I
know. "
She did not answer or protest ; and when he had
waited a moment in vain expectation of her protest,
a cruel look crept into his eyes. "Madame," he said
slowly, "do you never reflect that you may push the
part you play too far? That the patience, even of
the worst of men, does not endure for ever ? "
" I have your word ! " she answered.
" And you do not fear ? "
"I have your word," she repeated. And now she
looked him bravely in the face, her eyes full of the
courage of her race.
The lines of his mouth hardened as he met her look.
"And what have I of yours? " he said in a low voice.
" What have I of yours? "
Her face began to burn at that, her eyes fell and
she faltered. "My gratitude," she murmured, with
an upward look that craved for pity. "God knows,
monsieur, you have that ! "
"God knows I do not want it!" he answered.
And he laughed derisively. "Your gratitude!"
And he mocked her tone rudely and coarsely.
"Your gratitude?" Then for a minute for so long
a time that she began to wonder and to quake he
PLAYING WITH FIEE. 243
was silent. At last, "A fig for your gratitude,"
he said. "I want your love! I suppose cold as
you are, and a Huguenot you can love like other
women ! "
It was the first, the very first time he had used the
word to her ; and though it fell from his lips like a
threat, though he used it as a man presents a pistol,
she flushed anew from throat to brow. But she did
not quail. "It is not mine to give," she said.
"It is his!"
" Yes, monsieur, " she answered, wondering at her
courage, at her audacity, her madness. "It is his."
"And it cannot be mine at any time? "
She shook her head, trembling.
"Never?" And, suddenly reaching forward, he
gripped her wrist in an iron grasp. There was pas-
sion in his tone. His eyes burned her.
Whether it was that set her on another track, or
pure despair, or the cry in her ears of little children
and of helpless women, something in a moment in-
spired her, flashed in her eyes and altered her voice.
She raised her head and looked him firmly in the
face. "What," she said, "do you mean by love? "
"You! " he answered brutally.
"Then it may be, monsieur," she returned.
"There is a way if you will."
"Away!"
"If you will!" As she spoke she rose slowly to
her feet ; for in his surprise he had released her wrist.
He rose with her, and they stood confronting one an-
other on the strip of grass between the river and the
poplars.
"If I will? " His form seemed to dilate, his eyes
devoured her. " If I will ? "
244 COUNT HANNIBAL.
"Yes>" she replied. "If you will give me the let-
ters that are in your belt, the packet which I saved
to-day that I may destroy them I will be yours
freely and willingly."
He drew a deep breath, still devouring her with his
eyes. " You mean it 1 " he said at last.
"I do." She looked him in the face as she spoke,
and her cheeks were white, not red. "Only the
letters ! Give me the letters. "
" And for them you will give me your love ? "
Her eyes flickered, and involuntarily she shivered.
A faint blush rose and dyed her cheeks. "Only God
can give love, " she said, her tone lower.
"And yours is given?"
"Yes."
"To another?"
"I have said it."
"It is his. And yet for these letters "
"For these lives!" she cried proudly.
"You will give yourself?"
"I swear it," she answered, "if you will give them
to me ! If you will give them to me, " she repeated.
And she held out her hands ; her face, full of passion,
was bright with a strange light. A close observer
might have thought her distraught ; still excited by
the struggle in the boat, and barely mistress of herself.
But the man whom she tempted, the man who held
her price at his belt, after one searching look at her
turned from her ; perhaps because he could not trust
himself to gaze on her. Count Hannibal walked a
dozen paces from her and returned, and again a dozen
paces and returned; and again a third time, with
something fieree and passionate in his gait. At last
he stopped before her.
PLAYING WITH FIRE. 245
"You have nothing to offer for them," he said, in a
cold, hard tone. " Nothing that is not mine already,
nothing that is not my right, nothing that I cannot
take at my will. My word ? " he continued, seeing
her about to interrupt him. "True, Madame, you
have it, you had it. But why need I keep my word
to you, who tempt me to break my word to the
King?"
She made a weak gesture with her hands. Her
head had sunk on her breast she seemed dazed by
the shock of his contempt, dazed by his reception of
her offer.
"You saved the letters?" he continued, interpret-
ing her action. " True, but the letters are mine, and
that which you offer for them is mine also. You
have nothing to offer. For the rest, Madame," he
went on, eyeing her cynically, "you surprise me!
You, whose modesty and virtue are so great, would
corrupt your husband, would sell yourself, would
dishonour the love of which you boast so loudly, the
love that only God gives ! " He laughed derisively as
he quoted her words. "Ay, and, after showing at
how low a price you hold yourself, you still look, I
doubt not, to me to respect you, and to keep my
word. Madame ! " in a terrible voice, " do not play
with fire! You saved my letters, it is true! And
for that, for this time, you shall go free, if God will
help me to let you go ! But tempt me not ! Tempt
me not ! " he repeated, turning from her and turning
back again with a gesture of despair, as if he mis-
trusted the strength of the restraint which he put
upon himself. "I am no more than other men!
Perhaps I am less. And you you who prate of love,
and know not what love is could love ! could love ! "
246 COUNT HANNIBAL.
He stopped on that word as if the word choked him
stopped, struggling with his passion. At last, with
a half -stifled oath, he flung away from her, halted
and hung a moment, then, with a swing of rage, went
off again violently. His feet as he strode along the
river-bank trampled the flowers, and slew the pale
water forget-me-not, which grew among the grasses.
CHAPTEE XXIII.
A MIND, AND NOT A MIND.
LA TRIBE tore through the thicket, imagining Car-
lat and Count Hannibal hot on his heels. He dared
not pause even to listen. The underwood tripped
him, the lissom branches of the alders whipped
his face and blinded him; once he fell headlong
over a moss-grown stone, and picked himself up
groaning. But the hare hard-pushed takes no ac-
count of the briars, nor does the fox heed the mud
through which it draws itself into covert. And for
the time he was naught but a hunted beast. With
elbows pinned to his sides, or with hands extended to
ward off the boughs, with bursting lungs and crimson
face, he plunged through the tangle, now slipping
downwards, now leaping upwards, now all but pros-
trate, now breasting a mass of thorns. On and on he
ran, until he came to the verge of the wood, saw be-
fore him an open meadow devoid of shelter or hiding-
place, and with a groan of despair cast himself flat.
He listened. How far were they behind him ?
He heard nothing. Nothing, save the common
noises of the wood, the angry chatter of a disturbed
blackbird as it flew low into hiding, or the harsh
notes of a flock of starlings as they rose from the
meadow. The hum of bees filled the air, and the
August flies buzzed about his sweating brow, for he
248 COUNT HANNIBAL.
had lost his cap. But behind him nothing. Al-
ready the stillness of the wood had closed upon his
track.
He was not the less panic-stricken. He supposed
that Tavannes' people were getting to horse, and cal-
culated that if they surrounded and beat the wood,
he must be taken. At the thought, though he had
barely got his breath, he rose, and keeping within the
coppice crawled down the slope towards the river.
Gently, when he reached it, he slipped into the wa-
ter, and stooping below the level of the bank, his
head and shoulders hidden by the bushes, he waded
down stream until he had put another hundred and
fifty yards between himself and pursuit. Then he
paused and listened. Still he heard nothing, and he
waded on again, until the water grew deep. At this
point he marked a little below him a clump of trees
on the farther side ; and reflecting that that side if
he could reach it unseen would be less suspect, he
swam across, aiming for a thorn bush which grew
low to the water. Under its shelter he crawled out,
and, worming himself like a snake across the few
yards of grass which intervened, he stood at length
within the shadow of the trees. A moment he
paused to shake himself, and then, remembering that
he was still within a mile of the camp, he set off,
now walking, and now running in the direction of
the hills which his party had crossed that morning.
For a time he hurried on, thinking only of escape.
But when he had covered a mile or two, and escape
seemed probable, there began to mingle with his
thankfulness a bitter a something which grew more
bitter with each moment. Why had he fled and left
the work undone? Why had he given way to un-
A MIND, ATO NOT A Mim). 249
worthy fear, when the letters were within his grasp f
True, if he had lingered a few seconds longer, he
would have failed to make good his escape ; but what
of that if in those seconds he had destroyed the let-
ters, he had saved Angers, he had saved his brethren?
Alas ! he had played the coward. The terror of Ta-
vannes' voice had unmanned him. He had saved
himself and left the flock to perish ; he, whom God
had set apart by many and great signs for this work!
He had commonly courage enough. He could
have died at the stake . for his convictions. But he
had not the presence of mind which is proof against a
shock, nor the cool judgment which, in the face of
death, sees to the end of two roads. He was no
coward, but now he deemed himself one, and in an
agony of remorse he flung himself on his face in the
long grass. He had known trials and temptations,
but hitherto he had held himself erect; now, like
Peter, he had betrayed his Lord.
He lay an hour groaning in the misery of his heart,
and then he fell on the text u Thou art Peter, and on
this rock " and he sat up. Peter had betrayed
his trust through cowardice as he had. But Peter
had not been held unworthy. Might it not be so
with him 1 ? He rose to his feet, a new light in his
eyes. He would return! He would return, and at
all costs, even at the cost of surrendering himself, he
would obtain access to the letters. And then not
the fear of Count Hannibal, not the fear of instant
death, should turn him from his duty.
He had east himself down in a woodland glade
which lay near the path along which he had ridden
that morning. But the mental conflict from which
he rose had shaken him so violently that he could not
250 COUNT HANNIBAL.
recall the side on which he had entered the clearing,
and he turned himself about, endeavouring to re-
member. At that moment the light jingle of a bridle
struck his ear ; he caught through the green bushes
the flash and sparkle of harness. They had tracked
him then, they were here! So had he clear proof
that this second chance was to be his. In a happy
fervour he stood forward where the pursuers could
not fail to see him.
Or so he thought. Yet the first horseman, riding
carelessly with his face averted and his feet dangling,
would have gone by and seen nothing if his horse,
more watchful, had not shied. The man turned then ;
and for a moment the two stared at one another be-
tween the pricked ears of the horse. At last,
"M. de Tignonville ! " the minister ejaculated.
"La Tribe!"
"It is truly you?"
"Well I think so," the young man answered.
The minister lifted up his eyes and seemed to call
the trees and the clouds and the birds to witness.
"Now," he cried, "I know that I am chosen! And
that we were instruments to do this thing from the
day when the hen saved us in the hay-cart in Paris !
Now I know that all is forgiven and all is ordained,
and that the faithful of Angers shall to-morrow live
and not die ! " And with a face radiant, yet solemn,
he walked to the young man's stirrup.
An instant Tignonville looked sharply before him.
"How far ahead are they?" he asked. His tone,
hard and matter-of-fact, was little in harmony with
the other's enthusiasm.
"They are resting a league before you, at the ferry.
You are in pursuit of them f "
A MIND, AND NOT A MIND. 251
"Yes."
"Not alone?"
"No." The young man's look as he spoke was
grim. "I have five behind me of your kidney,
M. La Tribe. They are from the Arsenal. They
have lost one his wife, and one his son. The three
others "
"Yes?"
"Sweethearts," Tignonville answered drily. And
he east a singular look at the minister.
But La Tribe's mind was so full of one matter, he
could think only of that. "How did you hear of the
letters?" he asked.
"The letters?"
"Yes."
"I do not know what you mean."
La Tribe stared. "Then why are you following
him ? " he asked.
"Why?" Tignouville echoed, a look of hate dark-
ening his face. "Do you ask why we follow "
But on the name he seemed to choke and was si-
lent.
By this time his men had come up, and one an-
swered for him. "Why are we following Hannibal
de Tavanues? " he said sternly. "To do to him as he
has done to us! To rob him as he has robbed us
of more than gold ! To kill him as he has killed
ours, foully and by surprise ! In his bed if we can !
In the arms of his wife if God wills it ! "
The speaker's face was haggard from brooding and
lack of sleep, but his eyes glowed and burned, as his
fellows growled assent.
"'Tis simple why we follow," a second put in.
"Is there a man of our faith who will not, when he
252 COUNT HANNIBAL.
hears the tale, rise up and stab the nearest of this
black brood though it be his brother? If so, God's
curse on him ! "
" Amen t Amen ! "
"So, and so only," cried the first, "shall there be
faith in our land ! And our children, our little maids,
shall lie safe in their beds ! "
" Amen ! Amen ! "
The speaker's chin sank on his breast, and with his
last word the light died out of his eyes. La Tribe
looked at him curiously, then at the others. Last of
all at Tignonville, on whose face he fancied that he
surprised a faint smile. Yet Tiguonville's tone when
he spoke was grave enough. "You have heard/' he
said. "Do you blame us? "
"I cannot," the minister answered, shivering. "I
can not. " He had been for a while beyond the range
of these feelings ; and in the greenwood, under God's
heaven, with the sunshine about him, they jarred on
him. Yet he could not blame men who had suffered
as these had suffered ; who were maddened, as these
were maddened, by the gravest wrongs which it is
possible for one man to inflict on another. "I dare
not," he continued sorrowfully. "But in God's name
I offer you a higher and a nobler errand. "
" We need none, " Tignonville muttered impatiently.
"Yet may others need you," La Tribe answered in
a tone of rebuke. "You are not aware that the man
you follow bears a packet from the King for the
hands of the magistrates of Angers ? "
"Ha! Does he?"
"Bidding them do at Angers as his Majesty has
done in Paris'?"
The men broke into cries of execration. "But he
A MIND, AND NOT A MIND. 253
shall not see Angers! " they swore. "The blood that
he has shed shall choke him by the way ! And as he
would do to others it shall be done to him. "
La Tribe shuddered as he listened, as he looked.
Try as he would, the thirst of these men for ven-
geance appalled him. "How 1 ? " he said. "He has a
score and more with him : and you are only six. "
"Seven now," Tignonville answered with a smile.
"True, but "
"And he lies to-night at La Fleche? That is so! "
"It was his intention this morning."
"At the old King's Inn at the meeting of the great
roads ? "
" It was mentioned, " La Tribe admitted, with a re-
luctance he did not comprehend. "But if the night
be fair he is as like as not to lie in the fields. "
One of the men pointed to the sky. A dark bank
of cloud fresh risen from the ocean, and big with
tempest, hung low in the west. "See! God will de-
liver him into our hands ! " he cried.
Tignonville nodded. "If he lie there," he said,
"He will." And then to one of his followers, as he
dismounted, "Do you ride on," he said, "and stand
guard that we be not surprised. And do you, Perrot,
tell monsieur. Perrot here, as God wills it, " he added
with a faint smile which did not escape the minister's
eye, "married his wife from the great inn at La
Fleche, and he knows the place."
"None better," the man growled. He was a sullen,
brooding knave, whose eyes when he looked up sur-
prised by their savage fire.
La Tribe shook his head. "I know it, too," he
said. " 'Tis strong as a fortress, with a walled court,
and all the windows look inwards. The gates are
254 COUNT HANNIBAL.
closed an hour after sunset, no matter who is with-
out. If you think, M. de Tignonville, to take him
there "
"Patience, monsieur, you have not heard me,"
Perrot interposed. "I know it after another fashion.
Do you remember a rill of water which runs through
the great yard and the stabies? "
La Tribe nodded.
" Grated with iron at either end, and no passage for
so much as a dog I You do I Well, monsieur, I have
hunted rats there, and where the water passes under
the wall is a culvert, a man's height in length. In it
is a stone, one of those which frame the grating at the
entrance, which a strong man can remove and the
man is in ! "
"Ay, in! But where!" La Tribe asked, his eye-
brows drawn together.
"Well said, monsieur, where?" Perrot rejoined in
a tone of triumph. "There lies the point. In the
stables, where will be sleeping men, and a snorer on
every truss 1 ? No, but in a fairway between two
stables where the water at its entrance runs clear in
a stone channel ; a channel deepened in one place
that they may draw for the chambers above w r ith a
rope and a bucket. The rooms above are the best in
the house, four in one row, opening all on the gallery ;
which was uncovered, in the common fashion, until
Queen-Mother Jezebel, passing that way to Nantes,
two years back, found the chambers draughty; and
that end of the gallery was closed in against her re-
turn. Now, monsieur, he and his madame will lie
there ; and he will feel safe, for there is but one way
to those four rooms -through the door which shuts off
the covered gallery from the open part. But "
A MIND, AND NOT A MIND. 255
he glanced up an instant and La Tribe caught the
smouldering fire in his eyes "we shall not go in by
the door."
"The bucket rises through a trap 1 ? "
"In the gallery? To be sure, monsieur. In the
corner beyond the fourth door. There shall he fall
into the pit which he dug for others, and the evil that
he planned rebound on his own head ! "
La Tribe was silent. "What think you of it?"
Tignonville asked.
"That it is cleverly planned," the minister an-
swered.
"No more than that! "
"No more until I have eaten."
"Get him something!" Tignonville replied in a
surly tone. "And we may as well eat, ourselves.
Lead the horses into the wood. And do you, Perrot,
call Tuez-les-Moines, who is forward. Two hours'
riding should bring us to La Fleche. We need not
leave here, therefore, until the sun is low. To din-
ner! To dinner!"
Probably he did not feel the indifference he affected,
for his face as he ate grew darker, and from time to
time he shot a glance, barbed with suspicion, at the
minister. La Tribe on his side remained silent, al-
though the men ate apart. He was in doubt, indeed,
as to his own feelings. His instinct and his reason
were at odds. Through all, however, a single pur-
pose, the rescue of Angers, held good, and gradually
other things fell into their places. When the meal
was at an end, and Tignonville challenged him, he
was ready.
"Your enthusiasm seems to have waned," the
younger man said with a sneer, "since we met, mon-
266 COUNT HANNIBAL.
sieur ! May I ask now if you find any fault with the
plan?"
"With the plan, none."
"If it was Providence brought us together, was it
not Providence furnished me with Perrot who knows
La Fldche ? If it was Providence brought the danger
of the faithful in Angers to your knowledge, was it
not Providence set us on the road without whom
you had been powerless?"
"I believe it!"
"Then, in His name, what is the matter? " Tignon-
ville rejoined with a passion of which the other's
manner seemed an inadequate cause. "What will
you? What is it?"
"I would take your place," La Tribe answered
quietly.
"My place?"
"Yes."
" What, are we too many ? "
" We are enough without you, M. Tignonville, " the
minister answered. "These men, who have wrongs
to avenge, God will justify them."
Tignonville 's eyes sparkled with anger. "And
have I no wrongs to avenge? " he cried. " Is it noth-
ing to lose my mistress, to be robbed of my wife, to
see the woman I love dragged off to be a slave and a.
toy ? Are these no wrongs I "
"He spared your life, if he did not save it," the
minister said solemnly. "And hers. And her ser-
vants. "
"To suit himself."
La Tribe spread out his hands.
"To suit himself ! And for that you wish him to
go free?" Tignonville cried in a voice half -choked
A MIND, AND NOT A MIND. 257
with rage. "Do you know that this man, and this
man alone, stood forth in the great Hall of the
Louvre, and when even the King flinched, justified
the murder of our people? After that is he to go
free?"
"At your hands," La Tribe answered quietly.
"You alone of our people must not pursue him."
He would have added more, but Tignonville would
not listen.
Brooding on his wrongs behind the wall of the
Arsenal, he had let hatred eat away his more gener-
ous instincts. Vain and conceited, he fancied that
the world laughed at the poor figure he had cut ; and
the wound in his vanity festered until nothing would
serve but to see the downfall of his enemy. Instant
pursuit, instant vengeance only these, he fancied,
could restore him in his fellows' eyes.
In his heart he knew what would become him bet-
ter. But vanity is a potent motive: and his con-
science, even when supported by La Tribe, struggled
but weakly. From neither would he hear more.
"You have travelled with him, until you side with
him!" he cried violently. "Have a care, monsieur,
have a care lest we think you papist ! " And walking
over to the men he bade them saddle ; adding a sour
word which tulned their eyes, in no friendly gaze, on
the minister.
After that La Tribe said no more. Of what use
would it have been ?
But as darkness came on and cloaked the little
troop, and the storm which the men had foreseen be-
gan to rumble in the west, his distaste for the busi-
ness waxed. The summer lightning which presently
began to play across the sky revealed not only the
17
258 COUNT HANNIBAL.
broad gleaming stream, between which and a wooded
hill their road ran, but the faces of his companions ;
and these in their turn shed a grisly light on the
bloody enterprise towards which they were set. Ner-
vous and ill at ease, the minister's mind dwelt on
the stages of that enterprise; the stealthy entrance
through the waterway, the ascent through the trap,
the surprise, the slaughter in the sleeping-chamber.
And either because he had lived for days in the vic-
tim's company, or was swayed by the arguments he
had addressed to another, the prospect shook his soul.
In vain he told himself that this was the oppressor ;
he saw only the man, fresh roused from sleep, with
the horror of impending dissolution in his eyes. And
when the rider, behind whom he sat, pointed to a
faint spark of light, at no great distance before them,
and whispered that it was St. Agnes 's Chapel, hard
by the inn, he could have cried with the best Catholic
of them all, " Inter pontem et fontem, Domine!"
Nay, some such words did pass his lips.
For the man before him turned half-way in his
saddle. " What ?" he asked.
But the Huguenot did not explain.
CHAPTEE XXIV.
AT THE KING'S INN.
THE Countess sat up in the darkness of the chamber.
She had writhed since noon under the stings of re-
morse; she could bear them no longer. The slow
declension of the day, the evening light, the signs of
coming tempest which had driven her company to the
shelter of the inn at the cross-roads, all had racked
her, by reminding her that the hours were flying, and
that soon the fault she had committed would be irrep-
arable. One impulsive attempt to redeem it she had
made, we know; but it had failed, and, by render-
ing her suspect, had made reparation more difficult.
Still, by daylight it had seemed possible to rest con-
tent with the trial made ; not so now, when night had
fallen, and the cries of little children and the hag-
gard eyes of mothers peopled the darkness of her
chamber. She sat up, and listened with throbbing
temples.
To shut out the lightning which played at intervals
across the heavens, Madame St. Lo, who shared the
room, had covered the window with a cloak; and
the place was dark. To exclude the dull roll of the
thunder was less easy, for the night was oppressively
hot, and behind the cloak the casement was open.
Gradually, too, another sound, the hissing fall of
heavy rain, began to make itself heard, and to min-
260 COUNT HANNIBAL.
gle with the regular breathing which proved that
Madame St. Lo slept.
Assured of this fact, the Countess presently heaved
a sigh, and slipped from the bed. She groped in the
darkness for her cloak, found it, and donned it over
her night-gear. Then, taking her bearings by her
bed, which stood with its head to the window and
its foot to the entrance, she felt her way across the
floor to the door, and after passing her hands a dozen
times over every part of it, she found the latch, and
raised it. The door creaked, as she pulled it open,
and she stood arrested; but the sound went no far-
ther, for the roofed gallery outside, which looked by
two windows on the courtyard, was full of outdoor
noises, the rushing of rain and the running of spouts
and eaves. One of the windows stood wide, admit-
ting the rain and wind, and as she paused, holding
the door open, the draught blew the cloak from her.
She stepped out quickly and shut the door behind
her. On her left was the blind end of the passage ;
she turned to the right. She took one step into the
darkness and stood motionless. Beside her, within
a few feet of her, some one had moved, with a dull
sound as of a boot on wood ; a sound so near her that
she held her breath, and pressed herself against the
wall.
She listened. Perhaps some of the servants it
was a common usage had made their beds on the
floor. Perhaps one of the women had stirred in the
room against the wall of which she crouched. Per-
haps but, even while she reassured herself, the
sound rose anew at her feet.
Fortunately at the same instant the glare of the
lightning flooded all, and showed the passage, and
AT THE KING'S INN. 261
showed it empty. It lit up the row of doors on her
right and the small windows on her left ; and discov-
ered facing her, the door which shut off the rest of
the house. She could have thanked nay, she did
thank God for that light. If the sound she had
heard recurred she did not hear it; for, as the
thunder which followed hard on the flash, crashed
overhead and rolled heavily eastwards, she felt her
way boldly along the passage, touching first one door,
and then a second, and then a third.
She groped for the latch of the last, and found it,
but, with her hand on it, paused. In order to summon
up her courage, she strove to hear again the cries of
misery and to see again the haggard eyes which had
driven her hither. And if she did not wholly suc-
ceed, other reflections came to her aid. This storm,
which covered all smaller noises, and opened, now
and again, God's lantern for her use, did it not prove
that He was on her side, and that she might count on
His protection? The thought at least was timely,
and with a better heart she gathered her wits. Wait-
ing until the thunder burst over her head, she opened
the door, slid within it, and closed it. She would
fain have left it ajar, that in case of need she might
escape the more easily. But the wind, which beat into
the passage through the open window, rendered the
precaution too perilous.
She went forward two paces into the room, and as
the roll of the thunder died away she stooped for-
ward and listened with painful intensity for the sound
of Count Hannibal's breathing. But the window was
open, and the hiss of the rain persisted; she could
hear nothing through it, and fearfully she took an-
other step forward. The window should be before
262 COUNT HANNIBAL.
her ; the bed in the corner to the left. But nothing of
either could she make out. She must wait for the
lightning.
It came, and for a second or more the room shone.
The window, the low truckle-bed, the sleeper, she
saw all with dazzling clearness, and before the flash
had well passed she was crouching low, with the hood
of her cloak dragged about her face. For the glare
had revealed Count Hannibal; but not asleep! He
lay on his side, his face towards her ; lay with open
eyes, staring at her.
Or had the light tricked her ? The light must have
tricked her, for in the interval between the flash and
the thunder, while she crouched quaking, he did not
move or call. The light must have deceived her.
She felt so certain of it that she found courage to re-
main where she was until another flash came and
showed him sleeping with closed eyes.
She drew a breath of relief at that, and rose slowly to
her feet. But she dared not go forward until a third
flash had confirmed the second. Then, while the
thunder burst overhead and rolled away, she crept on
until she stood beside the pillow, and stooping, could
hear the sleeper's breathing.
Alas ! the worst remained to be done. The packet,
she was sure of it, lay under his pillow. How was
she to find it, how remove it without rousing him?
A touch might awaken him. And yet, if she would
not return empty-handed, if she would not go back to
the harrowing thoughts which had tortured her
through the long hours of the day, it must be done,
and done now.
Slie knew this, yet she hung irresolute a while,
blenching before the manual act, listening to the
AT THE KING'S INN. 263
persistent rush and downpour of the rain. Then a
second time she drew courage from the storm. How
timely had it broken! How signally had it aided
her! How slight had been her chance without it!
And so at last, resolutely but with a deft touch, she
slid her fingers between the pillow and the bed,
slightly pressing down the latter with her other hand.
For an instant she fancied that the sleeper's breathing
stopped, and her heart gave a great bound. But the
breathing went on the next instant if it had stopped
and dreading the return of the lightning, shrinking
from being revealed so near him, and in that act
for which the darkness seemed more fitting she
groped farther, and touched something. And then,
as her fingers closed upon it and grasped it, and his
breath rose hot to her burning cheek, she knew that
the real danger lay in the withdrawal.
At the first attempt he uttered a kind of grunt and
moved, throwing out his hand. She thought that he
was going to awake, and had hard work to keep her-
self where she was ; but he did not move, and she
began again with so infinite a precaution that the
perspiration ran down her face and her hair within
the hood hung dank on her neck. Slowly, oh so
slowly, she drew back the hand, and with it the
packet ; so slowly, and yet so resolutely, being put to
it, that when the dreaded flash surprised her, and she
saw his harsh swarthy face, steeped in the mysterious
aloofness of sleep, within a hand's breadth of hers,
not a muscle of her arm moved, nor did her hand
quiver.
It was done at last ! With a burst of gratitude,
of triumph, of exultation, she stood erect. She
realised that it was done, and that here in her hand
264 COUNT HANNIBAL.
she held the packet. A deep gasp of relief, of joy,
of thankfulness, and she glided towards the door.
She groped for the lateh, and in the act fancied
his breathing was changed. She paused and bent
her head to listen. But the patter of the rain,
drowning all sounds save those of the nearest origin,
persuaded her that she was mistaken, and, finding the
latch, she raised it, slipped like a shadow into the
passage, and closed the door behind her.
That done she stood arrested, all the blood in
her body running to her heart. She must be dream-
ing! The passage in which she stood the passage
which she had left in black darkness was alight;
was so far lighted, at least, that to eyes fresh from
the night, the figures of three men, grouped at the
farther end, stood out against the glow of the lantern
which they appeared to be trimming for the two
nearest were stooping over it. These two had their
backs to her, the third his face ; and it was the sight
of this third man which had driven the blood to her
heart. He ended at the waist ! It was only after a
few seconds, it was only when she had gazed at him
awhile in speechless horror, that he rose another foot
from the floor, and she saw that he had paused in
the act of ascending through a trapdoor. What the
scene meant, who these men were, or what their en-
trance portended, with these questions her brain re-
fused at the moment to grapple. It was much that
still remembering who might hear her, and what she
held- -she did not shriek aloud.
Instead, she stood in the gloom at her end of the
passage, gazing with all her eyes until she had seen
the third man step clear of the trap. She could see
Mm; but the light intervened and blurred his view
AT THE KING'S INN. 265
of her. He stooped, almost as soon as lie had cleared
himself, to help up a fourth man, who rose with a
naked knife between his teeth. She saw then that all
were armed, and something stealthy in their bearing,
something cruel in their eyes as the light of the lan-
tern fell now on one dark face and now on another,
went to her heart and chilled it. Who were they,
and why were they here 1 What was their purpose I
As her reason awoke, as she asked herself these ques-
tions, the fourth man stooped in his turn, and gave
his hand to a fifth. And on that she lost her self-
control and cried out. For the last man to ascend
was La Tribe ! La Tribe, from whom she had parted
that morning !
The sound she uttered was low, but it reached the
men's ears, and the two whose backs were towards her
turned as if they had been pricked. He who held the
lantern raised it, and the five glared at her and she at
them. Then a second cry, louder and more full of
surprise, burst from her lips. The nearest man, he
who held the lantern high that he might view her, was
Tignonville, was her lover 1
" Mon Dieu .'" she whispered. "What is it? What
is it? "
Then, not till then, did he know her. Until then
the light of the lantern had revealed only a cloaked
and cowled figure, a gloomy phantom which shook
the heart of more than one with superstitious terror.
But they knew her now two of them ; and slowly,
as in a dream, Tignonville came forward.
The mind has its moments of crisis, in which it
acts upon instinct rather than upon reason. The girl
never knew why she acted as she did; why she
asked no questions, why she uttered no exclama-
266 COUNT HANNIBAL.
tions, no remonstrances. Why, with a finger on
her lips and her eyes on his, she put the packet into
his hands.
He took it from her, too, as mechanically as she
gave it with the hand which held his bare blade.
That done, silent as she, with his eyes set hard, he
would have gone by her. The sight of her there,
guarding the door of him who had stolen her from
him, exasperated his worst passions.
But she moved to hinder him, and barred the way.
With her hand raised she pointed to the trapdoor.
" Go now ! " she whispered, her tone stern and low,
" you have what you want ! Go ! "
"No ! " And he tried to pass her.
"Go! " she repeated in the same tone. "You have
what you need." And still she held her hand ex-
tended ; still without faltering she faced the five men,
while the thunder, growing more distant, rolled sul-
lenly eastward, and the midnight rain, pouring from
every spout and dripping eave about the house,
wrapped the passage in its sibilant hush. Gradually
her eyes dominated his, gradually her nobler nature
and nobler aim subdued his weaker parts. For she
understood now ; and he saw that she did, and had he
been alone he would have slunk away, and said no
word in his defence.
But one of the men, savage and out of patience,
thrust himself between them. "Where is he?" he
muttered. "What is the use of this? Where is he? "
And his bloodshot eyes it was Tuez-les-Moines
questioned the doors, while his hand, trembling
and shaking on the haft of his knife, bespoke hiS
eagerness. "Where is he? Where is he, woman?
Quick, or "
AT THE KING'S INK 267
"I shall not tell you," she answered.
"You lie," he cried, grinning like a dog. "You
will tell us! Or we will kill you, too! Where is he?
Where is he?"
"I shall not tell you," she repeated, standing before
him in the fearlessness of scorn. "Another step and
I rouse the house! M. de Tignonville, to you who
know me, I swear that if this man does not retire- - "
"He is in one of these rooms?" was Tignonville 's
answer. "In which? In which?"
"Search them!" she answered, her voice low, but
biting in its contempt. "'Try them. Eouse my
women, alarm the house ! And when you have his
people at your throats five as they will be to one of
you thank your own mad folly ! "
Tuez-les-Moines' eyes glittered. "You will not tell
us ? " he cried.
"No!"
"Then --
But as the fanatic sprang on her, La Tribe flung his
arms round him and dragged him back. " It would
be madness," he cried. "Are you mad, fool? Have
done ! " he panted, struggling with him. "If niada:ne
gives the alarm and he may be in any one of these
four rooms, you cannot be sure which we are un-
done." He looked for support to Tignonville, whose
movement to protect the girl he had anticipated, and
who had since listened sullenly. " We have obtained
what we need. Will you requite niadame, who has
gained it for us at her own risk - "
is monsieur I would requite," Tignonville mut-
tered grimly.
"By using violence to her?" the minister retorted
passionately. He and Tuez were still gripping one
268 COUNT HAKNTBAL.
another. "I tell you, to go on is to risk what we have
got ! And I for one "
"Am chicken-hearted!" the young man sneered.
"Madame " he seemed to choke on the word. " Will
yon swear that he is not here ? "
"I swear that if yon do not go I will raise the
alarm ! " she hissed all their words were sunk to that
stealthy note. "Go! if you have not stayed too long
already. Go ! Or see ! " And she pointed to the
trapdoor, from which the face and arms of a sixth
man had that moment risen the face dark with per-
turbation, so that her woman's wit told her at once
that something was amiss. "See what has come of
your delay already ! "
"The water is rising," the man muttered ear-
nestly. 4 "Iii God's name come, whether you have
done it or not, or we cannot pass out again. It is
within a foot of the crown of the culvert now, and it
is rising."
"Curse on the water T" Tuez-les-Moines answered
in a frenzied whisper. "And on this Jezebel. Let
us kill her and him! What matter afterwards?"
And he tried to shake off La Tribe's grasp.
But the minister held him desperately. "Are you
mad ? Are you mad ? " he answered. " What can we
do against thirty ? Let us be gone while we can. Let
ws be gone ! Come. "
"Ay, come," Perrot cried, assenting reluctantly.
He had taken no side hitherto. "The luck is against
us! 'Tis no use to-night, man!" And he turned
with an air of sullen resignation. Letting his legs
drop through the trap he followed the bearer of the
tidings out of sight. Another made up his mind to
go, and went. Then only Tignonville holding the
AT THE KING'S INN. 269
lantern, and La Tribe, who feared to release Tuez-
les-Moines, remained with the fanatic.
The Countess's eyes met her old lover's, and
whether old memories overcame her, or, now that the
danger was nearly past, she began to give way, she
swayed a little on her feet. But he did not notice it.
He was sunk in black rage: rage against her, rage
against himself. "Take the light," she muttered
unsteadily. "And and he must follow! "
"And you?"
But she could bear it no longer. "Oh, go," she
wailed. "Go! Will you never go I If you love me,
if you ever loved me, I implore you to go. "
He had betrayed little of a lover's feeling. But
he could not resist that appeal, and he turned si-
lently. Seizing Tuez-les-Moines by the other arm, he
drew him by force to the trap. "Quiet, fool," he
muttered savagely when the man would have resisted,
"and go down! If we stay to kill him, we shall have
no way of escape, and his life will be dearly bought.
Down, man, downl " And between them, in a strug-
gling silence, with now and then an audible rap, or a
ring of metal, the two forced the desperado to de-
scend.
La Tribe followed hastily. Tignonville was the last
to go. In the act of disappearing he raised his lantern
for a last glimpse of the Countess. To his astonish-
ment the passage was empty ; she was gone. Hard by
him a door stood an inch or two ajar, and he guessed
that it was hers, and swore under his breath, hating
her at that moment. But he did not guess how nicely
she had calculated her strength ; how nearly exhaus-
tion had overcome her ; or that even while he paused
a fatal pause had he known it eyeing the dark open-
270 COUNT HANNIBAL.
ing of the door, she lay as one dead, on the bed within.
She had fallen in a swoon, from which she did not
recover until the sun had risen, and marched across
one quarter of the heavens.
Nor did he see another thing, or he might have
hastened his steps. Before the yellow light of his
lantern faded from the ceiling of the passage, the door
of the room farthest from the trap slid open. A
man, whose eyes, until darkness swallowed him, shone
strangely in a face extraordinarily softened, came out
on tip-toe. This man stood awhile, listening. At
length, hearing those below utter a cry of dismay,
he awoke to sudden activity. He opened with a
turn of the key the door which stood at his elbow,
the door which led to the other part of the house.
He vanished through it. A second later a sharp
whistle pierced the darkness of the courtyard and
brought a dozen sleepers to their senses and their
feet. A moment, and the courtyard hummed with
voices, above which one voice rang clear and insis-
tent. With a startled cry the inn awoke.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE COMPANY OF THE BLEEDING HEART.
"BUT why," Madame. St. Lo asked, sticking her
arms akimbo, " why stay in this forsaken place a day
and a night, when six hours in the saddle would set
us in Angers ? "
"Because," Tavannes replied coldly he and his
cousin were walking before the gateway of the inn
"the Countess is not well, and will be the better, I
think, for staying a day."
"She slept soundly enough ! I'll answer for that! "
He shrugged his shoulders.
"She never raised her head this morning, though
my women were shrieking ' Murder ! ' next door, and
Name of Heaven ! " rnadame resumed, after
breaking off abruptly, and shading her eyes with her
hand, "what comes here? Is it a funeral? Or a pil-
grimage? If all the priests about here are as black,
no wonder M. Eabelais fell out with them ! "
The inn stood without the walls for the conven-
ience of those who wished to take the road early : a
little also, perhaps, because food and forage were
cheaper, and the wine paid no town-dues. Four great
roads met before the house, along the most easterly of
which the sombre company which had caught Madame
St. Lo's attention could be seen approaching. At
first Count Hannibal supposed with his companion that
the travellers were conveying to the grave the corpse
272 COUNT HANNIBAL.
of some person of distinction ; for the cortege consisted
mainly of priests and the like mounted on mules, and
clothed for the most part in black. Black also was
the small banner which waved above them, and bore
in place of arms the emblem of the Bleeding Heart.
But a second glance failed to discover either litter
or bier; and a nearer approach showed that the
travellers, whether they wore the tonsure or not, bore
weapons of one kind or another about them.
Suddenly Madame St. Lo clapped her hands, and
proclaimed in great astonishment that she knew them.
" Why, there is Father Boucher, the Cur6 of St. Be-
noist ! " she said, " and Father Pezelay of St. Magloire.
And there is another I know, though I cannot remem-
ber his name ! They are preachers from Paris ! That
is who they are ! But what can they be doing here ?
Is it a pilgrimage, think you ? "
" Ay, a pilgrimage of Blood ! " Count Hannibal an-
swered between his teeth. And, turning to him to
learn what moved him, she saw the look in his eyes
which portended a storm. Before she could ask a
question, however, the gloomy company, which had
first appeared in the distance, moving, an inky blot,
through the hot sunshine of the summer morning, had
drawn near and was almost abreast of them. Stepping
from her side, he raised his hand and arrested the
march.
"Who is master here? " he asked haughtily.
"I am the leader," answered a stout pompous
Churchman, whose small malevolent eyes belied the
sallow fatuity of his face. "I, M. de Tavanues, by
your leave. "
"And you, by your leave," Tavannes sneered,
"are
COMPANY OF THE BLEEDING HEAET. 273
"Archdeacon and Vicar of the Bishop of Angers
and Prior of the Lesser Brethren of St. Germain,
M. le Comte. Visitor also of the Diocese of Augers, "
the dignitary continued, puffing out his cheeks, "and
Chaplain to the Lieutenant -Governor of Saumur,
whose unworthy brother I am."
"A handsome glove, and well embroidered!" Ta-
vannes retorted in a tone of disdain. "The hand I
see yonder ! " He pointed to the lean parchment
mask of Father Pezelay, who coloured ever so faintly,
but held his peace under the sneer. " You are bound
for Angers! " Count Hannibal continued. "For what
purpose, Sir Prior!"
"His Grace the Bishop is absent, and in his ab-
sence "
"You go to fill his city with strife! I know
you! Not you!" he continued, contemptuously turn-
ing from the Prior, and regarding the third of the
principal figures of the party. "But you! You were
the Cure who got the mob together last All Souls'."
" I speak the words of Him Who sent me ! " an-
swered the third Churchman, whose brooding face
and dull curtained eyes gave no promise of the fits of
frenzied eloquence which had made his pulpit famous
in Paris.
" Then Kill and Burn are His alphabet ! " Tavannes
retorted, and heedless of the start of horror which a
saying so near blasphemy excited among the Church-
men, he turned to Father Pezelay. "And you!
You, too, I know!" he continued. "And you know
me! And take this from me. Turn, father! Turn!
Or worse than a broken head you bear the scar I see
will befall you. These good persons, whom you
have moved, unless I am in error, to take this jour-
18
274 COUNT HANNIBAL.
uey, may not know me; but you do, and can tell
them. If they will to Angers, they must to Angers.
But if I find trouble in Angers when I come, I will
hang some one high. Don't scowl at me, man! " in
truth, the look of hate in Father Pezelay's eyes was
enough to provoke the exclamation. "Some one, and
it shall not be a bare patch on the crown will save his
windpipe from squeezing ! "
A murmur of indignation broke from the preach-
ers' attendants ; one or two made a show of drawing
their weapons. But Count Hannibal paid no heed to
them, and had already turned on his heel when
Father Pezelay spurred his mule a pace or two for-
ward. Snatching a heavy brass cross from one of the
acolytes, he raised it aloft, and in the voice which
had often thrilled the heated congregation of St.
Magloire, he called on Tavannes to pause.
"Stand, my lord!" he cried. "And take warning!
Stand, reckless and profane, whose face is set hard as
a stone, and his heart as a flint, against High Heaven
and Holy Church! Stand and hear! Behold the
word of the Lord is gone out against this city, even
against Augers, for the unbelief thereof! Her place
shall be left unto her desolate, and her children shall
be dashed against the stones ! Woe unto you, there-
fore, if you gainsay it, or fall short of that which is
commanded ! You shall perish as Achan, the sou of
Charmi, and as Saul ! The curse that has gone out
against you shall not tarry, nor your days continue !
For the Canaanitish woman that is in your house, and
for the thought that is in your heart, the place that
was yours is given to another! Yea, the sword is
even now drawn that shall pierce your side ! "
"You are more like to split my ears!" Count
COMPANY OF THE BLEEDING HEART. 275
Hannibal answered sternly. "And now mark me!
Preach as you please here. But a word in Augers,
and though you be shaven twice over, I will have you
silenced after a fashion which will not please you!
If you value your tongue therefore, father oh,
you shake off the dust, do you? Well, pass on! 'Tis
wise, perhaps."
And undismayed by the scowling brows, and the
cross ostentatiously lifted to -heaven, he gazed after
the procession as it moved on under its swaying ban-
ner, now one and now another of the acolytes looking
back and raising his hands to invoke the bolt of
Heaven on the blasphemer. As the cortege passed
the huge watering-troughs, and the open gateway of
the inn, the knot of persons congregated there fell on
their knees. In answer the Churchmen raised their
banner higher, and began to sing the Eripe me,
Domine ! and to its strains, now vengeful, now de-
spairing, now rising on a wave of menace, they passed
slowly into the distance, slowly towards Angers and
the Loire.
Suddenly Madame St. Lo twitched his sleeve.
"Enough for me! " she cried passionately. "I go no
farther with you ! "
"Ah?"
"No farther!" she repeated. She was pale, she
shivered. "Many thanks, my cousin, but we part
company here. I do not go to Angers. I have seen
horrors enough. I will take my people, and go to my
aunt by Tours and the east road. For you, I foresee
what will happen. You will perish between the ham-
mer and the anvil."
"Ah?"
"You play too fine a game," she continued, her
276 COUNT HANNIBAL.
face quivering. " Give over the girl to her lover, and
send away lier people with her. And wash your
hands of her and hers. Or you will see her fall, and
fall beside her ! Give her to him, I say give her to
him!"
"My wife?"
"Wife?" she echoed, for, fickle, and at all times
swept away by the emotions of the moment, she was
in earnest now. "Is there a tie," and she pointed
after the vanishing procession, "that they cannot un-
loose? That they will not unloose? Is there a life
which escapes if they doom it? Did the Admiral
escape? Or Rochefoucauld I Or Madame de Luns in
old days? I tell you they go to rouse Angers against
you, and I see beforehand what will happen. She
will perish, and you with her. Wife? A pretty
wife, at whose door you took her lover last night. "
"And at your door!" he answered quietly, un-
moved by the gibe.
But she did not heed. "I warned you of that!"
she cried. "And you would not believe me. I told
you he was following. And I warn you of this.
You are between the hammer and the anvil, M. le
Comte ! If Tignonville does not murder you in your
bed "
" 'Tis not likely while I hold him in my power."
"Then Holy Church will fall on you and crush you.
For me, I have seen enough and more than enough.
I go to Tours by the east road. "
He shrugged his shoulders. "As you please, "he
said.
She flung away in disgust with him. She could not
understand a man who played fast and loose at such
a time. The game was too fine for her, its danger too
COMPANY OF THE BLEEDING HEAET. 277
apparent, the gain too small. She had, too, a wo-
man's dread of the Church, a woman's belief in the
power of the dead hand to punish. And in half an
hour her orders were given. In two hours her peo-
ple were gathered, and she departed by the eastward
road, three of Tavannes' riders reinforcing her ser-
vants for a part of the way. Count Hannibal stood
to watch them start, and noticed Bigot riding by the
side of Suzanne's mule. He smiled ; and presently,
as he turned away, he did a thing rare with him he
laughed outright.
A laugh which reflected a mood rare as itself.
Few had seen Count Hannibal's eye sparkle as it
sparkled now ; few had seen him laugh as he laughed,
walking to and fro in the sunshine before the inn.
His men watched him, and wondered, and liked it lit-
tle, for one or two who had overheard his altercation
with the Churchmen had reported it, and there was
shaking of heads over it. The man who had singed
the Pope's beard and chucked Cardinals under the
chin was growing old, and the most daring of the
others had no mind to fight with foes whose weapons
were not of this world.
Count Hannibal's gaiety, however, was well
grounded, had they known it. He was gay, not be-
cause he foresaw peril, and it was his nature to love
peril; nor in the main, though a little, perhaps
because he knew that the woman whose heart he de-
sired to win had that night stood between him and
death; nor, though again a little, perhaps, because
she had confirmed his choice by conduct which a
small man might have deprecated, but which a great
man loved; but chiefly, because the events of the
night had placed in his grasp two weapons by the aid
278 COUNT HANNIBAL.
of which he looked to recover all the ground he had
lost lost by his impulsive departure from the path of
conduct on which he had started.
Those weapons were Tignonville, taken like a rat
in a trap by the rising of the water; and the knowl-
edge that the Countess had stolen the precious packet
from his pillow. The knowledge for he had lain
and felt her breath upon his cheek, he had lain and
felt her hand beneath his pillow, he had lain while
the impulse to fling his arms about her had been al-
most more than he could tame! He had lain and
suffered her to go, to pass out safely as she had
passed in. And then he had received his reward in
the knowledge that, if she robbed him, she robbed
him not for herself ; and that where it was a question
of his life she did not fear to risk her own.
When he came, indeed, to that point, he trembled.
How narrowly had he been saved from misjudging
her ! Had he not lain and waited, had he not pos-
sessed himself in patience, he might have been led to
think her in collusion with the old lover whom he
found at her door, and with those who came to slay
him. Either he might have perished unwarned ; or
escaping that danger, he might have detected her
with Tignouville and lost for all time the ideal of a
noble woman.
He had escaped that peril. More, he had gained
the weapons we have indicated; and the sense of
power, in regard to her, almost intoxicated him.
Surely if he wielded those weapons to the best advan-
tage, if he strained generosity to the uttermost, the
citadel of her heart must yield at last.
He had the defect of his courage and his nature,
a tendency to do things after a flamboyant fashion.
COMPANY OF THE BLEEDING HEAET. 279
He knew that her act would plunge him in perils
which he had not foreseen. If the preachers roused
the Papists of Angers, if he arrived to find men's
swords whetted for the massacre and the men them-
selves awaiting the signal, then if he did not give that
signal there would be trouble. There would be trou-
ble of the kind in which the soul of Hannibal de Ta-
vaunes revelled, trouble about the ancient cathedral
and under the black walls of the Angevin castle,
trouble amid which the hearts of common men would
be as water.
Then, when things seemed at their worst, he would
reveal his knowledge. Then, when forgiveness must
seem impossible, he would forgive. With the flood
of peril which she had unloosed rising round them,
he would say, "Go! " to the man who had aimed at
his life ; he would say to her, " I know, and I for-
give ! " That, that only, would fitly crown the policy
on which he had decided from the first, though he
had not hoped to conduct it on lines so splendid as
those which now dazzled hiiii.
CHAPTEE XXVI.
TEMPER.
IT was his gaiety, that strauge unusual gaiety, still
continuing, which on the following day began by per-
plexing and ended by terrifying the Countess. She
could not doubt that he had missed the packet on
which so much hung and of which he had indicated
the importance. But if he had missed it, why, she
asked herself, did he not speak? Why did he not
cry the alarm, search and question and pursue?
Why did he not give her the opening to tell the truth,
without which even her courage failed, her resolution
died within her?
Above all, what was tfee secret of his strange mer-
riment? Of the snatches of song which broke from
him, only to be hushed by her look of astonishment?
Of the parades which his horse, catching the infec-
tion, made under him, as he tossed his riding-cane
high in the air and caught it?
Ay, what ? Why, when he had suffered so great a
loss, when he had been robbed of that of which he
must give account why did he cast off his melancholy
and ride like the youngest? She wondered what
the men thought, and looking, saw them stare, saw
that they watched him stealthily, saw that they laid
their heads together. What were they thinking of
it? She could not tell; and slowly a terror, more in-
TEMPEE. 281
sistent than any to which the extremity of violence
would have reduced her, began to grip her heart.
Twenty hours of rest had lifted her from the state
of collapse into which the events of the night had
cast her ; still her linibs at starting had shaken under
her. But the cool freshness of the early summer
morning, and the sight of the green landscape and
the winding Loir, beside which their road ran, had
not failed to revive her spirits ; and if he had shown
himself merely gloomy, merely sunk in revengeful
thoughts, or darting hither and thither the glance of
suspicion, she felt that she could have faced him, and
on the first opportunity could have told him the
truth.
But this strange mood veiled she knew not what.
It seemed, if she comprehended it at all, the herald
of some bizarre, some dreadful vengeance, in har-
mony with his fierce and mocking spirit. Before it
her heart became as water. Even her colour little
by little left her cheeks. She knew that he had only
to look at her now to read the truth ; that it was writ-
ten in her face, in her shrinking figure, in the eyes
which now guiltily sought and now avoided his.
And feeling sure that he did read it and know it, she
fancied that he licked his lips, as the cat which plays
with the mouse; she fancied that he gloated on her
terror and her perplexity.
This, though the day and the road were warrants
for all cheerful thoughts. On one side vineyards
clothed the warm red slopes, and rose in steps from
the river to the white buildings of a convent. On the
other the stream wound through green flats where
the black cattle stood knee-deep in grass, watched by
wild-eyed and half-Baked youths. Again the travel-
282 COUNT HANNIBAL,
lers lost sight of the Loir, and crossing a shoulder,
rode through the dim aisles of a beech-forest, through
deep rustling drifts of last year's leaves. And out
again and down again they passed, and turning aside
from the gateway, trailed along beneath the brown
machicolated wall of an old town, from the crumbling
battlements of which faces half -sleepy, half -suspi-
cious, watched them as they moved below through
the glare and heat. Down to the river-level again,
where a squalid anchorite, seated at the mouth of a
cave dug in the bank, begged of them, and the bell of
a monastery on the farther bank tolled slumberously
the hour of Nones.
And still he said nothing, and she, cowed by his
mysterious gaiety, yet spurning herself for her cow-
ardice, was silent also. He hoped to arrive at Augers
before nightfall. What, she wondered, shivering,
would happen there? What was he planning to do
to her? How would he punish her? Brave as she
was, she was a woman, with a woman's nerves ; and
fear and anticipation got upon them ; and his silence
his silence which must mean a thing worse than
words !
And then on a sudden, piercing all, a new thought.
Was it possible that he had other letters? If his
bearing were consistent with anything, it was consis-
tent with that. Had he other genuine letters, or had
he duplicate letters, so that he had lost nothing, but
instead had gained the right to rack and torture her,
to taunt and despise her?
That thought stung her into sudden self-betrayal.
They were riding along a broad dusty track which
bordered a stone causey raised above the level of win-
ter floods; impulsively she turned to him. "You
TEMPER. 283
have other letters! " she cried. "You have other let-
ters ! " And freed for the moment from her terror,
she fixed her eyes on his and strove to read his face.
He looked at her, his mouth grown hard. "What
do you mean, inadame ? " he asked.
"You have other letters?"
"For whom?"
"From the King, for Augers! "
He saw that she was going to confess, that she was
going to derange his cherished plan ; and unreasona-
ble anger awoke in the man who had been more
than willing to forgive a real injury. "Will you
explain 1 " he said between his teeth. And his eyes
glittered unpleasantly. "What do you mean? "
"You have other letters," she persisted, "besides
those which I stole."
"Which you stole? " He repeated the words with-
out passion. Enraged by this unexpected turn, he
hardly knew how to take it.
"Yes, I! " she cried. "I! I took them from under
your pillow ! "
He was silent a minute. Then he laughed and
shook his head. "It will not do, madame," he said,
his lip curling. "You are clever, but you do not de-
ceive me. "
"Deceive you?"
"Yes."
"You do not believe that I took the letters? " she
cried in great amazement.
"No," he answered; "and for a good reason." He
had hardened his heart now. He had chosen his
line, and he would not spare her.
"Why, then ? " she cried. " Why ? "
"For the best of all reasons," he answered. "Be-
284 COUNT HANNIBAL.
cause the person who stole the letters was seized in
the act of making his escape, and is now in my
power."
"The person who stole the letters? " she faltered.
"Yes, madame."
"Do you mean M. de Tignonville ? "
" You have said it. "
She turned white to the lips, and trembling could
with difficulty sit her horse. With an effort she
pulled it up, and he stopped also. Their attendants
were some way ahead. "And you have the letters'? "
she whispered, her eyes meeting his. "You have the
letters?"
"No, but I have the thief!" Count Hannibal an-
swered with sinister meaning. "As I think you
knew, madame," he continued ironically, "a while
back before you spoke."
"I? Oh, no, no!" and she swayed in her saddle.
"What what are you going to do ?" she muttered
after a moment's stricken silence.
"To him I"
"Yes."
"The magistrates will decide, at Angers."
"But he did not do it! I swear he did not."
Count Hannibal shook his head coldly.
"I swear, monsieur, I took the letters!" she re-
peated piteously. "Punish me!" Her figure, bowed
like an old woman's over the neck of her horse,
seemed to crave his mercy.
Count Hannibal smiled.
" You do not believe me ? "
"No," he said. And then, in a tone which chilled
her, "If I did believe you," he continued, "I should
still punish him ! " She was broken ; but he would
TEMPBE. 285
see if he could not break her farther. He would try
if there were no weak spot in her armour. He would
rack her now, since in the end she must go free.
"Understand, madame," he continued in his harshest
tone, "I have had enough of your lover. He has
crossed my path too often. You are my wife, I am
your husband. In a day or two there shall be an end
of this farce and of him."
" He did not take them ! " she wailed, her face sink-
ing lower on her breast. "He did not take them!
Have mercy ! "
"Any way, madame, they are gone!" Tavannes
answered. "You have taken them between you; and
as I do not choose that you should pay, he will pay
the price."
If the discovery that Tignonville had fallen into
her husband's hands had not sufficed to crush her,
Count Hannibal's tone must have done so. The
shoot of new life which had raised its head after
those dreadful days in Paris, and for she was young
had supported her under the weight which the
peril of Angers had cast on her shoulders, died,
bruised under the heel of his brutality. The pride
which had supported her, which had won Tavannes'
admiration and exacted his respect, sank, as she sank
herself, bowed to her horse's neck, weeping bitter
tears before him. She abandoned herself to her mis-
ery, as she had once abandoned herself in the upper
room in Paris.
And he looked at her. He had willed to crush
her ; he had his will, and he was not satisfied. He
had bowed her so low that his magnanimity would
now have its full effect, would shine as the sun into
a dark world ; and yet he was not happy. He could
286 COUNT HANNIBAL.
look forward to the morrow, and say, "She will un-
derstand me, she will know me ! " and lo, the thought
that she wept for her lover stabbed him, and stabbed
him anew ; and he thought, " Bather would she death
from him, than life from me! Though I give her
creation, it will not alter her! Though I strike the
stars with my head, it is he who fills her world. "
The thought spurred him to farther cruelty, im-
pelled him to try if, prostrate as she was, he could
not draw a prayer from her? "You don't ask after
him?" he scoffed. "He may be before or behind?
Or wounded or well? Would you not know, ma-
dame ? And what message he sent you ? And what
he fears, and what hope he has? And his last
wishes? And for while there is life there is hope
would you not learn where the key of his prison
lies to-night? How much for the key to-night,
madame ? "
Each question fell on her like the lash of a whip ;
but as one who has been flogged into insensibility,
she did not wince. That drove him on: he felt a
mad desire to hear her prayers, to force her lower, to
bring her to her knees. And he sought about for
a keener taunt. Their attendants were almost out
of sight before them ; the sun, declining apace, was in
their eyes. "In two hours we shall be in Angers,"
he said. "Mon Dieu, madame, it was a pity, when
you two were taking letters, you did not go a step
farther. You were surprised, or I doubt if I should
be alive to-day ! "
Then she did look up. She raised her head and
met his gaze with such wonder in her eyes, such re-
proach in her tear-stained face, that his voice sank on
the last word. "You mean that I would have mur-
TEMPER 287
dered you?" she said. "I would have cut off my
hand first. What I did " and now her voice was as
firm as it was low " what I did, I did to save my
people. And if it were to be done again, I would do
it again ! "
"You dare to teil me that to my face?" he cried,
hiding feelings which almost choked him. "You
would do it again, would you? Mon Dieu, madame,
you need to be taught a lesson ! "
And by chance, meaning only to make the horses
move on again, he raised his whip. She thought
that he was going to strike her, and she flinched at
last. The whip fell smartly on her horse's quarters,
and it sprang forward. Count Hannibal swore be-
tween his teeth.
He had turned pale, she red as fire. "Get on!
Get on!" he cried harshly. "We are falling be-
hind ! " And riding at her heels, flipping her horse
now and then, he forced her to trot on until they
overtook the servants.
CHAPTER XXYTL
THE BLACK TOWN.
IT was late evening when, riding wearily on jaded
horses, they came to the outskirts of Angers, and saw
before them the term of their journey. The glow of
sunset had faded, but the sky was still warm with the
last hues of day ; and against its opal light the huge
mass of the Angevin castle, which even in sunshine
rises dark aud forbidding above the Mayenne, stood
up black and sharply defined. Below it, on both
banks of the river, the towers and spires of the city
soared up from a sombre huddle of ridge-roofs,
broken here by a round-headed gateway, crumbling
and pigeon-haunted, that dated from St. Louis, and
there by the gaunt arms of a windmill.
The city lay dark under a light sky, keeping well
its secrets. Thousands were out of doors enjoying
the evening coolness in alley and court, yet it be-
trayed the life which pulsed in its arteries only by
the low murmur which rose from it. Nevertheless,
the Countess at sight of its roofs tasted the first mo-
ment of happiness which had been hers that day.
She might suffer, but she had saved. Those roofs
would thank her! In that murmur were the voices
of women and children she had redeemed! At the
sight and at the thought a wave of love and tender-
ness swept all bitterness from her breast. A pro-
found humility, a boundless thankfulness took pos-
THE BLACK TOWtf. 289
session of her. Her head sank lower above her
horse's inane ; but it sank in reverence, not; in shame.
Could she have known what was passing beneath
those roofs which night was blending in a common
gloom could she have read the thoughts which at
that moment paled the cheeks of many a stout burgh-
er, whose gabled house looked on the great square,
she had been still more thankful. For in attics and
back rooms women were on their knees at that hour,
praying with feverish eyes ; and in the streets men
on whom their fellows, seeing the winding-sheet al-
ready at the chin, gazed askance smiled, and showed
brave looks abroad, while their hearts were sick with
fear.
For darkly, no man knew how, the news had come
to Angers. It had been known, more or less, for
three days. Men had read it in other men's eyes.
The tongue of a scold, the sneer of an injured woman
had spread it, the birds of the air had carried it.
From garret window to garret window across the
narrow lanes of the old town it had been whispered
at dead of night ; at convent grilles, and in the tim-
ber-yards beside the river. Ten thousand, fifty thou-
sand, a hundred thousand, it was rumoured, had per-
ished in Paris. In Orleans, all. In Tours this man's
sister; at Saumurthat man's son. Through France
the word had gone forth that the Huguenots must
die; and in the busy town the same roof -tree shel-
tered fear and hate, rage and cupidity. On one side
of the party- wall murder lurked fierce-eyed; on the
other, the victim lay watching the latch, and shaking
at a step. Strong men tasted the bitterness of death,
and women clasping their babes to their breasts
smiled sickly into children's eyes.
19
290 COUNT HANNIBAL.
The signal only was lacking. It would come, said
some, from Saumur, where Montsoreau, the Duke of
Aujou's Lieutenant- Governor and a Papist, had his
quarters. From Paris, said others, directly from the
King. It might come at any hour now, in the day or
in the night ; the magistrates, it was whispered, were
in continuous session, awaiting its coming. No won-
der that from, lofty gable windows, and from dormers
set high above the tiles, haggard faces looked north-
ward and eastward, and ears sharpened by fear imag-
ined above the noises of the city the ring of the iron
shoes that carried doom.
Doubtless the majority desired as the majority in
France have always desired peace. But in the
purlieus about the cathedral and in the lanes where
the sacristans lived, in convent parlours and college
courts, among all whose livelihood the new faith
threatened, was a stir as of a hive deranged. Here
was grumbling against the magistrates why wait?
There, stealthy plauuings and arrangements; every-
where a grinding of weapons and casting of slugs.
Old grudges, new rivalries, a scholar's venom, a
priest's dislike, here was final vent for all. None
need leave this feast unsated !
It was a man of this class, sent out for the pur-
pose, who first espied Count Hannibal's company
approaching. He bore the news into the town, and
by the time the travellers reached the city gate, the
dusky street within, on which lights were beginning
to twinkle from booths and casements, was alive with
figures running to meet them and crying the news
as they ran. The travellers, weary and road-stained,
had no sooner passed under the arch than they found
themselves the core of a great crowd which moved
THE BLACK TOWN. 291
with them and pressed about them ; now unbonnet-
ing, and now calling out questions, and now shouting
"Vive le Eoi! ViveleBoi!" Above the press, win-
dows burst into light ; and over all, the quaint lean-
ing gables of the old timbered houses looked down on
the hurry and tumult.
They passed along a narrow street in which the
rabble, hurrying at Count Hannibal's bridle, and
often looking back to read his face r had much ado to
escape harm ; along this street and before the yawn -
ing doors of a great church, whence a hot breath
heavy with incense and burning wax issued to meet
them. A portion of the congregation had heard the
tumult and struggled out, and now stood close-packed
on the steps under the double vault of the portal.
Among them the Countess's eyes, as she rode by, a
sturdy man-at-arms on either hand, caught and held
one face. It was the face of a tall, lean man in
dusty black ; and though she did not know him she
seemed to have an equal attraction for him ; for as
their eyes met he seized the shoulder of the man next
him and pointed her out. And something in the
energy of the gesture, or in the thin lips and malevo-
lent eyes of the man who pointed, chilled the Coun-
tess's blood and shook her, she knew not why.
Until then, she had known no fear save of her
husband. But at that a sense of the force and
pressure of the crowd as well as of the fierce pas-
sions, straining about her, which a word might nn-
loose broke upon her ; and looking to the stern men
on either side she fancied that she read anxiety in
their faces.
She glanced behind. Bridle to bridle the Count's
men came on, pressing round her women and shield-
292 COUNT HANNIBAL.
ing them from the exuberance of the throng. In
their faces too she thought that she traced uneasi-
ness.
What wonder if the scenes through which she had
passed in Paris began to recur to her mind, and shook
nerves already overwrought?
She began to tremble. "Is there danger?" she
muttered, speaking in a low voice to Bigot, who rode
on her right hand. "Will they do anything? "
The Norman snorted. "Not while he is in the sad-
dle, "he said, nodding towards his master, who rode
a pace in front of them, his reins loose. "There be
some here know him ! " Bigot continued, in his
drawling tone. "And more will know him if they
break line. Have no fear, niadame, he will bring
you safe to the inn. Down with the Huguenots ? " he
continued, turning from her and addressing a rogue
who, holding his stirrup, was shouting the cry till he
was crimson. "Then why not away, and "
"The King! The King's word and leave!" the
man answered.
"Ay, tell us!" shrieked another, looking upward,
while he waved his cap; "have we the King's
leave ? "
"You'll bide his leave!" the Norman retorted, in-
dicating the Count with his thumb. "Or 'twill be
up with you ou the three-legged horse ! "
"But he comes from the King! " the man panted.
" To be sure. To be sure ! "
"Then "
"You'll bide his time! That's all!" Bigot an-
swered, rather it seemed for his own satisfaction than
the other's enlightenment. "You'll all bide it, you
dogs ! " he continued in his beard, as he cast his eye
THE BLACK TOWN. 293
over the weltering crowd. "Ha! so we are here, are
we ? And not too sooii, either. "
He fell silent as they entered an open space, over-
looked on one side by the dark facade of the cathe-
dral, on the other three sides by houses more or less
illumined. The rabble swept into this open space
with them and before them, filled much of it in an
instant, and for a while eddied and swirled this way
and that, thrust onward by the worshippers who had
issued from the church and backwards by those who
had been first in the square, and had no mind to be
hustled out of hearing. A stranger, confused by the
sea of excited faces, and deafened by the clamour of
"Vive le Roi!" "Vive Anjou!" mingled with cries
against the Huguenots, might have fancied that the
whole city was arrayed before him. But he would
have been wide of the mark. The scum, indeed
and a dangerous scum frothed and foamed and spat
under Tavannes' bridle-hand; and here and there
among them, but not of them, the dark-robed figure
of a priest moved to and fro ; or a Benedictine, or
some smooth-faced acolyte egged on to the work he
dared not do. But the decent burghers were not
there. They lay bolted in their houses; while the
magistrates, with little heart to do aught except bow
to the mob or other their masters for the time being
shook in their council chamber.
There is not a city of France which has not seen it ;
which has not known the moment when the mass im-
pended, and it lay with one man to start it or stay its
course. Angers within its houses heard the clamour,
and from the child, clinging to its mother's skirt, and
wondering why she wept, to the Provost, trembled,
believing that the hour had come. The Countess
294 COUNT HANNIBAL.
heard it too, and understood it. She caught the sav-
age note in the voice of the mob that note which
means danger and her heart beating wildly she
looked to her husband. Then, fortunately for her,
fortunately for Angers, it was given to all to see that
in Count Hannibal's saddle sat a man.
He raised his hand for silence, and in a minute or
two not at once, for the square was dusky it was
obtained. He rose in his stirrups, and bared his
head.
" I am from the King ! " he cried, throwing his
voice to all parts of the crowd. "And this is his
Majesty's pleasure and good will ! That every man
hold his hand until to-morrow on pain of death, or
worse! And at noon his further pleasure will be
known ! Vive le Roi ! "
And he covered his head again.
"Vive le Boi!" cried a number of the foremost.
But their shouts were feeble and half-hearted, and
were quickly drowned in a rising murmur of discon-
tent and ill-humour, which, mingled with cries of "Is
that all ? Is there no more ? Down with the Hugue-
nots ! " rose from all parts. Presently these cries be-
came merged in a persistent call, which had its ori-
gin, as far as could be discovered, in the darkest
corner of the square. A call for "Montsoreau!
Montsoreau ! Give us Moutsoreau ! "
With another man, or had Tavannes turned or
withdrawn, or betrayed the least anxiety, words had
become actions, disorder a riot; and that in the
twinkling of an eye. But Count Hannibal, sitting
his horse, with his handful of riders behind him,
watched the crowd, as little moved by it as the
Armed Knight of Notre Dame. Only once did he
THE BLACK TOWN. 295
say a word. Then, raising his hand as before to gain
a hearing, "You ask for Montsoreau?" he thun-
dered. "You will have Montfaucon if you do not
quickly go to your homes ! "
At which, and at the glare of his eye, the more
timid took fright. Feeling his gaze upon them, see-
tug that he had no intention of withdrawing, they
began to sneak away by ones and twos. Soon others
missed them and took the alarm, and followed. A
moment and scores were streaming away through
lanes and alleys and along the main street. At last
the bolder and more turbulent found themselves a
remnant. They glanced uneasily at one another and
at Tavannes, took fright in their turn, and plunging
into the current hastened away, raising now and then
as they passed through the streets a cry of "Vive
Montsoreau ! Montsoreau ! "- which was not without
its menace for the morrow.
Count Hannibal waited motionless until no more
than half a dozen groups remained in the open. Then
he gave the word to dismount ; so far, even the Coun-
tess and her women had kept their saddles, lest the
movement which their retreat into the inn must have
caused should be misread by the mob. Last of all he
dismounted himself, and with lights going before htm
and behind, and preceded by Bigot, bearing his cloak
and pistols, he escorted the Countess into the house.
Not many minutes had elapsed since he called for
silence; but long before he reached the chamber
looking over the square from the first floor, in which
supper was being set for them, the news had flown
through the length and breadth of Angers that for
this night the danger was past. The hawk had come
to Angers, and lo ! it was a dove.
296 COUNT HANNIBAL.
Count Hannibal strode to one of the open windows
and looked out. In the room, which was well lighted,
were people of the house, going to and fro, set-
ting out the table; to Madame, standing beside the
hearth which held its summer dressing of green
boughs while her woman held water for her to wash,
the scene recalled with painful vividness the meal at
which she had been present ou the morning of the St.
Bartholomew the meal which had ushered in her
troubles. Naturally her eyes went to her husband,
her mind to the horror in which she had held him
then ; and with a kind of shock, perhaps because the
last few minutes had shown him in a new light, she
compared her old opinion of him with that which,
much as she feared him, she now entertained.
This afternoon, if ever, within the last few hours,
if at all, he had acted in a way to justify that horror
and that opinion. He had treated her brutally ; he
had insulted and threatened her, had almost struck
her. And yet and yet Madame felt that she had
moved so far from the point which she had once oc-
cupied that the old attitude was hard to understand.
Hardly could she believe that it was on this man,
much as she still dreaded him, that she had looked
with those feelings of repulsion.
She was still gazing at him with eyes which strove
to see two men in one, when he turned from the win-
dow. Absorbed in thought she had forgotten her
occupation, and stood, the towel suspended in her
half-dried hands. Before she knew what he was do-
ing he was at her side ; he bade the woman hold the
bowl, and he rinsed his hands. Then he turned, and
without looking at the Countess, he dried his hands on
the farther end of the towel which she was still using. ,
THE BLACK TOWN. 297
She blushed faintly. A something in the act, more
intimate and more familiar than had ever marked
their intercourse, set her blood running strangely.
When he turned away and bade Bigot unbuckle his
spur-leathers, she stepped forward.
"I will do it!" she murmured, acting on a sudden
and unaccountable impulse. And as she knelt, she
shook her hair about her face to hide its colour.
" Nay, madame, but you will soil your fingers ! " he
said coldly.
"Permit me," she muttered half coherently. And
though her fingers shook, she pursued and performed
her task.
When she rose he thanked her ; and then the devil
in the man, or the Nemesis he had provoked when he
took her by force from another the Nemesis of jeal-
ousy, drove him to spoil all. "And for whose sake,
madame?" he added with a jeer "mine or M. de
Tignouville's? " And with a glance between jest and
earnest, he tried to read her thoughts.
She winced as if he had indeed struck her, and
the hot colour fled her cheeks. "For his sake! " she
said, with a shiver of pain. "That his life may be
spared ! " And she stood back humbly, like a beaten
dog. Though, indeed, it was for the sake of Angers,
in thankfulness for the past rather than in any des-
perate hope of propitiating her husband, that she had
done it!
Perhaps he would have withdrawn his words. But
before he could answer, the host, bowing to the floor,
came to announce that all was ready, and that the
Provost of the City, for whom M. le Comte had sent,
was in waiting below. "Let him come up!" Ta-
vanues answered, grave and frowning. " And see you,
298 COUNT HANNIBAL.
close the room, sirrah! My people will wait on us.
Ah ! " as the Provost, a burly mau with a face framed
for jollity, but now pale and long, entered and ap-
proached him with many salutations. "How comes
it, M. le Prevot you are the Prevot, are you not? "
"Yes, M. le Comte."
"How comes it that so great a crowd is permitted
to meet in the streets'? And that at my entrance,
though I come unannounced, I find half of the city
gathered together ? "
The Provost stared. "Kespect, M. le Comte," he
said, "for His Majesty's letters, of which you are the
bearer, no doubt induced some to come together "
" Who said I brought letters? "
"Who "
"Who said I brought letters?" Count Hannibal
repeated in a strenuous voice. And he ground his
chair half about and faced the astonished magistrate.
"Who said I brought letters'? "
"Why, my lord," the Provost stammered, "it was
everywhere yesterday "
"Yesterday?"
"Last night, at latest that letters were coming
from the King."
"By my hand?"
"By your lordship's hand whose name is so well
known here," the magistrate added, in the hope of
clearing the great man's brow.
Count Hannibal laughed darkly. "My hand will
be better known by-and-by," he said. "See you,
sirrah, there is some practice here. What is this cry
of Montsoreau that I hear? "
"Your lordship knows that he is His Grace's Lieu-
tenant-Go vernor in Saumur."
THE BLACK TOWN. 299
"I know that, man. But is he here? "
"He was at Saumur yesterday, and 'twas rumoured
three days back that he was coming here to extirpate
the Huguenots. Then word came of your lordship
and of His Majesty's letters, and 'twas thought that
M. de Montsoreau would not come, his authority be-
ing superseded."
"I see. And now your rabble think that they
would prefer M. Montsoreau. That is it, is it? "
The magistrate shrugged his shoulders and opened
his hands. "Pigs!" he said. And having spat on
the floor he looked apologetically at the lady. "True
pigs ! "
"What connections has he here? " Tavannes asked.
"He is a brother of my lord the Bishop's Vicar,
who arrived yesterday."
"With a rout of shaven heads who have been
preaching and stirring up the town ! " Count Hanni-
bal cried, his face growing red. "Speak, man, is it
so 1 ? But I'll be sworn it is! "
"There has been preaching," the Provost answered
reluctantly.
" Montsoreau may count his brother, then, for one.
He is a fool, but with a knave behind him, and a
knave who has no cause to love us! And the Castle?
'Tis held by one of M. de Montsoreau's creatures, I
take it?"
"Yes, my lord."
"With what force?"
The magistrate shrugged his shoulders, and looked
doubtfully at Badelon, who was keeping the door.
Tavannes followed the glance with his usual impa-
tience. "Mon Dieu, you need not look at him!" he
cried. "He has sacked St. Peter's and singed the
300 COUNT HANNIBAL.
Pope's beard with a holy caudle! He has been
served on the knee by Cardinals; and is Turk or
Jew, or monk or Huguenot as I please. And ma-
dauie " for the Provost's astonished eyes, after rest-
ing awhile on the old soldier's iron visage, had passed
to her "is Huguenot, so you need have no fear of
her! There, speak, man," with impatience, "and
cease to think of your own skin ! "
The Provost drew a deep breath, and fixed his
small eyes on Count Hannibal.
"If I knew, my lord, what you why, my own sis-
ter's sou" he paused, his face began to work, his
voice shook "is a Huguenot! Ay, my lord, a Hu-
guenot ! And they know it ! " he continued, a flush
of rage augmenting the emotion which his counte-
nance betrayed. "Ay, they know it! And they
push me on at the Council, and grin behind my back ;
Lescot, who was Provost two years back and would
match his son with my daughter ; and Thuriot who
prints for the University ! They nudge one another,
and egg me on, till half the city thinks it is I who
would kill the Huguenots ! I ! " Again his voice
broke. "And my own sister's son a Huguenot!
And my girl at home white- faced for for his sake."
Tavannes scanned the man shrewdly. "Perhaps
she is of the same way of thinking ? " he said.
The Provost started, and lost one-half of his colour.
"God forbid' " he cried, "saving madame's presence!
Who says so, my lord, lies ! "
"Ay, lies not far from the truth."
"My lord!"
"Pish, man, Lescot has said it and will act on it.
And Thuriot, who prints for the University ! Would
you 'scape them ? You would ? Then listen to me.
THE BLACK TOWK 301
I want but two things. First, how many men has
Moiitsoreau's fellow in the Castle? Few, I know, for
he is a niggard, and if he spends, he spends the
Duke's pay."
"Twelve. But five can hold it. "
"Ay, but twelve dare not leave it! Let them stew
in their own broth ! And now for the other matter.
See, man, that before daybreak three gibbets, with a
ladder and two ropes apiece, are set up in the square.
And let one be before this door. You understand ?
Then let it be done! The rest," he added with a
ferocious smile, "you may leave to me."
The magistrate nodded rather feebly. "Doubt-
less," he said, his eye wandering here and there,
"there are rogues in Angers. And for rogues the
gibbet! But saving your presence, my lord, it is a
question whether "
But M. de Tavannes' patience was exhausted.
"Will you do it 1 ? " he roared. "That is the question.
And the only question."
The Provost jumped, he was so startled. "Cer-
tainly, my lord, certainly ! " he muttered humbly.
" Certainly, I will ! " And bowing frequently, but
saying no more, he backed himself out of the room.
Count Hannibal laughed grimly after his fashion,
and doubtless thought that he had seen the last of
the magistrate for that night. Great was his wrath
therefore, when, less than a minute later and before
Bigot had carved for him the door opened and the
Provost appeared again. He slid in, and without
giving the courage he had gained on the stairs time to
cool, plunged into his trouble.
"It stands this way, M. le Comte," he bleated. "If
I put up the gibbets and a man is hanged, and you
302 COUNT HANNIBAL.
have letters from the King, 'tis a rogue the less and
no harm done. But if you have no letters from His
Majesty, then it is on my shoulders they will put it,
ind 'twill be odd if they do not find a way to hang
me to right him. "
Count Hannibal smiled grimly. "And your sis-
ter's sou?" he sneered. "And your girl who is
white-faced for his sake, and may burn on the same
bonfire with him? And "
"Mercy! Mercy!" the wretched Provost cried.
And he wrung his hands. "Lescot a*id Thuriot n
"Perhaps we may hang Lescot and Thuriot "
"But I see no way out," the Provost babbled. "No
way ! No way ! "
"I am going to show you one," Tavannes retorted.
"If the gibbets are not in place by sunrise, I shall
hang you from this window. That is one way out ;
and you'll be wise to take the other! For the rest
and for your comfort, if I have no letters, it is not
always to paper that the King commits his inmost
heart."
The magistrate bowed. He quaked, he doubted,
but he had no choice. "My lord," he said, "I put
myself in your hands. It shall be done, certainly it
shall be done. But, but " and shaking his head
in foreboding he turned to the door.
At the last moment, when he was within a pace of
it, the Countess rose impulsively to her feet. She
called to him. "M. le Prevot, a minute, if you
please, " she said. "There may be trouble to morrow ;
your daughter may be in some peril. You will do well
to send her to me. My lord " and on the word her
voice, timid before, grew full and steady "will see
that I am safe. And she will be safe with me."
THE BLACK TOWK 303
The Provost saw before him only a gracious lady,
moved by a thoughtfulness unusual in persons of her
rank. He was at no pains to explain the flame in
her cheek, or the soft light which glowed in her
eyes, as she looked at him, across her formidable hus-
band. He was only profoundly grateful moved
even to tears. Humbly thanking her he accepted her
offer for his child, and withdrew wiping his eyes.
When he was gone, and the door had closed behind
him, Tavaunes turned to the Countess, who still kept
her feet. "You are very confident this evening," he
sneered. "Gibbets d r not frighten you, it seems,
madame. Perhaps if you knew for whom the one be-
fore the door is intended *? "
She met his look with a searching gaze, and spoke
with a ring of defiance in her tone. "I do not be-
lieve it ! " she said. "I do not believe it ! You who
save Angers will not destroy him ! " And then her
woman's mood changing, with courage and colour
ebbing together, "Oh, no, you will not! You will
not ! " she wailed. And she dropped on her knees
before him, and holding up her clasped hands, "God
will put it in your heart to spare him and me ! "
He rose with a stifled oath, took two steps from
her, and in a tone hoarse and constrained, "Go! 7 ' he
said. "Go, or sit! Do you hear, madame ? You try
my patience too far ! "
But when she had gone his face was radiant. He
had brought her, he had brought all, to the point at
which he aimed. To-morrow his triumph awaited
him. To-morrow he who had cast her down would
raise her up.
He did not foresee what a day would bring forth.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
IN THE LITTLE CHAPTEE-HOTJSuJ.
THE sun was an hour high, and in Angers the shops
and booths, after the early fashion of the day, were
open or opening. Through all the gates country folk
were pressing into the gloomy streets of the Black
Town with milk and fruit ; and at doors and windows
housewives cheapened fish, or chaffered over the fowl
for the pot. For men must eat, though there be gib-
bets in the Place Ste.-Croix: gaunt gibbets, high and
black and twofold, each, with its dangling ropes, like
a double note of interrogation.
But gibbets must eat also ; and between ground and
noose was so small a space in those days that a man
dangled almost before he knew it. The sooner, then,
the paniers were empty, and the clown, who pays
for all, was beyond the gates, the better he, for one,
would be pleased. In the market, therefore, was
hurrying. Men cried their wares in lowered voices,
and tarried but a 1 ittle for the oldest customer. The
bargain struck, the more timid among the buyers hast-
ened to shut themselves into their houses again ; the
bolder, who ventured to the Place to confirm the ru-
mour with their eyes, talked in corners and in lanes,
avoided the open, and eyed the sinister preparations
from afar. The shadow of the things which stood
before the cathedral affronting the sunlight with their
gaunt black shapes lay across the length and breadth
IN THE LITTLE CHAPTER-HOUSE. 305
of Augers. Even in the corners where men whis-
pered, even in the cloisters where men bit their
nails in impotent auger, the stillness of fear ruled
all. Whatever Count Hannibal had it in his mind
to tell the city, it seemed unlikely and hour by
hour it seemed less likely that any would contra-
dict him.
He knew this as he walked in the sunlight before
the inn, his spurs ringing on the stones as he made-
each turn, his movements watched by a hundred peer-
ing eyes. After all, it was not hard to rule, nor to
have one's way in this world. But then, he went on
to remember, not everyone had his self-control, or
that contempt for the weak and unsuccessful which
lightly took the form of mercy. He held Augers
safe, curbed by his gibbets. With M. de Montsoreau
he might have trouble; but the trouble would be
slight, for he knew Montsorean, and what it was the
Lientenant-Governor valued above profitless blood-
shed.
He might have felt less confident had he known
what was passing at that moment in a room off the
small cloister of the Abbey of St. Aubin, a room
known at Angers as the Little Chapter-House. It
was a long chamber with a groined roof and stone
walls, panelled as high as a tall man might reach with
dark chestnut wood. Gloomily lighted by three
grated windows, which looked on a small inner green,
the last resting-place of the Benedictines, the room
itself seemed at first sight no more than the last rest-
ing-place of worn-out odds and ends. Piles of thin
sheepskin folios, dog's-eared and dirty, the rejected
of the choir, stood against the walls ; here and there
among them lay a large brass-bound tome on which
20
306 COUNT HANNIBAL.
the chains that had fettered it to desk or lectern still
rusted. A broken altar cumbered one corner: a
stand bearing a curious and rotting map filled
another. In the other two corners a medley of faded
scutcheons and banners, which had seen their last
Toussaint procession, mouldered slowly into dust
into much dust. The air of the room was full of it.
In spite of which the long oak table that filled
the middle of the chamber shone with use : so did the
great metal standish which it bore. And though the
seven men who sat about the table seemed, at a first
glance and in that gloomy light, as rusty and faded
as the rubbish behind them, it needed but a second
look at their lean jaws and hungry eyes to be sure of
their vitality.
He who sat in the great chair at the end of the
table was indeed rather plump than thin. His white
hands, gay with rings, were well cared for ; his peev-
ish chin rested on a falling-collar of lace worthy
of a Cardinal. But though the Bishop's Vicar was
heard with deference, it was noticeable that when he
had ceased to speak his hearers looked to the priest
on his left, to Father Pezelay, and waited to hear his
opinion before they gave their own. The Father's
energy, indeed, had dominated the Angevins, clerks
and townsfolk alike, as it had dominated the Parisian
devotes who knew him well. The vigour which hate
inspires passes often for solid strength ; and he who
had seen with his own eyes the things done in Paris
spoke with an authority to which the more timid
quickly and easily succumbed.
Yet gibbets are ugly things ; and Thuriot, the print-
er, whose pride had been tickled by a summons to
the conclave, began to wonder if he had done wisely
IN THE LITTLE CHAPTEB-HOUSE. 307
in coming. Lescot, too, who presently ventured a
word. " But if M. de Tavannes' order be to do noth-
ing," he began doubtfully, "you would not, reverend
Father, have us resist His Majesty's will? "
"God forbid, my friend!" Father Pezelay an-
swered with unction. "But His Majesty's will is to
do to do for the glory of God and the saints and His
Holy Church! How? Is that which was lawful at
Saumur unlawful here ? Is that which was lawful at
Tours unlawful here 1 Is that which the King did in
Paris to the utter extermination of the unbelieving
and the purging of that Sacred City against his will
here? Nay, his will is to do to do as they have
done in Paris and in Tours and in Saumur ! But his
Minister is unfaithful! The woman whom he has
taken to his bosom has bewildered him with her
charms and her sorceries, and put it in his mind to
deny the mission he bears."
"You are sure, beyond chance of error, that he
bears letters to that effect, good Father? " the printer
ventured.
"Ask my lord's Vicar! He knows the letters and
the import of them ! "
"They are to that effect," the Archdeacon an-
swered, drumming on the table with his fingers and
speaking somewhat sullenly. "I was in the Chancel-
lery and I saw them. They are duplicates of those
sent to Bordeaux."
"Then the preparations he has made must be
against the Huguenots," Lescot, the ex-Provost, said
with a sigh of relief. And Thuriot's face lightened
also. "He must intend to hang one or two of the
ringleaders, before he deals with the herd."
"Think it not!" Father Pezelay cried in his high
308 COUNT HANNIBAL.
shrill voice. "I tell you the woman has bewitched
him, and he will deny his letters ! "
For a moment there was silence. Then, "But dare
he do that, reverend Father?" Lescot asked slowly
and incredulously. "What? Suppress the King's
letters?"
"There is nothing he will not dare! There is noth-
ing he has not dared ! " the priest answered vehe-
mently; the recollection of the scene in the great
guard-room of the Louvre, when Tavannes had so
skilfully turned the tables on him, instilling venom
into his tone. "She who lives with him is the devil's.
She has bewitched him with her spells and her Sab-
baths ! She bears the mark of the Beast on her bo-
som, and for her the fire is even now kindling ! "
The laymen who were present shuddered. The two
canons who faced them crossed themselves, muttering
"Avaunt, Satan!"
"It is for you to decide," the priest continued, gaz-
ing on them passionately, "whether you will side
with him or with the Angel of God ! For I tell you
it was none other executed the divine judgments at
Paris! It was none other but the Angel of God held
the sword at Tours! It is none other holds the sword
here! Are you for him or against him? Are you
for him, or for the woman with the mark of the
Beast? Are you for God or against God? For the
hour draws near ! The time is at hand ! You must
choose ! You must choose ! " And, striking the table
with his hand, he leaned forward, and with glittering
eyes fixed each of them in turn, as he cried, "You
must choose ! You must choose ! " He came to the
Archdeacon last.
The Bishop's Vicar fidgeted in his chair, his face a
IN THE LITTLE CHAPTER HOUSE. 309
shade more sallow, his cheeks hanging a trifle more
loosely, than ordinary. "If my brother were here!"
he muttered. "If M. de Moutsoreau had arrived! "
But Father Pezelay knew whose will would prevail
if Montsoreau met Tavannes at his leisure. To force
Montsoreau's hand, to surround him on his first en-
trance with a howling mob already committed to vio-
lence, to set him at their head and pledge him before
he knew with whom he had to do this had been, this
still was, the priest's design.
But how was he to pursue it while those gibbets
stood ? While their shadows lay even on the chapter
table, and darkened the faces of his most forward
associates ? That for a moment staggered the priest ;
and had not private hatred, ever renewed by the
touch of the scar on his brow, fed the fire of bigotry
he had yielded, as the rabble of Augers were yield-
ing, reluctant and scowling, to the hand which held
the city in its grip. But to have come so far on the
wings of hate, and to do nothing! To have come
avowedly to preach a crusade, and to sneak away
cowed! To have dragged the Bishop's Vicar hither,
and fawned and cajoled and threatened by turns
and for nothing ! These things were passing bitter
passing bitter, when the morsel of vengeance he had
foreseen smacked so sweet on the tongue.
For it was no common vengeance, no layman's ven-
geance, coarse and clumsy, which the priest had
imagined in the dark hours of the night, when his
feverish brain kept him wakeful. To see Count
Hannibal roll in the dust had gone but a little way
towards satisfying him. No ! But to drag from his
arms the woman for whom he had sinned, to subject
her to shame and torture in the depths of some con-
310 COUNT HANNIBAL.
vent, and finally to burn her as a witch it was that
which had seemed to the priest in the night hours a
vengeance sweet in the mouth.
But the thing seemed unattainable in the circum-
stances. The city was cowed ; the priest knew that
no dependence was to be placed on Montsoreau,
whose vice was avarice and whose object was plunder.
To the Archdeacon's feeble words, therefore, "We
must look," the priest retorted sternly, "not to M.
de Montsoreau, reverend Father, but to the pious of
Augers ! We must cry in the streets, ' They do vio-
lence to God ! They wound God and His Mother ! >
And so, and so only, shall the unholy thing be rooted
out!"
" Amen ! " the Cure of St. -Benoist muttered, lifting
his head; and his dull eyes glowed awhile. "Amen!
Amen ! " Then his chin sank again upon his breast.
But the canons of Angers looked doubtfully at
one another, and timidly at the speakers; the meat
was too strong for them. And Lescot and Thuriot
shuffled in their seats. At length, "I do not know,"
Lescot muttered timidly.
"You do not know?"
" What can be done ! "
"The people will know!" Father Pezelay retorted.
"Trust them!"
"But the people will not rise without a leader."
"Then will I lead them! "
"Even so, reverend Father I doubt," Lescot fal-
tered. And Thuriot nodded assent. Gibbets were
erected in those days rather for laymen than for the
Church.
"You doubt!" the priest cried. "You doubt!"
His baleful eyes passed from one to the other ; from
IN THE LITTLE CHAPTER -HOUSE. 311
them to the rest of the company. He saw that with
the exception of the Cure of St. -Benoist all were of a
mind. "You doubt! Nay, but I see what it is! It
is this," he continued slowly and in a different tone,
"the King's will goes for nothing in Angers! His
writ runs not here. And Holy Church cries in vain
for help against the oppressor. I tell you, the sorcer-
ess who has bewitched him has bewitched you also.
Beware! beware, therefore, lest it be with you as
with him! And the fire that shall consume her,
spare not your houses ! "
The two citizens crossed themselves, grew pale and
shuddered. The fear of witchcraft was great in An-
gers, the peril, if accused of it, enormous. Even the
canons looked startled. "If if my brother were
here," the Archdeacon repeated feebly, "something
might be done ! "
"Vain is the help of man!" the priest retorted
sternly, and with a gesture of sublime dismissal. "I
turn from you to a mightier than you ! " And, lean-
ing his head on his hands, he covered his face.
The Archdeacon and the churchmen looked at him,
and from him their scared eyes passed to one another.
Their one desire now was to be quit of the matter, to
have done with it, to escape; and one by one with
the air of whipped curs they rose to their feet, and in
a hurry to be gone muttered a word of excuse shame-
facedly and got themselves out of the room. Lescot
and the printer were not slow to follow, and in less
than a minute the two strange preachers, the men
from Paris, remained the only occupants of the
chamber; save, to be precise, a lean official in rusty
black, who throughout the conference had sat by the
door.
312 COUNT HANNIBAL.
Until the last shuffling footstep had ceased to
sound in the still cloister no one spoke. Then Father
Pezelay looked up, and the eyes of the two priests
met iu a long gaze. "What think you 1 ?" Pezelay
muttered at last.
"Wet hay," the other answered dreamily, "is slow
to kindle, yet burns if the fire be big enough. At
what hour does he state his will ? "
"At noon."
"In the Council Chamber! "
"It is so given out."
"It is three hundred yards from the Place Ste.-
Croix and he must go guarded," the Cure of St. -
Benoist continued in the same dull fashion. "He
cannot leave many in the house with the woman. If
it were attacked in his absence "
"He would return, and " Father Pezelay shook
his head, his cheek turned a shade paler. Clearly,
he saw with his mind's eye more than he expressed.
"Hoc est corpus," the other muttered, his dreamy
gaze on the table. "If he met us then, 011 his way to
the house, and we had bell, book, and candle, would
he stop ? "
"He would not stop! " Father Pezelay rejoined.
"He would not?"
" I know the man ! "
"Then " but the rest St.-Beuoist whispered, his
head drooping forward ; whispered so low that even
the lean man behind him, listening with greedy ears,
failed to follow the meaning of his superior's words.
But that he spoke plainly enough for his hearer
Father Pezelay 's face was witness. Astonishment,
fear, hope, triumph, the lean pale face reflected all in
turn; and, underlying all, a subtle malignant mis-
IN THE LITTLE CHAPTER- HOUSE. 313
chief, as if a devil's eyes peeped through the holes
in an opera mask.
When the other was at last silent Pezelay drew a
deep breath. "'Tis bold! Bold! Bold!" he mut-
tered. "But have you thought? He who bears
the "
"Brunt 1 ?" the other whispered with a chuckle.
"He may suffer? Yes, but it will not be you or I!
No, he who was last here shall be first there ! The
Archdeacon- Vicar if we can persuade him who
knows but that even for him the crown of martyrdom
is reserved ? " The dull eyes flickered with unholy
amusement.
"And the alarm that brings him from the Council
Chamber?"
"Need not of necessity be real. The pinch will be
to make use of it. Make use of it and the hay will
burn ! "
"You think it will?"
"What can one man do against a thousand? His
own people dare not support him."
Father Pezelay turned to the lean man who kept
the door, and, beckoning to him, conferred a while
with him in a low voice.
"A score or so I might get," the man answered
presently after some debate. "And well posted,
something might be done. But we are not in Paris,
good father, where the Quarter of the Butchers is to
be counted on, and men know that to kill Huguenots
is to do God service ! Here " he shrugged his shoul-
ders contemptuously " they are sheep. "
"It is the King's will," the priest answered, frown-
ing on him darkly.
"Ay, but it is not Tavannes'," the man in black
314 COUNT HANNIBAL.
answered with a grimace. "And he rules here to-
day."
"Fool!" Pezelay retorted. "He has not twenty
with him. Do you do as I say, and leave the rest to
heaven ! "
"And to you, good master?" the other answered.
"For it is not all you are going to do," he continued
with a grin, "that you have told me. Well, so be it!
I'll do my part, but I wish we were in Paris. Ste.
Genevieve is ever kind to her servants."
CHAPTEE XXIX.
THE ESCAPE.
IN a small back room on the second floor of the inn at
Angers, a mean, dingy room which looked into a nar-
row lane, and commanded no prospect more informing
than a blind wall, two men sat, fretting ; or, rather,
one man sat, his chin resting on his hand, while his
companion, less patient or more sanguine, strode
ceaselessly to and fro. In the first despair of capture
for they were prisoners they had made up their
minds to the worst, and the slow hours of two days
had passed over their heads without kindling more
than a faint spark of hope in their breasts. But
when they had been taken out and forced to mount
and ride at first with feet tied to the horses' girths
they had let the change, the movement, and the
open air fan the flame. They had muttered a word
to one another, they had wondered, they had rea-
soned. And though the silence of their guards
from whose sour vigilance the keenest question drew
no response seemed of ill-omen, and, taken with
their knowledge of the man into whose hands they
had fallen, should have quenched the spark, these
two, having special reasons, the one the buoyancy of
youth, the other the faith of an enthusiast, cherished
the flame. In the breast of one indeed it had blazed
into a confidence so arrogant that he now took all for
granted, and was not content.
316 COUNT HANNIBAL.
"It is easy for you to say, ' Patience! ' " he cried,
as he walked the floor iii a fever. "You stand to lose
no more than your life, and if you escape go free at
all points ! But he has robbed me of more than life !
Of my love, and my self-respect, curse him ! He has
worsted me not once, but twice and thrice ! And if
he lets me go now, dismissing me with my life, I shall
I shall kill him ! " he concluded, through his teeth.
" You are hard to please ! "
"I shall kill him!"
"That were to fall still lower!" the minister an-
swered, gravely regarding him. "I would, M. de
Tiguonville, you remembered that you are not yet out
of jeopardy. Such a frame of mind as yours is no
good preparation for death, let me tell you ! "
" He will not kill us ! " Tignonville cried. " He
knows better than most men how to avenge himself ! "
"Then he is above most! " La Tribe retorted. "For
my part I wish I were sure of the fact, and I should
sit here more at ease."
"If we could escape, now, of ourselves!" Tignon-
ville cried. "Then we should save not only life, but
honour ! Man, think of it ! If we could escape, not
by his leave but against it ! Are you sure that this is
Angers ! "
"As sure as a man can be who has only seen the
Black Town once or twice ! " La Tribe answered,
moving to the casement which was not glazed and
peering through the rough wooden lattice. "But if
we could escape we are strangers here. We know not
which way to go, nor where to find shelter. And for
the matter of that," he continued, turning from the
window with a shrug of resignation, " 'tis no use
to talk of it while yonder foot goes up and down
THE ESCAPE. 317
the passage, and its owner bears the key in his
pocket."
" If we could get out of his power as we came into
it ! " Tiguonville cried.
" Ay, if ! But it is not every floor has a trap ! "
"We could take up a board."
The minister raised his eyebrows.
" We could take up a board ! " the younger man
repeated ; and he stepped the mean chamber from end
to end, his eyes on the floor. " Or yes, mon Dieu ! "
with a change of attitude, "we might break through
the roof ! " And, throwing back his head, he scanned
the cobwebbed surface of laths which rested on the
unceiled joists.
"Umph!"
"Well, why not, monsieur? Why not break
through the ceiling?" Tignonville repeated, and in
a fit of energy he seized his companion's shoulder
and shook him. "Stand on the bed, and you can
reach it."
" And the floor which rests on it ! "
" Par Dieu, there is no floor ! 'Tis a cockloft above
us ! See there ! And there ! " And the young man
sprang on the bed, and thrust the rowel of a spur
through the laths.
La Tribe's expression changed. He rose slowly to
his feet. "Try again! " he said.
Tiguonville, his face red, drove the spur again be-
tween the laths, and worked it to and fro until he
could pass his fingers into the hole he had made.
Then he gripped and bent down a length of one of
the laths, and, passing his arm as far as the elbow
through the hole, moved it this way and that. His
eyes, as he looked down at his companion through the
318 COUNT HANNIBAL.
lolling rubbish, gleamed with triumph. "Where is
your flooi now 1 " he asked.
"You can touch nothing?"
"Nothing. It's 6pen. A little more and I might
touch the tiles. " And he strove to reach higher.
For answer La Tribe gripped him. "Down!
Down, monsieur," he muttered. "They are bringing
our dinner. "
Tignonville thrust back the lath as well as he could,
and slipped to the floor ; and hastily the two swept
the rubbish from the bed. When Badelon, attended
by two men, came in with the meal he found La Tribe
at the window blocking much of the light, and Tig-
nonville laid sullenly on the bed. Even a suspicious
eye must have failed to detect what had been done ;
the three who looked in suspected nothing and saw
nothing. They went out, the key was turned again
on the prisoners, and the footsteps of two of the men
were heard descending the stairs.
"We have an hour, now!" Tignouville cried; and
leaping, with flaming eyes, on the bed, he fell to
hacking and jabbing and tearing at the laths amid a
rain of dust and rubbish. Fortunately the stuif, fall-
ing on the bed, made little noise ; and in five minutes,
working half -choked and in a frenzy of impatience,
he had made a hole through which he could thrust his
arms, a hole which extended almost from one joist to
its neighbour. By this time the air was thick with
floating lime ; the two could scarcely breathe, yet they
dared not pause. Mounting on La Tribe's shoulders
who took his stand on the bed the young man
thrust his head and arms through the hole, and, rest-
ing his elbows on the joists, dragged himself up, and
with a final effort of strength landed nose and knees
THE ESCAPE. 319
on the timbers, which formed his supports. A mo-
ment to take breath, and press his torn and bleeding
fingers to his lips; then, reaching down, he gave a
hand to his companion and dragged him to the same
place of vantage.
They found themselves in a long narrow cockloft,
not more than six feet high at the highest, and insuf-
ferably hot. Between the tiles, which sloped steeply
on either hand, a faint light filtered in, disclosing the
giant rooftree running the length of the house, and at
the farther end of the loft the main tie-beam, from
which a network of knees and struts rose to the roof-
tree.
Tignonville, who seemed possessed by unnatural
energy, stayed only to put off his boots. Then
"Courage!" he panted, "all goes well!" and, carry-
ing his boots in his hands, he led the way, stepping
gingerly from joist to joist until he reached the tie-
beam. He climbed on it, and, squeezing himself
between the struts, entered a second loft similar
to the first. At the farther end of this a rough
wall of bricks in a timber-frame lowered his hopes ;
but as he approached it, joy! Low down in the
corner where the roof descended, a small door,
square, and not more than two feet high, disclosed
itself.
The two crept to it on hands and knees and listened.
"It will lead to the leads, I doubt?" La Tribe whis-
pered. They dared not raise their voices.
"As well that way as another!" Tignonville an-
swered recklessly. He was the more eager, for there
is a fear which transcends the fear of death. His
eyes shone through the mask of dust, the sweat ran
down to his chin, his breath came and went noisily.
320 COUNT HANNIBAL.
"Naught matters if we can escape him!" he panted.
And he pushed the door recklessly. It flew open, the
two drew back their faces with a cry of alarm.
They were looking, not into the sunlight, but into
a grey dingy garret open to the roof, and occupying
the upper part of a gable-end somewhat higher than
the wing in which they had been confined. Filthy
truckle-beds and ragged pallets covered the floor,
and, eked out by old saddles and threadbare horse-
rugs, marked the sleeping quarters either of the ser-
vants or of travellers of the meaner sort. But the
dingiuess was naught to the two who knelt looking
into it, afraid to move. Was the place empty ? That
was the point ; the question which had first stayed,
and then set their pulses at the gallop.
Painfully their eyes searched each huddle of cloth-
ing, scanned each dubious shape. And slowly, as the
silence persisted, their heads came forward until the
whole floor lay within the field of sight. And still
no sound ! At last Tignouville stirred, crept through
the doorway, and rose up, peering round him. He
nodded, and, satisfied that all was safe, the minister
followed him.
They found themselves a pace or so from the head
of a narrow staircase, leading downwards. Without
moving they could see the door which closed it below.
Tignonville signed to La Tribe to wait, and himself
crept down the stairs. He reached the door, and,
stooping, set his eye to the hole through which the
string of the latch passed. A moment he looked, and
then, turning on tiptoe, he stole up again, his face
fallen.
" You may throw the handle after the hatchet ! " he
muttered. "The man on guard is within four yards
THE ESCAPE. 321
of the door." And iu the rage of disappointment he
struck the air with his hand.
"Is he looking this way ? "
"No. He is looking down the passage towards our
room. But it is impossible to pass him."
La Tribe nodded, and moved softly to one of the
lattices which lighted the room. It might be possi-
ble to escape that way, by the parapet and the tiles.
But he found that the casement was set high in the
roof, which sloped steeply from its sill to the eaves.
He passed to the other window, in which a little wick-
et in the lattice stood open. He looked through it.
In the giddy void white pigeons were wheeling in the
dazzling sunshine, and gazing down he saw far below
him, in the hot square, a row of booths, and troops of
people moving to and fro like pigmies ; and and a
strange thing, in the middle of all! Involuntarily,
as if the persons below could have seen his face at
the tiny dormer, lie drew back.
He beckoned to M. Tignonville to come to him;
and when the young man complied, he bade him in a
whisper look down. "See! " he muttered. " There ! "
The younger man saw and drew in his breath.
Even under the coating of dust his face turned a
shade greyer.
" You had no need to fear that he would let us go ! "
the minister muttered, with half-conscious irony.
"No."
"Nor I! There are two ropes." And La Tribe
breathed a few words of prayer. The object which
had fixed his gaze was a gibbet : the only one of the
three which could be seen from their eyrie.
Tignonville, on the other hand, turned sharply
away, and with haggard eyes stared about the room.
21
322 COUNT HANNIBAL.
"We might defend the staircase," he muttered.
"Two men might hold it for a time."
"We have no food."
"No." And then he gripped La Tribe's arm. "I
have it ! " he cried. " And it may do ! It must do ! "
he continued, his face working. "See! " And lifting
from the floor one of the ragged pallets, from which
the straw protruded in a dozen places, he set it flat
on his head. It drooped at each corner it had seen
much wear and while it almost hid his face, it re-
vealed his grimy chin and mortar-stained shoulders.
He turned to his companion.
La Tribe's face glowed as he looked. " It may do ! "
he cried. "It's a chance! But you are right! It-
may do ! "
Tignonville dropped the ragged mattress, and tore
off his coat ; then he rent his breeches at the knee, so
that they hung loose about his calves. " Do you the
same!" he cried. "And quick, man, quick! Leave
your boots ! Once outside we must pass through the
streets under these " he took up his burden again
and set it on his head "until we reach a quiet part,
and there we "
" Can hide ! Or swim the river ! " the minister said.
He had followed his companion's example, and now
stood under a similar burden. With breeches rent
and whitened, and his upper garments in no better
case, he looked a sorry figure.
Tignonville eyed him with satisfaction, and turned
to the staircase. "Come, "he cried, "there is not a
moment to be lost. At any minute they may enter
our room and find it empty ! You are ready ? Then,
not too softly, or it may rouse suspicion ! And mum-
ble something at the door."
THE ESCAPE. 32S
He began himself to scold, and, muttering incohe-
rently, stumbled down the staircase, the pallet on his.
head rustling against the wall on each side. Arrived
at the door he fumbled clumsily with the latch, and,
when the door gave way, plumped out with an oath
as if the awkward burden he bore were the only
thing on his mind. Badelou he was on duty
stared at the apparition; but the next moment he
sniffed the pallet, which was none of the freshest,
and, turning up his nose, he retreated a pace. He
had no suspicion ; the men did not come from the
part of the house where the prisoners lay, and he
stood aside to let them pass. In a moment, stagger-
ing, and going a little unsteadily, as if they scarcely
saw their way, they had passed by him, and were de-
scending the staircase.
So far well! Unfortunately, when they reached
the foot of that flight they came on the main passage
of the first-floor. It ran right and left, and Tignon-
ville did not know which way he must turn to reach
the lower staircase. Yet he dared not hesitate; in
the passage, waiting about the doors, were four or
five servants, and in the distance he caught sight of
three men belonging to Tavannes' company. At any
moment, too, an upper servant might meet them, ask
what they were doing, and detect the fraud. He
turned at random, therefore to the left as it chanced
and marched along bravely, until the very thing
happened which he had feared. A man came from
a room plump upon them, saw them, and held up his
hands in horror.
"What are you doing!" he cried in a rage and
with an oath. "Who set you an this? "
Tignonville's. tongue clave to the roof of his
324 COUNT HANNIBAL.
mouth. La Tribe from behind muttered something
about the stable.
"And time too!" the man said. "Faugh! But
how come you this way ! Are you drunk ? Here ! "
He opened the door of a musty closet beside him,
"Pitch them in here, do you hear! And take them
down when it is dark ! Faugh ! I wonder you did
not carry the things through her ladyship's room at
once ! If my lord had been in and met you ! Now
then, do as I tell you ! Are you drunk ! "
With a sullen air Tignouville threw in his mattress.
La Tribe did the same. Fortunately the passage was
ill -lighted, and there were many helpers and strange
servants in the inn. The butler only thought them
ill-looking fellows who knew no better. "Now be
off!" he continued irascibly, "This is no place for
your sort. Be off!" And, as they moved, "Com-
ing! Cominjj!" he cried in answer to a distant sum-
mons; and he hurried away on the errand which
their appearance had interrupted.
Tignonville would have gone to work to recover the
pallets, for the man had left the key in the door.
But as he went to do so the butler looked back, and
the two were obliged to make a pretence of following
him. A moment, however, and he was gone; and
Tignonville turned anew to regain them. A second
time fortune was adverse ; a door within a pace of
him opened, a woman came out. She recoiled from
the strange figure ; her eyes met his. Unluckily the
light from the room behind her fell on his face, and
with a shrill cry she named him.
One second and all had been lost, for the crowd of
idlers at the other end of the passage had caught her
cry, and were looking that way. With presence of
THE ESCAPE. 325
rnind Tignonville clapped his hand on her inouth,
and, huddling her by force into the room, followed
her, with La Tribe at his heels.
It was a large room, in which seven or eight peo-
ple, who had been at prayers when the cry startled
them, were rising from their knees. The first thing
they saw was Javette on the threshold, struggling in
the grasp of a wild man, ragged and begrimed ; they
deemed the city risen and the massacre upon them.
Carlat threw himself before his mistress, the Countess
in her turn sheltered a young girl, who stood beside
her and from whose face the last trace of colour
had fled. Madame Carlat and a waiting-woman ran
shrieking to the window; another instant and the
alarm would have gone abroad.
Tignonville's voice stopped it. "Don't you know
me?" he cried. "Madame! you at least! Carlat!
Are you all mad ? "
The words stayed them where they stood in an
astonishment scarce less than their alarm. The Coun-
tess tried twice to speak ; the third time, " Have you
escaped I " she muttered.
Tignonville nodded, his eyes bright with triumph.
"So far," he said. "But they may be on our heels at
any moment ! Where can we hide t "
The Countess, her hand pressed to her side, looked
at Javette. "The door, girl!" she whispered.
"Lock it!"
"Ay, lock it! And they can go by the back-
stairs," Madame Carlat answered, awaking suddenly
to the situation. " Through my closet ! Once in the
yard they may pass out through the stables."
"Which way?" Tignonville asked impatiently.
"Don't stand looking at me, but "
326 COUNT HANNIBAL.
"Through this door!" Madame Carlat answered,
hurrying to it.
He was following when the Countess stepped
forward and interposed between him and the door.
"Stay!" she cried; and there was not one who did
not notice a new decision in her voice, a new dignity
in her bearing. "Stay, monsieur, we may be going
too fast. To go out now and in that guise may it
not be to incur greater peril than you incur here ? I
feel sure that you are in no danger of your life at
present. Therefore, why run the risk "
"In no danger, madame!" he cried, interrupting
her in astonishment. " Have you seen the gibbet in
the Square ? Do you call that no danger ? "
"It is not erected for you."
"No?"
"No, monsieur," she answered firmly, "I swear it
is not. And I know of reasons, urgent reasons, why
you should not go. M. de Tavanues" she named
her husband nervously, as conscious of the weak spot
"before he rode abroad laid strict orders on all to
keep within, since the smallest matter might kindle
the city. Therefore, M. de Tignonville, I request,
nay I entreat, " she continued with greater urgency,
as she saw his gesture of denial, "you to stay here
until he returns."
"And you, madame, will answer for my life! "
She faltered. For a moment, a moment only, her
colour ebbed. What if she deceived herself ! What
if she surrendered her old lover to death ? What if
but the doubt was of a moment only. Her duty
was plain. " I will answer for it, " she said, with pale
lips, "if you remain here. And I beg, I implore you
by the love you once had for me, M. Tiguouville, "
THE ESCAPE. 327
she added desperately, seeing that he was about to
refuse, "to remain here."
"Once!" he retorted, lashing himself into ignoble
rage. "By the love I once had! Say, rather, the
love I have, madaine for I ani no woman -weather-
cock to wed the winner, and hold or not hold, stay or
go, as he commands ! You, it seems, " he continued
with a sneer, "have learned the wife's lesson well!
You would practise on me now, as you practised on
ine the other night when you stood between him and
me ! I yielded then, I spared him. And what did I
get by it? Bonds and a prison! And what shall I
get now! The same! No, inadame," he continued
bitterly, addressing himself as much to the Carlate
and the others as to his old mistress. "I do not
change! I loved! I love! I was going and I go!
If death lay beyond that door " and he pointed to it
"and life at his will were certain here, I would pass
the threshold rather than take my life of him!"
And, dragging La Tribe with him, with a passionate
gesture he rushed by her, opened the door, and dis-
appeared in the next room.
The Countess took one pace forward, as if she
would have followed him, as if she would have tried
farther persuasion. But as she moved a cry rooted
her to the spot. A rush of feet and the babel of
many voices filled the passage with a tide of sound,
which drew rapidly nearer. The escape was known !
"Would the fugitives have time to slip out below?
Someone knocked at the door, tried it, pushed and
beat on it. But the Countess and all in the room had
run to the windows and were looking out.
If the two had not yet made their escape they must
be taken. Yet no ; as the Countess leaned from the
328 COUNT HANNIBAL.
window, first one dusty figure and then a second
dartwl from a door below, and made for the nearest
turning out of the Place Ste.-Croix. Before they
gained it, four men, of whom Badelou, his grey locks
flying, was first, dashed out in pursuit, and the street
rang with cries of "Stop him! Seize him! Seize
him ! " Someone one of the pursuers or another
to add to the alarm let off a musket, and in a mo-
ment, as if the report had been a signal, the Place
was in a hubbub, people flocked into it with mys-
terious quickness, and from a neighbouring roof
whence, precisely, it was impossible to say the
crackling fire of a dozen arquebuses alarmed the city
far and wide.
Unfortunately, the fugitives had been baulked at
the first turning. Making for a second, they found it
choked, and, swerving, darted across the Place to-
wards St. -Maurice, seeking to lose themselves in the
gathering crowd. But the pursuers clung desperately
to their skirts, overturning here a man and there a
child ; and then in a twinkling, Tignonville, as he ran
round a booth, tripped over a peg and fell, and La
Tribe stumbled over him and fell also. The four
riders flung themselves fiercely on their prey, secured
them, and began to drag them with oaths and curses
towards the door of the inn.
The Countess had seen all from her window ; had
held her breath while they ran, had drawn it sharply
when they fell. Now "They have them!" she mut-
tered, a sob choking her, " They have them !" And
she clasped her hands. If he had followed her ad-
vice! If he had only followed her advice!
But the issue proved less certain than she deemed
it. The crowd, which grew each moment, knew
THE ESCAPE. 329
nothing of pursuers or pursued. On the contrary, a
cry went up that the riders were Huguenots, and
that the Huguenots were rising and slaying the Cath-
olics ; and as no story was too improbable for those
days, and this was one constantly set about, first one
stone flew, and then another, and another. A man
with a staff darted forward and struck Badelon on
the shoulder, two or three others pressed in and jos-
tled the riders; and if three of Tavannes' following
had not run out on the instant and faced the mob
with their pikes, and for a moment forced them to
give back, the prisoners would have been rescued
at the very door of the inn. As it was they were
dragged in, and the gates were flung to and barred in
the nick of time. Another moment, almost another
second, and the mob had seized them. As it was, a
hail of stones poured on the front of the inn, and
amid the rising yells of the rabble there presently
floated heavy and slow over the city the tolling of the
great bell of St. Maurice.
CHAPTER XXX.
SACRILEGE !
M. DE MONTSOREAU, Lieutenant-Governor of Sau-
mur, almost rose from his seat in his astonishment.
" What! No letters? " he cried, a hand on either arm
of his chair.
The Magistrates stared, one and all. "No letters? "
they muttered.
And "No letters?" the Provost chimed in more
faintly.
Count Hannibal looked smiling round the Council
table. He alone was unmoved. " No, " he said. "I
bear none."
M. de Montsoreau, who, travel -stained and in his
corselet, had the second place of honour at the foot
of the table, frowned. "But but, M. le Comte," he
said, "my instructions from Monsieur were to pro-
ceed to carry out his Majesty's will in co-operation
with you, who, I understood, would bring letters de
par le Roi."
"I had letters," Count Hannibal answered, negli-
gently. "But on the way I mislaid them."
"Mislaid them?" Montsoreau cried, unable to be-
lieve his ears; while the smaller dignitaries of the
city, the magistrates and churchmen, who sat on
either side of the table, gaped open-mouthed. It was
incredible ! It was unbelievable ! Mislay the King's
letters! Who had ever heard of such a thing?
SACRILEGE! 331
"Yes, I mislaid them. Lost them, if you like it
better."
"But you jest! " the Lieutenant-Governor retorted,
moving uneasily in his chair. He was a man more
highly named for address than courage; and, like
most men skilled in finesse, he was prone to suspect a
trap. "You jest, surely, monsieur! Men do not
lose his Majesty's letters, by the way."
"When they contain his Majesty's will, no," Ta-
vanues answered, with a peculiar smile.
"You imply, then?"
Count Hannibal shrugged his shoulders but had not
answered when Bigot entered and handed him his
sweetmeat box; he paused to open it and select a
prune. He was long in selecting ; but no change of
countenance led any of those at the table to suspect
that inside the lid of the box was a message a scrap
of paper informing him that Montsoreau had left fifty
spears in the suburb without the Saumur gate, besides
those whom he had brought openly into the town.
Tavannes read the note slowly while he seemed to
be choosing his fruit. And then, "Imply?" he
answered. "I imply nothing, M. de Montsoreau."
"But "
"But that sometimes his Majesty finds it prudent to
give orders which he does not mean to be carried out.
There are things which start up before the eye, " Ta-
vannes continued, negligently tapping the box on the
table, "and there are things which do not; some-
times the latter are the more important. You, better
than I, M. de Montsoreau, know that the King in the
Gallery at the Louvre is one, and in his closet is
another. "
"Yes."
332 COUNT HANNIBAL.
"And that being so "
"You do not mean to carry the letters into effect? "
"Had I the letters, certainly, my friend. I should
be bound by them. But I took good care to lose
them," Tavannes added naively. "I ani no fool."
"Umph!"
"However," Count Hannibal continued, with an
airy gesture, "that is my affair. If you, M. de Mont-
soreau, feel inclined, in spite of the absence of my
letters, to carry yours into effect, by all means do so
after midnight of to-day."
M. de Montsoreau breathed hard. "And why,"
he askef 1 , half sulkily and half ponderously, "after
midnight only, M. le Comte?"
"Merely that I may be clear of all suspicion of
having lot or part in the matter," Count Hannibal
answered pleasantly. "After midnight of to-night
by all means, do as you please. Until midnight, by
your leave, we will be quiet."
The Lieutenaut-Goveruor moved doubtfully in his
chair, the fear which Tavanues had shrewdly in-
stilled into his mind that he might be disowned if
he carried out his instructions, struggling with his
avarice and his self-importance. He was rather
crafty than bold ; and such things had been, he knew.
Little by little, and while he sat gloomily debating,
the notion of dealing wit h one or two and holding the
body of the Huguenots to ransom a notion which, in
spite of everything, was to bear good fruit for Au-
gers began to form in his mind. The plan suited
him : it left him free to face either way, and it would
fill his pockets more genteelly than would open rob-
bery. On the other hand, he would offend his
brother and the fanatical party, with whom he com-
SACKILEGE! 333
monly acted. They were looking to see him assert
himself. They were looking to hear him declare him-
self. And
Harshly Count Hannibal's voice broke in on his
thoughts; harshly, a something sinister in its tone.
"Where is your brother?" he said. And it was
evident that he had not noted his absence until then.
"My lord's Vicar of all people should be here!" he
continued, leaning forward and looking round the
table. His brow was stormy.
Lescot squirmed under his eye, Thuriot turned pale
and trembled. It was one of the canons of St. -Mau-
rice who at length took on himself to answer. " His
Lordship requested, M. le Comte," he ventured, "that
you would excuse him. His duties "
"Is he ill?"
"He "
"Is he ill, sirrah?" Tavaunes roared. And while
all bowed before the lightning of his eye, no man at
the table knew what had roused the sudden tempest.
But Bigot knew, who stood by the door, and whose
ear, keen as his master's, had caught the distant re-
port of a musket shot. "If he be not ill," Tavannes
continued, rising and looking round the table in
search of signs of guilt, "and there be foul play here,
and he the player, the Bishop's own hand shall not
saveliim! By heaven it shall not! Nor yours!" he
continued, looking fiercely at Montsoreau. "Nor
your master's!"
The Lieutenant-Governor sprang to his feet. "M.
le Comte," he stammered, "I do not understand this
language! Nor this heat, which may be real or not!
All I say is, if there be foul play here "
"If!" Tavauues retorted. "At least, if there be,
334 COUNT HANNIBAL.
there be gibbets too ! And I see necks ! " he add-
ed, leaning forward. "Necks!" And then, with a
look of flame, "Let no man leave this table until I
return," he cried, "or he will have to deal with me.
Nay," he continued, changing his tone abruptly, as
the prudence which never entirely left him and per-
haps the remembrance of the other's fifty spearmen
sobered him in the midst of his rage, " I am hasty.
I mean not you, M. de Montsoreau ! Ride where you
will, ride with me if you will and I will thank you.
Only remember, until midnight Angers is mine ! "
He was still speaking when he moved from the
table, and, leaving all staring after him, strode down
the room. An instant he paused on the threshold
and looked back ; then he passed out, and clattered
down the stone stairs. His horse and riders were
waiting, but, his foot in the stirrup, he stayed for a
word with Bigot. "Is it so? " he growled.
The Norman did not speak, but pointed towards
the Place Ste. -Croix, whence an occasional shot made
answer for him.
In those days the streets of the Black City were
narrow and crooked, overhung by timber houses and
hampered by booths; nor could Tavannes from the
old Town Hall now abandoned see the Place Ste. -
Croix. But that he could cure. He struck spurs to
his horse, and, followed by his ten horsemen, he clat-
tered noisily down the paved street. A dozen groups
hurrying the same way sprang panic-stricken to the
walls, or saved themselves in doorways. He was up
with them, he was beyond them ! Another hundred
yards, and he would see the Place.
And then, with a cry of rage, he drew rein a little,
discovering what was before him. In the narrow gut
SACRILEGE! 335
of the way a great black banner, borne on two poles,
was lurching towards him. It was moving in the
van of a dark procession of priests, who, with their
attendants and a crowd of devout, filled the street
from wall to wall. They were chanting one of the
penitential psalms, but not so loudly as to drown the
uproar in the Place beyond them.
They made no way, and Count Hannibal swore fu-
riously, suspecting treachery. But he was no mad-
man, and at the moment the least reflection would
have sent him about to seek another road. Unfortu-
nately, as he hesitated a man sprang with a gesture of
warning to his horse's head and seized it; and Ta-
vaunes, mistaking the motive of the act, lost his self-
control. He struck the fellow down, and with a
reckless word rode headlong into the procession, shout-
ing to the black robes to make way, make way ! A cry,
nay, a very shriek of horror, answered him and rent
the air. And in a minute the thing was done. Too
late, as the Bishop's Vicar, struck by his horse, fell
screaming under its hoofs too late, as the conse-
crated vessels which he had been bearing rolled in
the mud, Tavannes saw that they bore the canopy
and the Host !
He knew what he had done, then. Before his
horse's iron shoes struck the ground again, his face
even his face had lost its colour. But he knew also
that to hesitate now, to pause now, was to be torn in
pieces; for his riders, seeing that which the banner
had veiled from him, had not followed him, and he
was alone, in the middle of brandished fists and
weapons. He hesitated not a moment. Drawing a
pistol he spurred onwards, his horse plunging wildly
among the shrieking priests; and though a hundred
330 COUNT HANNIBAL.
bands, hands of acolytes, hands of shaven monks,
clutched at his bridle or gripped his boot, he got clear
of them. Clear, carrying with him the memory of
one face seen an instant amid the crowd, one face
seen, to be ever remembered the face of Father
Pezelay, white, evil, scarred, distorted by wicked
triumph.
Behind him, the thunder of "Sacrilege! Sacri-
lege ! " rose to heaven, and men were gathering. In
front the crowd which skirmished about the inn was
less dense, and, ignorant of the thing that had hap-
pened in the narrow street, made ready way for him,
the boldest recoiling before the look on his face.
Some who stood nearest to the inn, and had begun to
hurl stones at the window and to beat on the doors
which had only the minute before closed on Badelon
and his prisoners supposed that he had his riders
behind him ; and these fled apace. But he knew bet-
ter even than they the value of time ; he pushed his
horse up to the gates, and hammered them with his
boot while he kept his pistol-hand towards the Place
and the cathedral, watching for the transformation
which he knew would come !
And come it did ; on a sudden, in a twinkling ! A
white-faced monk, frenzy in his eyes, appeared in the
midst of the crowd. He stood and tore his garments
before the people, and, stooping, threw dust on his
head. A second and a third followed his example ;
then from a thousand throats the cry of "Sacrilege!
Sacrilege! " rolled up, while clerks flew wildly hither
and thither shrieking the tale, and priests denied the
Sacraments to Angers until it should purge itself of
the evil thing.
By that time Count Hannibal had saved himself
SACRILEGE! 337
behind the great gates, by the skin of his teeth. The
gates had opened to him in time. But none knew
better than he that Angers had no gates thick enough,
nor walls of a height, to save him for many hours
from the storm he had let loose !
22
CHAPTEE XXXI.
THE FLIGHT FROM ANGEKS.
that only the more roused the devil in the man ;
that, and the knowledge that he had his own head-
strong act to thank for the position. He looked on
the panic-stricken people who, scared by the turmoil
without, had come together in the courtyard, wring-
ing their hands and chattering ; and his face was so
dark and forbidding that fear of him took the place
of all other fear, aud the nearest shrank from contact
with him. On any other entering as he had entered,
they would have hailed questions ; they would have
asked what was amiss and if the city were rising,
and where were Bigot and his men. But Count Han-
nibal's eye struck curiosity dumb. When he cried
from his saddle, " Bring me the landlord ! " the trem-
bling man was found, and brought, and thrust for-
ward almost without a word.
"You have a back gate? " Tavannes said, while the
crowd leaned forward to catch his words.
"Yes, my lord," the man faltered.
"Into the street which leads to the ramparts'? "
"Ye yes, my lord."
"Then" to Badelon "saddle! You have five
minutes. Saddle as you never saddled before," he
continued in a low tone, " or " His tongue did
not finish the threat, but his hand waved the man
THE FLIGHT FROM ANGERS. 339
away. "For you," he held Tignonville an instant
with his lowering eye, " and the preaching fool with
you, get arms and mount! You have never played
aught but the woman yet ; but play me false now, or
look aside bnt a foot from the path I bid you take,
and you thwart me no more, monsieur! And you,
madame, " he continued, turning to the Countess, who
stood bewildered at one of the doors, the Provost's
daughter clinging and weeping about her, "you have
three minutes to get your women to horse ! See you,
if you please, that they take no longer ! "
She found her voice with difficulty. "And this
child? " she said. "She is in my care."
"Bring her," he muttered with a scowl of impa-
tience. And then, raising his voice as he turned on
the terrified gang of hostlers and inn servants who
stood gaping round him, "Go help!" he thundered.
"Go help! And quickly!" he added, his face grow-
ing a shade darker as a second bell began to toll from
a neighbouring tower, and the confused babel in the
Place Ste.-Croix settled into a dull roar of "Sacrilege!
sacrilege ! " " Hasten ! "
Fortunately it had been his first intention to go to
the Council attended by the whole of his troop ; and
eight horses stood saddled in the stalls. Others were
hastily pulled out and bridled, and the women were
mounted. La Tribe, at a look from Tavanues, took
behind him the Provost's daughter, who was helpless
with terror. Between the suddenness of the alarm,
the uproar without, and the panic within, none but a
man whose people served him at a nod and dreaded
his very gesture could have got hisi party mounted in
time. Javette would fain have swooned, but she
dared not. Tignonville would fain have questioned,
340 COUNT HANXIBAL.
but he shrank from the venture. The Countess
would fain have said something, but she forced her-
self to obey and no more. Even so the confusion in
the courtyard, the mingling of horses and men and
trappings and saddle-bags, would have made another
despair; but wherever Count Hannibal, seated in his
saddle in the middle, turned his face, chaos settled
into a kind of order, servants, ceasing to listen to the
yells and cries outside, ran to fetch, women dropped
cloaks from the gallery, and men loaded muskets and
strapped on bandoliers.
Until at last but none knew what those minutes of
suspense cost him he saw all mounted, and, pistol in
hand, shepherded them to the back gates. As he did
so he stooped for a few scowling words with Badelon,
whom he sent to the van of the party : then he gave
the word to open. It was done ; and even as Montso-
reau's horsemen, borne on the bosom of a second
and more formidable throng, swept raging into the
already crowded square, and the cry went up for "a
ram ! a ram ! " to batter in the gates, Tavauues, hurl-
ing his little party before him, dashed out at the back,
and putting to flight a handful of rascals who had
wandered to that side, cantered unmolested down the
lane to the ramparts. Turning eastward at the foot
of the frowning Castle, he followed the inner side of
the wall in the direction of the gate by which he had
entered the preceding evening.
To gain this his party had to pass the end of the
Eue Toussaiut, which issues from the Place Ste.-
Croix and runs so straight that the mob seething in
front of the inn had only to turn their heads to see
them. The danger incurred at this point was great ;
for a party as small as Tavaunes' and encumbered
THE FLIGHT FEOM ANGERS. 341
with women would have had no chance if attacked
within the walls.
Count Hannibal knew it. But he knew also that
the act which he had committed rendered the north
bank of the Loire impossible for him. Neither King
nor Marshal, neither Charles of Valois nor Gaspard of
Tavannes, would dare to shield him from an infu-
riated Church, a Church^ too wise to forgive certain
offences. His one chance lay in reaching the south-
ern bank of the Loire roughly speaking, the Hugue-
not bank and taking refuge in some town, Rochelle
or St. Jean d'Angely, where the Huguenots were
strong, and whence he might take steps to set himself
right with his own side.
But to cross the great river which divides France
into two lands widely differing he must leave the city
by the east gate ; for the only bridge over the Loire
within forty miles of Angers lay eastward from the
town, at Fonts de Ce, four miles away. To this gate,
therefore, past the Rue Toussaint, he whirled his
party daringly ; and though the women grew pale as
the sounds of riot broke louder on the ear, and they
discovered that they were approaching instead of
leaving the danger and though Tignouville for an
instant thought him mad, and snatched at the Coun-
tess's rein Jiis men-at-arms, who knew him, gal-
loped stolidly on, passed like clockwork the end of
the street, and, reckless of the stream of persons hur-
rying in the direction of the alarm, heedless of the
fright and anger their passage excited, pressed stead-
ily on. A moment and the gate through which they
had entered the previous evening appeared before
them. Aud a sight welcome to one of them it was
open.
342 COUNT HANNIBAL.
They were fortunate indeed, for a few seconds later
they had been too late. The alarm had preceded
them ; as they dashed up, a man ran to the chains of
the portcullis and tried to lower it. He failed to do
so at the first touch, and quailing, fled from Badelon's
levelled pistol. A watchman on one of the bastions
of the wall shouted to them to halt or he would fire :
but the riders yelled in derision, and thundering
through the echoing archway, emerged into the open,
and saw, extended before them, in place of the
gloomy vistas of the Black Town, the glory of the
open country and the vine-clad hills, and the fields
about the Loire yellow with late harvest.
The women gasped their relief, and one or two who
were most out of breath would have pulled up their
hoi-ses and let them trot, thinking the danger at an
end. But a curt savage word from the rear set them
flying again, and down and up and on again they gal-
loped, driven forward by the iron hand which never
relaxed its grip of theni. Silent and pitiless he
whirled them before him until they were within a
mile of the long Fonts de Ce a series of bridges
rather than one bridge and the broad shallow Loire
lay plain before them, its sandbanks grilling in the
sun, and grey lines of willows marking its eyots. By
this time some of the women, white with fatigue,
could only cling to their saddles with their hands ;
while others were red-hot, their hair unrolled, and
the perspiration mingled with the dust on their faces.
But he who drove them had no pity for weakness in
an emergency. He looked back and saw, a half-mile
behind them, the glitter of steel following hard on
their heels: and "Faster! faster!" he cried, regard-
less of their prayers : and he beat the rearmost of the
THE FLIGHT FROM ANGERS. 343
horses with his scabbard. A waiting-woman shrieked
that she should fall, but he answered ruthlessly, " Fall
then, fool!" and the instinct of self -preservation
coming to her aid, she clung and bumped and toiled on
with the rest until they reached the first houses of the
town about the bridges, and Badelon raised his hand
as a signal that they might slacken speed.
The bewilderment of the start had been so great
that it was then only, when they found their feet on
the first link of the bridge, that two of the party, the
Countess and Tignoiiville, awoke to the fact that their
faces were set southwards. To cross the Loire in
those days meant -much to all : to a Huguenot very
much. It chanced that these two rode on to the
bridge side by side, and the memory of their last
crossing the remembrance that, on their journey
north a month before, they had crossed it hand-in-
hand with the prospect of passing their lives together,
and with no faintest thought of the events which
were to ensue, flashed into the mind of each of them.
It deepened the flush which exertion had brought to
the woman's cheek, then left it paler than before. A
minute earlier she had been wroth with her old lover ;
she had held him accountable for the outbreak in the
town and this hasty retreat ; now her anger died as
she looked and she remembered. In the man, shal-
lower of feeling and more alive to present contingen-
cies, the uppermost emotion as he trod the bridge was
one of surprise and congratulation.
He could not at first believe in their good fortune.
" Mon Dieu ! " he cried, " we are crossing ! " And
then again in a lower tone, " We are crossing ! We
are crossing ! " And he looked at her.
It was impossible that she should not look back ;
344 COUNT HANNIBAL.
that she who had ceased to be angry should not feel
arid remember; impossible that her answering glance
should not speak to his heart. Below them, as on
that day a month earlier, when they had crossed the
bridges going northward, the broad shallow river ran
its course in the sunshine, its turbid currents gleam-
ing and flashing about the sandbanks and osier-beds.
To the eye, the landscape, save that the vintage was
farther advanced and the harvest in part gathered in,
was the same. But how changed were their relations,
their prospects, their hopes, who had then crossed the
river hand-in-hand, planning a life to be passed to-
gether.
The young man's rage boiled up at the thought.
Too vividly, too sharply it showed him the wrongs
which he had suffered at the hands of the man who
rode behind him, the man who even now drove him
on and ordered him and insulted him. He forgot that
he might have perished in the general massacre if
Count Hannibal had not intervened. He forgot that
Count Hannibal had spared him once and twice. He
laid 011 his enemy's shoulders the guilt of all, the
blood of all : and as, quick on the thought of his
wrongs and his fellows' wrongs followed the reflection
that with every league they rode southwards the
chance of requital grew, he cried again, and this time
joyously, "We are crossing! A little, and we shall
be in our own land ! "
The tears filled the Countess's eyes as she looked
westwards and southwards. " Vrillac is there ! " she
cried; and she pointed. "I smell the sea! "
" Ay ! " he answered, almost under his breath. "It
lies there! And no more than thirty leagues from
us ! With fresh horses we might see it in two days ! "
THE FLIGHT FEOM ANGERS. 345
Badelon's voice broke in on them. "Forward!"
he cried as they reached the southern bank. "En
avant ! " And, obedient to the word, the little party,
refreshed by the short respite, took the road out of
Pouts de Ce at a steady trot. Nor was the Countess
the only one whose face glowed, being set southwards,
or whose heart pulsed to the rhythm of the horses'
hoofs that beat out "Home! " Carlat's and Madame
Carlat's also. Javette even, hearing from her neigh-
bour that they were over the Loire, plucked up
courage; while La Tribe, gazing before him with
moistened ej'es, cried "Comfort" to the scared and
weeping girl who clung to his belt. It was singular
to see how all sniffed the air as if already it smacked
of the sea and of the south ; and how they of Poitou
sat their horses as if they asked nothing better than to
ride on and on and on until the scenes of home arose
about them. For them the sky had already a deeper
blue, the air a softer fragrance, the sunshine a purity
long unknown !
Was it wonderful, when they had suffered so much
on that northern bank ? When their experience dur-
ing the month had been comparable only with the dir-
est nightmare? Yet one among them, after the first
impulse of relief and satisfaction, felt differently.
Tiguonville's gorge rose against the sense of compul-
sion, of inferiority. To be driven forward after this
fashion, whether he would or no, to be placed at the
beck of every base-born man-at-arms, to have no
clearer knowledge of what had happened or of what
was passing, or of the peril from which they fled,
than the women among whom he rode these things
kindled anew the sullen fire of hate. North of the
Loire there had been some excuse for his inaction mi-
346 COUNT HANNIBAL.
der insult; he had been in the man's country and
power. But south of the Loire, within forty leagues
of Huguenot Niort, must he still suffer, still be
supine ?
His rage was inflamed by a disappointment he pres-
ently underwent. Looking back as they rode clear of
the wooden houses of Fonts de Ce, he missed Ta-
vaunes and several of his men; and he wondered
if Count Hannibal had remained on his own side
of the river. It seemed possible; and in that
event La Tribe and he and Carlat might deal with
Badelon and the four who still escorted them. But
when he looked back a minute later, Tavauues
was within sight, following the party with a stern
face; and not Tavannes only. Bigot, with two of
the ten men who hitherto had been missing, was
with him.
It was clear, however, that they brought no good
news, for they had scarcely ridden up before Count
Hannibal cried " Faster! faster!" in his harshest
voice, and Bigot urged the horses to a quicker trot.
Their course lay almost parallel with the Loire in the
direction of Beaupre'au; and Tignonville began to
fear that Count Hannibal intended to recross the
river at Nantes, w r here the only bridge below Angers
spa/nned the stream. With this in view it was easy
to comprehend his wish to distance his pursuers be-
fore he reerossed.
The Countess had no such thought. "They must
be close upon us ! " she murmured, as she urged her
horse in obedience to the order.
" Whoever they are ! " Tignonville muttered bitter-
ly. "If we knew what had happened, or who fol-
lowed, we should know more about it, madame. For
THE FLIGHT FEOM A^GEKS. 347
that matter, I know what I wish he would do. And
our heads are set for it."
"What?"
"Make for VriUac!" he answered, a savage gleam
in his eyes.
"For Vrillac?"
"Yes."
" Ah, if he would ! " she cried, her face turn-
ing pale. "If he would. He would be safe
there ! "
"Ay, quite safe! " he answered with a peculiar in-
tonation. And he looked at her askance.
He fancied that his thought, the thought which had
just flashed into his brain, was her thought; that she
had the same notion in reserve, and that they were in
sympathy. And Tavanues, seeing them talking to-
gether, and noting her look and the fervour of her
gesture, formed the same opinion, and retired more
darkly into himself. The downfall of his plan for
dazzling her by a magnanimity unparalleled and be-
yond compare, a plan dependent on the submission of
Augers his disappointment in this might have roused
the worst passions of a better man. But there was in
this man a pride on a level at least with his other pas-
sions : and to bear himself in this hour of defeat and
flight so that if she could not love him she must ad-
mire him, checked in a strange degree the current of
his rage. When Tignonville presently looked back
he found that Count Hannibal and six of his riders
had pulled up and were walking their horses far in
the rear. On which he would have done the same
himself; but Badelon called over his shoulder the
eternal "Forward, monsieur, en avant!" and sullenly,
hating the man and his master more deeply every
348 COUNT HANNIBAL.
hour, Tignonville was forced to push on, with
thoughts of vengeance in his heart.
Trot, trot ! Trot, trot ! Through a country which
had lost its smiling wooded character and grew more
sombre and less fertile the farther they left the Loire
behind them. Trot, trot! Trot, trot! for ever, it
seemed to some. Javette wept with fatigue, and the
other women were little better. The Countess herself
spoke seldom except to cheer the Provost's daughter ;
who, poor girl, flung suddenly out of the round of
her life and cast among strangers, showed a better
spirit than might have been expected. At length, on
the slopes of some low hills, which they had long seen
before them, a cluster of houses and a church ap-
peared; and Badelon, drawing rein, cried, "Beau-
preau, madame ! We stay an hour ! "
It was six o'clock. They had ridden some hours
without a break. With sighs and cries of pain the
women dropped from their clumsy saddles, while the
men laid out such food it was little as had been
brought, and hobbled the horses that they might
feed. The hour passed rapidly, and when it had
passed Badelou was inexorable. There was wailing
when he gave the word to mount again ; and Tignon-
ville, fiercely resenting this dumb, reasonless flight,
was at heart one of the mutineers. But Badelou said
grimly that they might go on and live, or stay and
die, as it pleased them ; and once more they climbed
painfully to their saddles, and jogged steadily on
through the sunset, through the gloaming, through
the darkness, across a weird, mysterious country of
low hills and narrow plains which grew more wild
and less cultivated as they advanced. Fortunately
the horses had been well saved during the long lei-
THE FLIGHT PEOM AXGEKS. 349
surely journey to Angers, and now went well and
strongly. When they at last unsaddled for the night
in a little dismal wood within a mile of Clisson, they
had placed some forty miles between themselves and
Angers.
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE OKDEAL, BY STEEL.
THE women for the most part fell like sacks and slept
where they alighted, dead weary. The men, when
they had cared for the horses, followed the example ;
for Badelon would suffer no fire. In less than half
an hour, a sentry who stood on guard at the edge of
the wood, and Tignonville and La Tribe, who talked
in low voices with their backs against a tree, were
the only persons who remained awake, with the ex-
ception of the Countess. Carlat had made a couch
for her, and screened it with cloaks from the wind
and the eye ; for the moon had risen, and where the
trees stood sparsest its light flooded the soil with
pools of white. But Madame had not yet retired to
her bed. The two men, whose voices reached her,
saw her from time to time moving restlessly to and
fro between the road and the little encampment.
Presently she came and stood over them.
"He led His people out of the wilderness," La
Tribe was saying ; " out of the trouble of Paris, out
of the trouble of Angers, and always, always south-
ward. If you do not in this, monsieur, see His
finger "
"And Angers? " Tignonville struck in, with a faint
sneer. "Has He led that out of trouble? A day or
two ago you would risk all to save it, my friend.
THE OEDEAL BY STEEL. 351
Now, with your back safely turned on it, you think
all for the best."
"We did our best," the minister answered humbly.
" From the day we met in Paris we have been but
instruments. "
"To save Angers 1 "
"To save a remnant."
On a sudden the Countess raised her hand. "Do
you not hear horses, monsieur ? " she cried. She had
been listening to the noises of the night, and had paid
little heed to what the two were saying.
"One of ours moved," Tignonville answered list-
lessly. " Why do you not lie down, madame ? "
Instead of answering, "Whither is he going?" she
asked. "Do you know? "
"I wish I did know," the young man answered
peevishly. "To Mort, it may be. Or presently he
will double back and recross the Loire."
"He would have gone by Cholet to Niort," La
Tribe said. " The direction is rather that of Eochelle.
God grant we be bound thither ! "
"Or to Vrillac," the Countess cried, clasping her
hands in the darkness. "Can it be to Vrillac he is
going ? "
The minister shook his head.
" Ah, let it be to Vrillac ! " she cried, a thrill in her
voice. "We should be safe there. And he would be
safe."
" Safe ? " echoed a fourth and deeper voice. And
out of the darkness beside them loomed a tall fig-
ure.
The minister looked and leapt to his feet. Tignon-
ville rose more slowly.
The voice was Tavannes'. "And where am I to be
352 COUNT HANNIBAL.
safe?" he repeated slowly, a faint ring of saturnine
amusement in his tone.
"At Vrillac," she cried. "In nay house, mon-
sieur."
lie was silent a moment. Then, "Your house,
madame ? In which direction is it, from here ? "
"Westwards," she answered impulsively, her voice
quivering with eagerness and emotion and hope.
"Westwards, monsieur on the sea. The causeway
from the land is long, and ten can hold it against ten
hundred."
" Westwards? And how far westwards? "
Tignonville answered for her ; in his tone throbbed
the same eagerness, the same anxiety, which spoke
in hers. Nor was Count Hannibal's ear deaf to it.
"Through Challaus," he said, "thirteen leagues."
"From Clisson?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Comte."
"And by Commequiers less," the Countess cried.
"No, it is a worse road," Tignonville answered
quickly ; " and longer in time. "
"But we came "
" At our leisure, madame. The road is by Chal-
laus, if we wish to be there quickly."
"Ah!" Count Hannibal said. In the darkness it
was impossible to see his face or mark how he took
it. "But being there, I have few men."
"I have forty will come at call," she cried with
pride. "A word to them, and in four hours or a lit-
tle more "
"They would outnumber mine by four to one,"
Count Hannibal answered coldly, drily, in a voice
like ice-water flung in their faces. "Thank you,
madame ; I understand. To Vrillac is no long ride ;
THE OEDEAL BY STEEL.
but we will not ride it at present. " And he turned
sharply on his heel aud strode from them.
He had not covered thirty paces before she over-
took him in the middle of a broad patch of moonlight
and touched his arm. He wheeled swiftly, his hand
half-way to his hilt. Then he saw who it was.
"Ah," he said, "I had forgotten, madaine. You
have come "
"Jfo!" she cried passionately; and standing before
him she shook back the hood of her cloak that he
might look into her eyes. "You owe me no blow
to-day. You have paid me, monsieur. You have
struck me already, and foully, like a coward. Do
you remember," she continued rapidly, "the hour
after our marriage, and what you said to me? Do
you remember what you told me? And whom to
trust and whom to suspect, where lay our interest
and where our foes' ? You trusted me then ! What
have I done that you now dare ay, dare, monsieur, "
she repeated fearlessly, her face pale and her eyes
glittering with excitement, "to insult me? That you
treat me as Javette? That you deem me capable of
that? Of luring you into a trap, and in my own
house, or the house that was mine, of "
" Treating me as I have treated others. "
"You have said it ! " she cried. She could not her-
self understand why his distrust had wounded her
so sharply, so home, that all fear of him was gone.
11 You have said it, and put that between us which
will not be removed. I could have forgiven blows,"
she continued, breathless in her excitement, "so you
had thought me what I am. But now you will do
well to watch me! You will do well to leave Vrillac
on one side. For were you there, and raised your
23
354 COUNT HANNIBAL.
hand against me not that that touches me, but it
will do and there are those, I tell you, would fling
you from the tower at my word."
"Indeed?"
"Ay, indeed 1 And indeed, monsieur!"
Her face was in moonlight, his was in shadow.
"And this is your new tone, madame, is it I" he
said, slowly and after a pregnant pause. "The cross-
ing of a river has wrought so great a change in
you?"
"No! " she cried.
"Yes, "he said. And despite herself she flinched
before the grimness of his tone. "You have yet to
learn one thing, however: that I do not change.
That, north or south, I am the same to those who are
the same to me. That what I have won on the one
bank I will hold on the other, in the teeth of all, and
though God's Church be thundering on my heels!
I go to Vrillac "
"You go? " she cried. "You go? "
"I go," he repeated, "to-morrow. And among
your own people I will see what language you will
hold. While you were in my power I spared you.
Now that you are in your own land, now that you lift
your hand against me, I will show you of what make
I am. If blows will not tame you, I will try that will
suit you less. Ay, you wince, madame! You had
done well had you thought twice before you threat-
ened, and thrice before you took in hand to scare
Tavanues with a parcel of clowns and fisherfolk. To-
morrow, to Vrillac and your duty! And one word
more, madame," he continued, turning back to her
truculently when he had gone some paces from her.
" If I find you plotting with your lover by the way I
THE ORDEAL BY STEEL. 355
will hang not you, but him. I have spared him a
score of times ; but I know him, and I do not trust
him."
"Nor me," she said, and with a white, set face she
looked at him in the moonlight. "Had you not bet-
ter hang me now 1 ? "
"Why?"
" Lest I do you an injury ! " she cried with passion ;
and she raised her hand and pointed northward.
"Lest I kill you some night, monsieur! I tell you, a
thousand men on your heels are less dangerous than
the woman at your side if she hate you."
"Is it so?" he cried. His hand flew to his hilt;
his dagger flashed out. But she did not move, did
not flinch, only she set her teeth ; and her eyes, fasci-
nated by the steel, grew wider.
His hand sank slowly. He held the weapon to her,
hilt foremost ; she took it mschanically. "You think
yourself brave enough to kill me, do you ? " he
sneered. "Then take this, and strike, if you dare.
Take it strike, madame ! It is sharp, and my arms
are open." And he flung them wide, standing within
a pace of her. "Here, above the collar-b^ne, is the
surest for a weak hand. What, afraid?" he contin-
ued, as, stiffly clutching the weapon which he had
put into her hand, she glared at him, trembling and
astonished. "Afraid, and a Vrillac! Afraid, and
'tis but one blow! See, my arms are open. One
blow home, and you will never lie in them. Think
of that. One blow home, and you may lie in his.
Think of that! Strike, then, madame," he went on,
piling taunt on taunt, "if you dare, and if you hate
me. What, still afraid! How shall I give yor
heart? Shall I strike you? It will not be the first
356 COUNT HANNIBAL.
time by ten. I keep count, you see," he continued
mockingly. "Or shall I kiss you? Ay, that may do.
And it will not be against your will, either, for you
have that in your hand will save you in an instant.
Even" he drew a foot nearer "now! Even "
And he stooped until his lips almost touched hers.
She sprang back. "Oh, do not!" she cried. "Oh,
do not ! " And, dropping the dagger, she covered her
face with her hands, and burst into weeping.
He stooped coolly, and, after groping some time
for the poniard, drew it from the leaves among which
it had fallen. He put it into the sheath, and not
until he had done that did he speak. Then it was
with a sneer. "I have no need to fear overmuch,"
he said. "You are a poor hater, madame. And
poor haters make poor lovers. 'Tis his loss! If you
will not strike a blow for him, there is but one thing
left. Go, dream of him ! "
And shrugging his shoulders contemptuously he
turned on his heel.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE AMBUSH.
THE start they made at daybreak was gloomy and ill-
omened, through one of those white mists which are
blown from the Atlantic over the flat lands of Western
Poitou. The horses, looming gigantic through the
fog, winced as the cold harness was girded on them.
The men hurried to and fro with saddles on their
heads, and stumbled over other saddles, and swore
savagely. The women turned mutinous and would
not rise; or, being dragged up by force, shrieked
wild unfitting words, as they were driven to the
horses. The Countess looked on and listened, and
shuddered, waiting for Carlat to set her on her horse.
She had gone during the last three weeks through
much that was dreary, much that was hopeless ; but
the chill discomfort of this forced start, with tired
horses and wailing women, would have darkened the
prospect of home had there been no fear or threat to
cloud it.
He whose will compelled all stood a little apart and
watched all, silent and gloomy. When Badelon, af-
ter taking his orders and distributing some slices of
black bread to be eaten in the saddle, moved off at
the head of his troop, Count Hannibal remained be-
hind, attended by Bigot and the eight riders who had
formed the rearguard so far. He had not approached
358 COUNT HANNIBAL.
the Countess since rising, and she had been thankful
for it. But now, as she moved away, she looked back
and saw him still standing ; she marked that he wore
his corselet, and in one of those revulsions of feeling
which outrun man's reason she who had tossed on
her couch through half the night, in passionate revolt
against the fate before her, took fire at his neglect
and his silence ; she resented on a sudden the distance
he kept, and his scorn of her. Her breast heaved,
her colour came, involuntarily she checked her horse,
as if she would return to him, and speak to him.
Then the Carlats and the others closed up behind
her, Badelon's monotonous "Forward, madanie, en
avant ! " proclaimed the day's journey begun, and she
saw him no more.
Nevertheless, the motionless figure, looming Ho-
meric through the fog, with gleams of wet light re-
flected from the steel about it, dwelt long in her
mind. The road which Badelon followed, slowly at
first, and with greater speed as the horses warmed to
their work, and the women, sore and battered, re-
signed themselves to suffering, wound across a flat
expanse broken by a few hills. These were little
more than mounds, and for the most part were veiled
from sight by the low-lying sea-mist, through which
gnarled and stunted oaks rose mysterious, to fade as
strangely. Weird trees they were, with branches un-
like those of this world's trees, rising in a grey land
without horizon or limit, through which our travel-
lers moved, jaded phantoms in a clinging nightmare.
At a walk, at a trot, more often at a weary jog,
they pushed on behind Badelon's humped shoulders.
Sometimes the fog hung so thick about them that they
saw only those who rose and fell in the saddles iuime-
THE AMBUSH. 359
diately before them ; sometimes the air cleared a lit-
tle, the curtain rolled up a space, and for a minute or
two they discerned stretches of unfertile fields, half-
tilled and stony, or long tracts of gorse and broom,
with here and there a thicket of dwarf shrubs or a
wood of wind-swept pines. Some looked and saw
these things ; more rode on sulky and unseeing, sup-
porting impatiently the toils of a flight from they
knew not what.
To do Tignonville justice, he was not of these. On
the contrary, he seemed to be in a better temper on
this day ; and, where so many took things unheroieal-
ly, he showed to advantage. Avoiding the Countess
and riding with Carlat, he talked and laughed with
marked cheerfulness ; nor did he ever fail, when the
mist rose, to note this or that landmark, and confirm
Badelon in the way he was going.
" We shall be at Lege by noon ! " he cried more
than once, "and if M. le Cornte persists in his
plan, may reach Vrillac by late sunset. By way of
Challaus!"
And always Carlat answered, "Ay, by Challans,
monsieur, so be it ! "
He proved, too, so far right in his prediction that
noon saw them drag, a weary train, into the hamlet
of Le"ge, where the road from Nantes to Olonne runs
southward over the level of Poitou. An hour later
Count Hannibal rode in with six of his eight men,
and, after a few minutes' parley with Badelou, who
was scanning the horses, he called Carlat to him.
The old man came.
"Can we reach Vrillac to-night? " Count Hannibal
asked curtly.
"By Challans, my lord," the steward answered, "I
360 COUNT HANNIBAL.
think we can. We call it seven hours' riding from
here. "
"And that route is the shortest 1 ? "
" In time, M. le Comte, the road being better. "
Count Hannibal bent his brows. " And the othet
way ? " he said.
" Is by Commequiers, my lord. It is shorter in dis-
tance. "
"By how much!"
"Two leagues. But there are fordings and a salt
marsli ; and with Madame and the women "
"It would be longer? "
The steward hesitated. "I think so," he said
slowly, his eyes wandering to the grey misty land-
scape, against which the poor hovels of the village
stood out naked and comfortless. A low thicket of
oaks sheltered the place from southwesterly gales.
On the other three sides it lay open.
"Very good," Tavannes said curtly. "Be ready to
start in ten minutes. You will guide us. "
But when the ten minutes had elapsed and the
party were ready to start, to the astonishment of all
the steward was not to be found. To peremptory
calls for him no answer came ; and a hurried search
through the hamlet proved equally fruitless. The
orP v person who had seen him since his interview
with Tavannes turned out to be M. de Tiguonville ;
and he had seen him mount his horse five minutes be-
fore, and move off as he believed by the Challans
road.
"Ahead of us!"
"Yes, M. le Comte," Tignonville answered, shading
his eyes and gazing in the direction of the fringe of
trees. " I did not see him take the road, but he was
THE AMBUSH. 361
beside the north end of the wood when I saw him
last. Thereabouts!" and he pointed to a place where
the Challans road wound round the flank of the wood.
"When we are beyond that point, I think we shall
see him. "
Count Hannibal growled a word in his beard, and,
turning in his saddle, looked back the way he had
come. Half a mile away, two or three dots could be
seen approaching across the plain. He turned again.
"You know the road? " he said, curtly addressing the
young man.
"Perfectly. As well as Carlat."
"Then lead the way, monsieur, with Badelon.
And spare neither whip nor spur. There will be
need of both, if we would lie warm to-night."
Tiguonville nodded assent and, wheeling his horse,
rode to the head of the party, a faint smile playing
about his mouth. A moment, and the main body
moved off behind him, leaving Count Hannibal and
six men to cover the rear. The mist, which at noon
had risen for an hour or two, was closing down again,
and they had no sooner passed clear of the wood than
the trees faded out of sight behind them. It was not
wonderful that they could not see Carlat. Objects
a hundred paces from them were completely hidden.
Trot, trot! Trot, trot! through a. grey world so
featureless, so unreal that the riders, now dozing in
the saddle, and now awaking, seemed to themselves
to stand still, as in a nightmare. A trot and then a
walk, and then a trot again; and all a dozen times
repeated, while the women bumped along in their
wretched saddles, and the horses stumbled, and the
men swore at them.
Ha ! La Garnache at last, and a sharp turn south-
362 COUNT HANNIBAL.
ward to Challaus. The Countess raised her head,
and began to look about her. There, should be a
church, she knew; and there, the old ruined tower
built by wizards, or the Carthaginians, so old tradi-
tion ran ; and there, to the westward, the great salt
marshes towards Noirmoutier. The mist hid all, but
the knowledge that they were there set her heart beat-
ing, brought tears to her eyes, and lightened the long
road to Challans.
At Challans they halted half-an-hour, and washed
out the horses' mouths with water and a little guigno-
let the spirit of the country. A dose of the cordial
was administered to the women ; and a little after
seven they began the last stage of the journey,
through a landscape which even the mist could not
veil from the eyes of love. There rose the windmill
of Soullans ! There the old dolmen, beneath which
the grey wolf that ate the two children of Tornic had
its lair. For a mile back they had been treading my
lady's laud ; they had only two more leagues to ride,
and one of those was crumbling under each dogged
footfall. The salt flavour, which is new life to the
shore-born, was in the fleecy reek which floated by
them, now thinner, now more opaque; and almost
they could hear the dull thunder of the Biscay waves
falling on the rocks.
Tignonville looked back at her and smiled. She
caught the look ; she fancied that she understood it
and his thoughts. But her own eyes were moist at
the moment with tears, and what his said, and what
there was of strangeness in his glance, half -warning,
half -exultant, escaped her. For there, not a mile be-
fore them, where the low hills about the fishing vil-
lage began to rise from the dull inland level hills
THE AMBUSH. 363
green on the laud side, bare and scarped towards the
sea and the island she espied the wayside chapel at
which the nurse of her early childhood had told her
beads. Where it stood, the road from Commequiers
and the road she travelled became one : a short mile
thence, after winding among the hillocks, it ran
down to the beach and the causeway and to her
home.
At the sight she bethought herself of Carlat, and
calling to M. de Tiguouville she asked him what he
thought of the steward's continued absence.
"He must have outpaced us! " he answered with an
odd laugh.
" But he must have ridden hard to do that. "
He reined back to her. " Say nothing ! " he mut-
tered under his breath. "But look ahead, madame,
and see if we are expected ! "
"Expected? How can we be expected? " she cried.
The colour rushed into her face.
He put his finger to his lip, and looked warningly
at Badelon's humped shoulders, jogging up and down
in front of them. Then, stooping towards her, in a
lower tone, "If Carlat has arrived before us, he will
have told then:, " he said.
" Have told them ! " she exclaimed.
"He came by the other road, and it is quicker."
She gazed at him in astonishment, her lips parted ;
and slowly she comprehended, and her eyes grew
hard. "Then why," she said, "did you say it was
longer? Had we been overtaken, monsieur, we had
had you to thank for it, it seems ! "
He bit his lip. "But we have not been overtaken, "
he rejoined. "On the contrary, you have me to
thank for something quite different."
364 COUNT HANNIBAL.
"As unwelcome, perhaps!" she retorted. "For
what?"
"Softly, madame."
"For what?" she repeated, refusing to lower her
voice. "Speak, monsieur, if you please." He had
never seen her look at him in that way.
"For the fact," he answered, stung by her look
and tone, " that when you arrive you will find your-
self mistress in your own house ! Is that nothing ? "
" You have called in my people ? "
" Carlat has done so, or should have, " he answered.
"Henceforth," he continued, a ring of exultation in
his voice, "it will go hard with M. le Comte, if he
does not treat you better than he has treated you
hitherto. That is all ! "
"You mean that it will go hard with him in any
case ? " she cried, her bosom rising and falling.
"I mean, madame But there they are! Good
Carlat ! Brave Carlat ! He has done well. "
"Carlat?"
"Ay, there they are! And you are mistress in
your own land! At last you are mistress, and you
have me to thank for it! See ! " And heedless in his
exultation whether Badelon understood or not, he
pointed to a place before them where the road wound
between two low hills. Over the green shoulder of
one of these, a dozen bright points caught and reflect-
ed the last evening light; while as he spoke a man
rose to his feet on the hill-side above, and began to
make signs to persons below. A pennon, too, showed
an instant over the shoulder, fluttered, and was gone.
Badelou looked as they looked. The next instant
he uttered a low oath, and dragged his horse across
the front of the party. "Pierre!" he cried to the
THE AMBUSH. 365
man on his left, "Bide for your life! To my lord,
and tell him we are ambushed ! " And as the trained
soldier wheeled about and spurred away, the sacker
of Eome turned a dark scowling face on Tignonville.
"If this be your work," he hissed, "we shall thank
you for it in hell ! For it is where most of us will lie
to-night! They are Montsoreau's spears, and they
have those with them are worse to deal with than
themselves ! " Then in a different tone, and throwing
off all disguise, "Men to the front!" he shouted.
"And you, madame, to the rear quickly, and the
women with you! Now, men, forward, and draw!
Steady ! Steady ! They are coming ! "
There was an instant of confusion, disorder, panic ;
horses jostling one another, women screaming and
clutching at men, men shaking them off and forcing
their way to the van. Fortunately the enemy did not
fall on at once, as Badelon expected, but after show-
ing themselves in the mouth of the valley, at a dis-
tance of three hundred paces, hung for some reason
irresolute. This gave Badelon time to array his seven
swords in front ; but real resistance was out of the
question, as he knew. And to none seemed less in
question than to Tignonville.
When the truth, and what he had done, broke on
the young man, he sat a moment motionless with hor-
ror. It was only when Badelon had twice summoned
him with opprobrious words that he awoke to the re-
lief of action. Even after that he hung an instant
trying to meet the Countess's eyes, despair in his
own ; but it was not to be. She had turned her head,
and was looking back, as if thence only and not from
him could help come. It was not to him she turned ;
and he saw it, and the justice of it. And silent,
366 COUNT HANNIBAL.
grim, more formidable even than old Badelon, the
veteran tighter, who knew all the tricks and shifts of
the melee, he spurred to the flank of the line.
"Now, steady!" Badelon cried again, seeing that
the enemy were beginning to move. "Steady! Ha!
Thank God, my lord! My lord is coming! Stand!
Stand!"
The distant sound of galloping hoofs had reached
his ear in the nick of time. He stood in his stirrups
and looked back. Yes, Count Hannibal was coming,
riding a dozen paces in front of his men. The odds
were still desperate for he brought but six the ene-
my were still three to one. But the thunder of his
hoofs as he came up checked for a moment the ene-
my's onset; and before Moutsoreau's people got start-
ed again Count Hannibal had ridden up abreast of
the women, and the Countess, looking at him, knew
that, desperate as was their strait, she had not looked
behind in vain. The glow of battle, the stress of the
moment, had displaced the cloud from his face ; the
joy of the born fighter lightened in his eye. His
voice rang clear and loud above the press.
" Badelon ! wait you and two with madame ! " he
cried. "Follow at fifty paces' distance, and, when
we have broken them, ride through! The others with
me! Now forward, men, and show your teeth! A
Tavannes! A Tavanues! A Tavannes! We carry
it yet ! "
And he dashed forward, leading them on, leaving
the women behind ; and down the sward to meet him,
thundering in double line, came Moutsoreau's men-
at-arms, and with the men-at-arms, a dozen pale,
fierce eyed men in the Church's black, yelling the
Church's curses. Madame's heart grew sick as she
THE AMBUSH. 36?
heard, as she waited, as she judged him by the fast-
failing light a horse's length before his men with
only Tignouville beside him.
She held her breath would the shock never come?
If Badelou had not seized her rein and forced her
forward, she would not have moved. And then,
even as she moved, they met ! With yells and wild
cries and a mare's savage scream, the two bands
crashed together in a huddle of fallen or rearing
horses, of flickering weapons, of thrusting men, of
grapples hand-to-hand. What happened, what was
happening to anyone, who it was fell, stabbed
through and through by four, or who were those who
still fought single combats, twisting round one an-
other's horses, those on her right and on her left, she
could not tell. For Badelou dragged her on with
whip and spur, and two horsemen who obscured her
view galloped in front of her, and rode down bodily
the only man who undertook to bar her passage. She
had a glimpse of that man's face, as his horse, struck
in the act of turning, fell sideways on him ; and she
knew it, in its agony of terror, though she had seen it
but once. It was the face of the man whose eyes had
sought hers from the steps of the church in Augers ;
the lean man in black, who had turned soldier of the
Church to his misfortune.
Through ? Yes, through, the way was clear before
them! The fight with its screams and curses died
away behind them. The horses swayed and all but
sank under them. But Badelou knew it no time for
mercy ; iron-shod hoofs rang on the road behind, and
at any moment the pursuers might be on their heels.
He flogged on until the cots of the hamlet appeared
on either side of the way ; on, until the road forked
368 COUNT HANNIBAL.
and the Countess with strange readiness cried "The
left ! " on, until the beach appeared below them at
the foot of a sharp pitch, and beyond the beach the
slow heaving grey of the ocean.
The tide was high. The causeway ran through it,
a mere thread lipped by the darkling waves, and at
the sight a grunt of relief broke from Badelou. For
at the end of the causeway, black against the western
sky, rose the gateway and towers of Vrillac ; and he
saw that, as the Countess had said, it was a place ten
men could hold against ten hundred !
They stumbled down the beach, reached the cause-
way and trotted along it ; more slowly now, and look-
ing back. The other women had followed by hook
or by crook, some crying hysterically, yet clinging to
their horses aud even urging them ; and in a medley,
the causeway clear behind them and no one following,
they reached the drawbridge, and passed under the
arch of the gate beyond.
There friendly hands, Carlat's foremost, welcomed
them and aided them to alight, and the Countess saw,
as in a dream, the familiar scene, all unfamiliar: the
gate, where she had played, a child, aglow with lan-
tern-light and arms. Men, whose rugged faces she
had known in infancy, stood at the drawbridge chains
and at the winches. Others blew matches and han-
dled primers, while old servants crowded round her,
and women looked at her, scared and weeping. She
saw it all at a glance the lights, the black shadows,
the sudden glow of a match on the groining of the
arch above. She saw it, and turning swiftly, looked
back the way she had come ; along the dusky cause-
way to the low, dark shore, which night was stealing
quickly from their eyes. She clasped her hands.
THE AMBUSH. 360
"Where is Badelon? " she cried. "Where is hel "
Where is he?"
One of the men who had ridden before her an-
swered that he had turned back.
"Turned back! " she repeated. And then, shading
her eyes, "Who is coming 1 ?" she asked, her voice in-
sistent. "There is someone coming. Who is it?
Who is it?"
Two were coming out of the gloom, travelling
slowly and painfully along the causeway. One was
La Tribe, limping ; the other a rider, slashed across
the forehead, and sobbing curses.
"No more ! " she muttered. "Are there no more? "
The minister shook his head. The rider wiped the
blood from his eyes, and turned up his face that he
might see the better. But he seemed to be dazed,
and only babbled strange words in a strange patois.
She stamped her foot in passion. "More lights!"
she cried. "Lights! How can they find their way?
And let six men go down the digue, and meet them.
Will you let them be butchered between the shore
and this?"
But Carlat, who had not been able to collect more
than a dozen men, shook his head; and before she
could repeat the order, sounds of battle, shrill, faint,
like cries of hungry seagulls, pierced the darkness
which shrouded the farther end of the causeway.
The women shrank inward over the threshold, while
Carlat cried to the men at the chains to be ready, and
to some who stood at loopholes above, to blow up
their matches and let fly at his word. And then they
all waited, the Countess foremost, peering eagerly
into the growing darkness. They could see nothing.
A distant scuffle, an oath, a cry, silence I The
24
370 COUNT HANNIBAL.
same, a little nearer, a little louder, followed this
time, not by silence, but by the slow tread of a limp-
ing horse. Again a rush of feet, the clash of steel, a
scream, a laugh, all weird and unreal, issuing from
the night; then out of the darkness into the light,
stepping slowly with hanging head, moved a horse,
bearing on its back a man or was it a man ! bend-
ing low in the saddle, his feet swinging loose. For
an instant the horse and the man seemed to be alone,
a ghostly pair ; then at their heels came into view two
figures, skirmishing this way and that ; and now com-
ing nearer, and now darting back into the gloom.
One, a squat figure, stooping low, wielded a sword
with two hands ; the other covered him with a half -
pike. And then beyond these abruptly as it seemed
the night gave up to sight a swarm of dark figures
pressing on them and after them, driving them before
them.
Carlat had an inspiration. " Fire ! " he cried ; and
four arquebuses poured a score of slugs into the knot
of pursuers. A man fell, another shrieked and stum-
bled, the rest gave back. Only the horse came on
spectrally, with hanging head and shining eyeballs,
until a man ran out and seized its head, and dragged
it, more by his strength than its own, over the draw-
bridge. After it Badelon, with a gaping wound in
his knee, and Bigot, bleeding from a dozen hurts,
walked over the bridge, and stood on either side of
the saddle, smiling foolishly at the man on the horse.
"Leave me!" he muttered. "Leave me!" He
made a feeble movement with his hand, as if it held
a weapon ; then his head sank lower. It was Count
Hannibal. His thigh was broken, and there was a
lance-head in his arm.
THE AMBUSH. 371
The Countess looked at him, then beyond him, past
him into the darkness. " Are there no more ? " she
whispered tremulously. "No more? Tignonville
my
Badelon shook his head. The Countess covered
her face and
CHAPTER XXXI v.
WHICH WILL YOU, MADAME?
IT was in the grey dawning of the next day, at the
hour before the sun rose, that word of M. de Tignon-
ville's fate came to them in the castle. The fog
which had masked the van and coming of night hung
thick on its retreating skirts, and only reluctantly
and little by little gave up to sight and daylight a
certain thing which night had left at the end of the
causeway. The first man to see it was Carlat, from
the roof of the gateway ; and he rubbed eyes weary
with watching, and peered anew at it through the
mist, fancying himself back in the Place Ste. -Croix
at Angers, supposing for a wild moment the journey
a dream, and the return a nightmare. But rub as he
might, and stare as he might, the ugly outlines of the
thing he had seen persisted nay, grew sharper as the
haze began to lift from the grey, slow-heaving floor
of sea. He called another man and bade him look.
"What is it?" he said. "D'you see, there? Below
the village?"
"'Tisa gibbet," the man answered, with a foolish
laugh; they had watched all night. "God keep us
from it."
"A gibbet?"
"Ay!"
"But what is it for? What is it doing there? "
WHICH WILL YOU, MADAME? 373
" It is there to hang those they have taken, very
like," the man answered, stupidly practical. And
then other men came up, and stared at it and growled
in their beards. Presently there were eight or ten on
the roof of the gateway looking towards the laud and
discussing the thing ; and by-and-by a man was de-
scried approaching along the causeway with a white
flag in his hand.
At that Carlat bade one fetch the minister. "He
understands things," he muttered, "and I misdoubt
this. And see, " he cried after the messenger, " that
no word of it come to Mademoiselle ! " Instinctively
in the maiden home he reverted to the maiden title.
The messenger went, and came again bringing La
Tribe, whose head rose above the staircase at the mo-
ment the envoy below came to a halt before the gate.
Carlat signed to the minister to come forward ; and
La Tribe, after sniffing the salt air, and glancing at
the long, low, misty shore and the stiff ugly shape
which stood at the end of the causeway, looked down
and met the envoy's eyes. For a moment no one
spoke. Only the men who had remained on the
gateway, and had watched the stranger's corning,
breathed hard.
At last, "I bear a message," the man announced
loudly and clearly, "for the lady of Vrillac. Is she
present ? "
"Give your message! " La Tribe replied.
"It is for her ears only."
"Do you want to enter? "
" No ! " The man answered so hurriedly that more
than one smiled. He had the bearing of a lay clerk
of some precinct, a verger or sacristan ; and after a
fashion the dress of one also, for he was in dusty
374 COUNT HANNIBAL.
black arid wore no sword, though he was girded with
a belt. "No!" he repeated, "but if Madame will
come to the gate, and speak to me
"Madame has other fish to fry," Carlat blurted out.
" Do you think that she has naught to do but listen to
messages from a gang of bandits ? "
"If she does not listen she will repent it all her
life ! " the fellow answered hardily. "That is part of
my message."
There was a pause while La Tribe considered the
matter. In the end, "From whom do you come? " he
asked.
"From His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor of
Saunmr, " the envoy answered glibly, "and from my
lord Bishop of Angers, him assisting by his Vicar;
and from others gathered lawfully, who will as law-
fully depart if their terms are accepted. Also from
M. de Tiguonville, a gentleman, I am told, of these
parts, now in their hands and adjudged to die at sun-
set this day if the terms I bring be not accepted. "
There was a long silence on the gate. The men
looked down fixedly; not a feature of one of them
moved, for no one was surprised. "Wherefore is he
to die ! " La Tribe asked at last.
"For good cause shown."
"Wherefore?"
"He is a Huguenot."
The minister nodded. "And the terms!" Carlat
muttered.
"Ay, the terms!" La Tribe repeated, nodding
afresh. " What are they ? "
"They are for rnadame's ear only," the messenger
made answer.
"Then they will not reach it! " Carlat broke forth
WHICH WILL YOU, MADAME? 375
in wrath. "So much for that! And for yourself,
see you go quickly before we make a target of you ! "
"Very well, I go," the envoy answered sullenly.
"But
"But what?" La Tribe cried, gripping Carlat's
shoulder to quiet him. "But what! Say what you
have to say, man! Speak out, and have done with
it!"
"I will say it to her and to no other."
"Then you will not say it!" Carlat cried again.
"For you will not see her. So you may go. And
the black fever in your vitals. "
" Ay, go ! " La Tribe added more quietly.
The man turned away with a shrug of the shoul-
ders, and moved off a dozen paces, watched by all on
the gate with the same fixed attention. But present-
ly he paused; he returned. "Very well," he said,
looking up with an ill grace. " I will do my office
here, if I cannot come to her. But I hold also a let-
ter from M. de Tignpnville, and that I can deliver to
no other hands than hers ! " He held it up as he
spoke, a thin scrap of greyish paper, the fly-leaf of a
missal perhaps. " See ! " he continued, " and take no-
tice ! If she does not get this, and learns when it is
too late that it was offered
"The terms," Carlat growled impatiently. "The
terms ! Come to them ! "
"You will have them?" the man answered, ner-
vously passing his tongue over his lips. "You will
not let me see her, or speak to her privately? "
"No."
"Then hear them. His Excellency is informed
that one Hannibal de Tavannes, guilty of the detesta-
ble crime of sacrilege and of other gross crimes, has
376 COUNT HANNIBAL.
taken refuge here. He requires that the said Hanni-
bal de Tavannes be handed to him for punishment,
and, this being done before sunset this evening, he
will yield to you free and uninjured the said M. de
Tignonyille, and will retire from the lands of Vrillac.
But if you refuse " the man passed his eye along the
line of attentive faces which fringed the battlement
"he will at sunset hang the said Tignonville on the
gallows raised for Tavannes, and will harry the de-
mesne of Vrillac to its farthest border ! "
There was a long silence on the gate. Some, their
gaze still fixed on him, moved their lips as if they
chewed. Others looked aside, met their fellows' eyes
in a pregnant glance, and slowly returned to him.
But no one spoke. At his back the flush of dawn
was flooding the east, and spreading and waxing
brighter. The air was growing warm ; the shore be-
low, from grey, was turning green. In a minute or
two the sun, whose glowing marge already peeped
above the low hills of France, would top the horizon.
The man, getting no answer, shifted his feet uneas-
ily. ',' Well," he cried, "what answer am I to take? "
Still no one moved.
"I've done my part. Will no one give her the let-
ter ? " he cried. And he held it up. " Give me my
answer, for I am going. "
" Take the letter ! " The words came from the rear
of the group in a voice that startled all. They
turned as though some one had struck them, and saw
the Countess standing beside the wooden hood which
covered the stairs. They guessed that she had heard
all or nearly all ; but the glory of the sunrise, shining
full on her at that moment, lent a false warmth to
her face, and life to eyes wofully and tragically set.
WHICH WILL YOU, MADAME? 377
It was not easy to say whether she had heard or not.
"Take the letter," she repeated.
Carlat looked helplessly over the parapet.
"Go down!"
He cast a glance at La Tribe, but he got none in
return, and he was preparing to do her bidding when
a cry of dismay broke from those who still had their
eyes bent downwards. The messenger, waving the
letter in a last appeal, had held it too loosely ; a light
air, as treacherous as unexpected, had snatched it
from his hand, and bore it even as the Countess,
drawn by the cry, sprang to the parapet fifty paces
from him. A moment it floated in the air, eddying,
rising, falling ; then, light as thistle-down, it touched
the water and began to sink.
The messenger uttered frantic lamentations, and
stamped the causeway in his rage. The Countess
only looked, and looked, until the rippling crest of a
baby wave broke over the tiny venture, and with its
freight of tidings it sank from sight.
The man, silent now, stared a moment, then
shrugged his shoulders. " Well, 'tis fortunate it was
his, "he cried brutally, "and not His Excellency's,
or my back had suffered! And now," he added im-
patiently, "by your leave, what answer?"
What answer? Ah, God, what answer? The men
who leant on the parapet, rude and coarse as they
were, felt the tragedy of the question and the dilem-
ma, guessed what they meant to her, and looked
everywhere save at her. What answer? Which of
the two was to live? Which die shamefully!
Which? Which?
"Tell him to come back an hour before sunset, n
she muttered.
378 COUNT HANNIBAL.
They told him and lie went ; and one by one the
men began to go too, and stole from the roof, leaving
her standing alone, her face to the shore, her hands
resting on the parapet. The light breeze which blew
off the laud stirred loose ringlets of her hair, and flat-
tened the thin robe against her sunlit figure. So had
she stood a thousand times in old days, in her youth,
in her maidenhood. So in her father's time had she
stood to see her lover come riding along the sands to
woo her ! So had she stood to welcome him on the
eve of that fatal journey to Paris! Thence had oth-
ers watched her go with him. The men remembered
remembered all ; and one by one they stole shame-
facedly away, fearing lest she should speak or turn
tragic eyes on them.
True, in their pity for her was no doubt of the
end, or thought of the victim who must suffer of
Tavannes. They, of Poitou, who had not been with
him, knew nothing of him ; they cared as little. He
was a northern man, a stranger, a man of the sword,
who had seized her so they heard by the sword.
But they saw that the burden of choice was laid on
her ; there, in her sight and in theirs, rose the gibbet ;
and, clowns as they were, they discerned the tragedy
of her role, play it as she might, and though her act
gave life to her lover.
When all had retired save three or four, she turned
and saw these gathered at the head of the stairs in a
ring about Carlat, who was addressing them in a low
eager voice. She could not catch a syllable, but a
look hard, and almost cruel, flashed into her eyes as
she gazed; and raising her voice she called the stew-
ard to her. "The bridge is up," she said, her tone
hard, "but the gates'? Are they locked? "
WHICH WILL YOU, MADAME? 379
"Yes, Madame."
"The wicket?"
" Xo, not the wicket. " And Carlat looked another
way.
"Then go, lock it, and bring the keys to me!" she
replied. " Or stay ! " Her voice grew harder, her
eyes spiteful as a cat's. "Stay, and be warned that
you play me no tricks! Do you hear? Do you un-
derstand ? Or old as you are, and long as you have
served us, I will have you thrown from this tower,
with as little pity as Isabeau flung her gallants to the
fishes. I am still mistress here, never more mistress
than this day. Woe to you if you forget it."
He blenched and cringed before her, muttering in-
coherently.
"I know," she said, "I read you! And now the
keys. Go, bring them to me ! And if by chance I
find the wicket unlocked when I come down, pray,
Carlat, pray! For you will have need of prayers."
He slunk away, the men with him ; and she fell to
pacing the roof feverishly. Kow and then she ex-
tended her arms, and low cries broke from her, as
from a dumb creature in pain. Wherever she looked,
old memories rose up to torment her and redouble
her misery. A thing she could have borne in the
outer world, a thing which might have seemed tolera-
ble in the reeking air of Paris or in the gloomy streets
of Angers, wore here its most appalling aspect.
Henceforth, whatever choice she made, this home,
where even in those troublous times she had known
naught but peace, must bear a damning stain!
Henceforth this day and this hour must come be-
tween her and happiness, must brand her brow, and
fix her with a deed of which men and women would
380 COUNT HANNIBAL.
tell while she lived! Oh, God pray? Who said,
pray?
"I! " And La Tribe with tears in his eyes held out
the keys to her. "I, madame," he continued solemn-
ly, his voice broken with emotion. "For in man is
no help. The strongest man, he who rode yesterday
a master of men, a very man of war in his pride and
his valour see him now, and "
" Don't I" she cried, sharp pain in her voice.
"Don't! " And she stopped him with her hand, her
face averted. After an interval, "You come from
him ? " she muttered faintly.
"Yes."
"Is he hurt to death, think you?" She spoke
.low, and kept her face hidden from him.
" Alas, no ! " he answered, speaking the thought in
his heart. "The men who are with him seem confi-
dent of his recovery."
"Do they know?"
" Badelon has had experience. "
"No, no. Do they know of this?" she cried. "Of
this ! " And she pointed with a gesture of loathing to
the black gibbet on the farther strand.
He shook his head. "I think not," he muttered.
And after a moment, "God help you!" he added fer-
vently. "God help and guide you, madame! "
She turned on him suddenly, fiercely. "Is that all
you can do?" she cried. "Is that all the help you
can give 1 You are a man. Go down, lead them out ;
drive off these cowards who drain our life's blood,
who trade on a woman's heart ! On them ! Do some-
thing, anything, rather than lie in safety here
here!"
The minister shook his head sadly. "Alas, ma-
WHICH WILL YOU, MADAME! 381
dame!" he said, "to sally were to waste life. They
outnumber us three to one. If Count Hannibal could
do no more than break through last night, with
scarce a man unwouuded "
"He had the women! "
"And we have not him ! "
"He would not have left us!" she cried hysteri-
cally.
"I believe it."
"Had they taken me, do you think he would have
lain behind walls ? Or skulked in safety here, while
while " Her voice failed her.
He shook his head despondently.
"And that is all you can do?" she cried, and
turned from him, and to him again, extending her
arms, in bitter scorn. "All you will do 1 ? Do you
forget that twice he spared your life ? That in Paris
once, and once in Angers, he held his hand? That
always, whether he stood or whether he fled, he held
himself between us and harm? Ay, always? And
who will now raise a hand for him ? Who ? "
"Madame!"
"Who? Who? Had he died in the field," she
continued, her voice shaking with grief, her hands
beating the parapet for she had turned from him
" had he fallen where he rode last night, in the front,
with his face to the foe, I had viewed him tearless, I
had deemed him happy ! I had prayed dry-eyed for
him who who spared me all these days and weeks !
Whom I robbed and he forgave me ! Whom I tempt-
ed, and he forbore me! Ay, and who spared not
once or twice him for whom he must now he must
now " And unable to finish the sentence she
beat her hands again and passionately on the stones.
382 COUNT HANNIBAL.
"Heaven knows, madaine," the minister cried
vehemently, " Heaven knows, I would advise you if
I could."
" Why did he wear his corselet ? " she wailed, as if
she had nob heard him. " Was there no spear could
reach his breast, that he must come to this? No foe
so gentle he would spare him this? Or why did lie
not die with me in Paris when we waited 1 ? In another
minute death might have come and saved us this. "
With the tears running down his face he tried to
comfort her. "Man that is a shadow," he said,
"passethaway what matter how? A little while, a
very little while, and we shall pass ! "
" With his curse upon us ! " she cried. And,
shuddering, she pressed her hands to her eyes to shut
out the sight her fancy pictured.
He left her for a while, hoping that in solitude she
might regain control of herself. When he returned
he found her seated, and outwardly more composed,
her arms resting on the parapet-wall, her eyes bent
steadily on the long stretch of hard sand which ran
northward from the village. By that route her lover
had many a time come to her ; there she had ridden
with him in the early days ; and that way they had
started for Paris on such a morning and at such an
hour as this, with sunshine about them, and larks
singing hope above the sand-dunes, and warm wave-
lets creaming to the horses' hoofs !
Of all which, La Tribe, a stranger, knew nothing.
The rapt gaze, the unchanging attitude only con-
firmed his opinion of the course she would adopt.
He was thankful to find her more composed ; and in
fear of such a scene as had already passed between
them he stole away again. He returned by-and-by,
WHICH WILL YOU, MADAME? 383
but with the greatest reluctance, and only because
Carlat's urgency would take no refusal.
He came this time to crave the key of the wicket,
explaining that rather to satisfy his own conscience
and the men than with any hope of success he pro-
posed to go half-way along the causeway, and thence
by signs invite a conference. "It is just possible,"
he added, hesitating he feared nothing so much as
to raise hopes in her "that by the offer of a money
ransom, Madame "
"Go," she said, without turning her head. "Offer
what you please. But" bitterly "have a care of
them! Montsoreau is very like Montereau! Be-
ware of the bridge ! "
He went and came again in half-an-hour. Then,
indeed, though she had spoken as if hope was dead in
her, she was on her feet at the first sound of his tread
on the stairs ; her parted lips and her white face ques-
tioned him. He shook his head.
"There is a priest," he said iu broken tones, "with
them, whom God will judge. It is his plan, and he
is without mercy or pity."
" You bring nothing from him ? "
"They will not suffer him to write again."
"You did not see him? "
"No."
CHAPTEE XXXV.
AGAINST THE WALL.
IN a room beside the gateway, into which, as the
nearest and most convenient place, Count Hannibal
had been carried from his saddle, a man sat sideways
in the narrow embrasure of a loophole, to which his
eyes seemed glued. The room, which formed part of
the oldest block of the chateau, and was ordinarily
the quarters of the Carlats, possessed two other win-
dows, deep -set indeed, yet superior to that through
which Bigot for he it was peered so persistently.
But the larger windows looked southwards, across the
bay at this moment the noon-high sun was pouring
his radiance through them; while the object which
held Bigot's gaze and fixed him to his irksome seat,
lay elsewhere. The loophole commanded the cause-
way leading shorewards; through it the Norman
could see who came and went, and even the cross-
beam of the ugly object which rose where the cause-
way touched the land.
On a flat truckle-bed behind the door lay Count
Hannibal, his injured leg protected from the coverlid
by a kind of cage. His eyes were bright with fever,
and his untended beard and straggling hair height-
ened the wildness of his aspect. But he was in pos-
session of his senses; and as his gaze passed from
Bigot at the window to the old Free Companion,
AGAINST THE WALL. 385
who sat on a stool beside him, engaged in shaping a
piece of wood into a splint, an expression almost soft
crept into his harsh face.
"Old fool!" he said. And his voice, though
changed, had not lost all its strength and harshness.
"Did the Constable need a splint when you laid him
under the tower at Gaeta "I "
The old man lifted his eyes from his task, and
glanced through the nearest window. "It is long
from noon to night," he said quietly, "and far from
cup to lip, my lord ! "
"It would be if I had two legs," Tavannes an-
swered, with a grimace, half -snarl, half -smile. "As
it is where is that dagger ? It leaves me every min-
ute."
It had slipped from the coverlid to the ground.
Badelon took it up, and set it on the bed within reach
of his master's hand.
Bigot swore fiercely. "It would be farther still,"
he growled, "if you would be guided by me, my lord.
Give me leave to bar the door, and 'twill be long be-
fore these fisher clowns force it. Badelon and I "
"Being in your full strength," Count Hannibal
murmured cynically.
"Could hold it. We have strength enough for
that," the Norman boasted, though his livid face and
his bandages gave the lie to his words. He could not
move without pain; and for Badelon, his knee was
as big as two with plaisters of his own placing.
Count Hannibal stared at the ceiling. "You could
not strike two blows!" he said. "Don't lie to me]
And Badelon cannot walk two yards! Fine fight-
ers!" he continued with bitterness, not all bitter.
"Fine bars 'twixt a man and death! No, it is time
25
386 COUNT HANNIBAL.
to turn the face to the wall. And, since go I must,
it shall not be said Count Hannibal dared not go
alone ! Besides "
Bigot stopped him with an oath that was in part
a cry of pain. "D n her!" he exclaimed in fury,
"'tis she is that besides! I know it. 'Tis she has
been our ruin from the day we saw her first, ay, to
this day! 'Tis she has bewitched you until your
blood, my lord, has turned to water. Or you would
never, to save the hand that betrayed us, never to
save a man
"Silence!" Count Hannibal cried, in a terrible
voice. And rising on his elbow, he poised the dag-
ger as if he would hurl it. "Silence, or I will spit
you like the vermin you are! Silence, and listen!
And you, old ban-dog, listen too, for I know you ob-
stinate ! It is not to save him. It is because I will
die as I have lived, fearing nothing and asking noth-
ing ! It were easy to bar the door as you would have
me, and die in the corner here like a wolf at bay,
biting to the last. That were easy, old wolf-hound!
Pleasant and good sport ! "
" Ay ! That were a death ! " the veteran cried, his
eyes brightening. "So I would fain die! "
" And I ! " Count Hannibal returned, showing his
teeth in a grim smile. "I too! Yet I will not! I
will not ! Because so to die were to die unwillingly,
and give them triumph. Be dragged to death? No,
old dog, if die we must, we will go to death ! We
will die grandly, highly, as becomes Tavannes ! That
when we are gone they may say, ' There died a
man ! ' "
"She may say! " Bigot muttered scowling.
Count Hannibal heard and glared at him, but pres-
AGAINST THE WALL. 387
ently thought better of it, and after a pause, " Ay, she
too ! " he said. " Why not ? As we have played the
game for her so, though we lose, we will play it to
the end ; nor because we lose throw down the cards !
Besides, man, die in the corner, die biting, and he
dies too ! "
"And why not?" Bigot asked, rising in a fury.
"Why not? Whose work is it we lie here, snared by
these clowns of fisherfolk? Who led us wrong and
betrayed us? He die? Would the devil had taken
him a year ago! Would he were within my reach
now! I would kill him with my bare fingers! He
die? And why not?"
"Why, because, fool, his death would not save
me ! " Count Hannibal answered coolly. " If it
would, he would die ! But it will not ; and we must
even do again as we have done. I have spared him
he's a white-livered hound! both once and twice,
and we must go to the end with it since no better can
be ! I have thought it out, and it must be. Only see
you, old dog, that I have the dagger hid in the splint
where I can reach it. And then, when the exchange
has been made, and my lady has her silk glove again
to put in her bosom ! " with a grimace and a
sudden reddening of his harsh features "if master
priest come within reach of my arm, I'll send him be-
fore me, where I go."
"Ay, ay!" said Badelon. "And if you fail of
your stroke I will not fail of mine ! I shall be there,
and I will see to it he goes ! I shall be there ! "
"You?"
"Ay, why not?" the old man answered quietly.
"I may halt on this leg for aught I know, and come
to starve on crutches like old Claude Boiteux who
388 COUNT HANNIBAL.
was at the taking of Milan and now begs in the pas-
sage under the Chatelet."
"Bah, man, you will get a new lord! "
Badelon nodded. "Ay, a new lord with new
ways! " he answered slowly and thoughtfully. "And
I am tired. They are of another sort, lords now,
than they were when I was young. It was a word
and a blow then. Now I am old, with most it is
' Old hog, your distance 1 You scent my lady ! '
Then they rode, and hunted, and tilted year in and
year out, and summer or winter heard the lark sing.
'Now they are curled, and paint themselves, and lie in
silk and toy with ladies who shamed to be seen at
Court or board when I was a boy and love better to
hear the mouse squeak than the lark sing."
"Still, if I give you my gold chain," Count Hanni-
bal answered quietly, " 'twill keep you from that."
"'Give it to Bigot," the old man answered. The
splint he was fashioning had fallen on his knees, and
his eyes were fixed on the distance of his youth.
"For me, my lord, I am tired, and I go with you. I
go with you. It is a good death to die biting before
the strength be quite gone. Have the dagger too, if
you please, and I'll fit it within the splint right neat-
ly. But I shall be there "
"And you'll strike home? " Tavannes cried eagerly.
He raised himself on his elbow, a gleam of joy in his
gloomy eyes.
"Have no fear, my lord. See, does it tremble?"
He held out his hand. "And when you are sped, I
will try the Spanish stroke upwards with a turn ere
you withdraw, that I learned from Euiz on the
skaven-pate. I see them about me now ! " the old
man continued, his face flushing, his form dilating.
AGAINST THE WALL. 389
"It will be odd if I cannot snatch a sword and hew
down three to go with Tavannes ! And Bigot, he will
see my lord the Marshal by-and-by ; and as I do to
the priest, the Marshal will do to Montsoreau. Ho !
ho! He will teach him the coup de Jarnac, never
fear!" And the old man's moustaches curled up
ferociously.
Count Hannibal's eyes sparkled with joy. "Old
dog ! " he cried and he held his hand to the veteran,
who brushed it reverently with his lips "we will go
together then! Who touches my brother, touches
Tavannes ! "
"Touches Tavannes!" Badelon cried, the glow of
battle lighting his bloodshot eyes. He rose to his
feet. "Touches Tavannes! You mind at Jar-
nac "
"Ah! At Jarnac!"
" When we charged their horse, was my boot a foot
from yours, my lord? "
"Not a foot!"
"And at Dreux," the old man continued with a
proud, elated gesture, "when we rode down the Ger-
man pikemeu they were grass before us, leaves on
the wind, thistle-down was it not I who covered
your bridle hand, and swerved not in the meUe f "
"It was! It was!"
"And at St. Quentin, when we fled before the
Spaniard it was his day, you remember, and cost us
dear "
" Ay, I was young then, " Tavannes cried in turn,
his eyes glistening. "St. Quentin! It was the tenth
of August. And you were new with me, and seized
my rein "
"And we rode off together, my lord of the last,
390 COUNT HANNIBAL.
of the last, as God sees me! And striking as we
went, so that they left us for easier game. "
"It was so, good sword! I remember it as if it had
been yesterday ! "
"And at Cerisoles, the Battle of the Plain, in the
old Spanish wars, that Avas most like a joust of all
the pitched fields I ever saw at Cerisoles, where I
caught your horse ? You mind me ? It was in the
shock when we broke Guasto's line "
" At Cerisoles 1" Count Hannibal muttered slowly.
"Why, man, I "
"I caught your horse, and mounted you afresh?
You remember, my lord? And at Landriano, where
Leyva turned the tables on us again."
Count Hannibal stared. "Landriauo? " he mut-
tered bluntly. " 'Twos in '29, forty years ago and
more! My father, indeed
"And at Rome at Rome, my lord? Mon Dieu !
in the old days at Eome ! When the Spanish com-
pany scaled the wall Ruiz was first, I next was it
not my foot you held? And was it not I who
dragged you up, while the devils of Swiss pressed us
hard ? Ah, those were days, my lord ! I was young
then, and you, my lord, young too, and handsome as
the morning ''
"You rave!" Tavannes cried, finding his tongue
at last. "Rome? You rave, old man ! Why, I was
not born in those days. My father even was a boy !
It was in '27 you sacked it five-and-forty years
ago ! "
The old man passed his hands over his heated face,
and, as a man roused suddenly from sleep looks, he
looked round the room. The light died out of his
eyes as a light blown out in a room; his form
AGAINST THE WALL. 391
seemed to shrink, even while the others gazed at him,
and he sat down. "No, I remember," he muttered
slowly. "It was Prince Philibert of Chalons, my
lord of Orange."
"Dead these forty years! "
"Ay, dead these forty years! All dead!" the old
man whispered, gazing at his gnarled hand, and
opening and shutting it by turns. "And I grow
childish! 'Tis time, high time, I followed them!
It trembles now ; but have no fear, my lord, this hand
will not tremble then. All dead ! Ay, all dead ! "
He sank into a mournful silence ; and Tavannes,
after gazing at him awhile in rough pity, fell to his
own meditations, which were gloomy enough. The
day was beginning to wane, and with the downward
turn, though the sun still shone brightly through the
southern windows, a shadow seemed to fall across his
thoughts. They no longer rioted in a turmoil of defi-
ance as in the forenoon. In its turn, sober reflection
marshalled the past before his eyes. The hopes of a
life, the ambitious of a life, moved in sombre proces-
sion, and things done and things left undone, the sov-
ereignty which Nostradamus had promised, the faces
of men he had spared and of men he had not spared
and the face of one woman.
She would not now be his. He had played highly,
and he would lose highly, playing the game to the
end, that to-morrow she might think of him highly.
Had she begun to think of him at all I In the cham-
ber of the inn at Augers he had fancied a change in
her, an awakening to life and warmth, a shadow of
turning to him. It had pleased him to think so, at
any rate. It pleased him still to imagine of this he
was more confident that in the time to come, when
392 COUNT HANNIBAL.
she was Tignonville's, she would think of him secret-
ly and kindly. She would remember him, and in her
thoughts and in her memory he would grow to the
heroic, even as the man she had chosen would shrink
as she learned to know him.
It pleased him, that. It was almost all that was
left to please him that, and to die proudly as he had
lived. But as the day wore on, and the room grew
hot and close, and the pain in his thigh became more
grievous, the frame of his mind altered. A sombre
rage was born and grew in him, and a passion fierce
and ill-suppressed. To end thus, with nothing done,
nothing accomplished of all his hopes and ambitions !
To die thus, crushed in a corner by a mean priest and
a rabble of spearmen, he who had seen Dreux and
Jarnac, had defied the King, and dared to turn the
St. Bartholomew to his ends ! To die thus, and leave
her to that puppet! Strong man as he was, of a
strength of will surpassed by few, it taxed him to the
utmost to lie and make no sign. Once, indeed, he
raised himself on his elbow with something between
an oath and a snarl, and he seemed about to speak.
So that Bigot came hurriedly to him.
"My lord?"
" Water I" he said. " Water, fool !" And, having
drank, he turned his face to the wall, lest he should
name her or ask for her. For the desire to see her
before he died, to look into her eyes, to touch her
hand once, only once, assailed his mind and all but
whelmed his will. She had been with him, he knew
it, in the night ; she had left him only at daybreak.
But then, in his state of collapse, he had been hardly
conscious of her presence. Now to ask for her or to
see her would stamp him coward, say what he might
AGAINST THE WALL. 393
to her. The proverb, that the King's face gives
grace, applied to her; and an overture on his side
could mean but one thing, that he sought her grace.
And that he would not do though the cold waters of
death covered him more and more, and the coming of
the end in that quiet chamber, while the September
sun sank to the appointed place awoke wild long-
ings and a wild rebellion in his breast. His thoughts
were very bitter, as he lay, his loneliness of the utter-
most. He turned his face to the wall.
In that posture he slept after a time, watched over
by Bigot with looks of rage and pity. And on the
room fell a long silence. The sun had lacked three
hours of setting when he fell asleep. When he re-
opened his eyes, and, after lying for a few minutes
between sleep and waking, became conscious of his
position, of the day, of the things which had hap-
pened, and his helplessness an awakening which
wrung from him an involuntary groan the light in
the room was still strong, and even bright. He fan-
cied for a moment that he had merely dozed off and
awaked again ; and he continued to lie with his face
to the wall, courting a return of slumber.
But sleep did not come, and little by little, as he
lay listening and thinking and growing more restless,
he got the fancy that he was alone. The light fell
brightly on the wall to which his face was turned ;
how could that be if Bigot's broad shoulders still
blocked the loophole? Presently, to assure himself,
he called the man by name.
He got no answer.
" Badelon ! " he muttered. " Badelon ! "
Had he gone, too, the old and faithful 1 It seemed
so, for again no answer came.
394 COUNT HANNIBAL.
He had been accustomed all his life to instant ser-
vice; to see the act follow the word ere the word
ceased to sound. And nothing which had gone be-
fore, nothing which he had suffered since his defeat
at Angers, had brought him to feel his impotence and
his position and that the end of his power was in-
deed come as sharply as this. The blood rushed to
his head; almost the tears to eyes which had not
shed them since boyhood, and would not shed them
now, weak as he was! He rose on his elbow and
looked with a full heart; it was as he had fancied.
Badelon's stool was empty ; the embrasure that was
empty too. Through its narrow outlet he had a tiny
view of the shore and the low rocky hill, of which
the summit shone warm in the last rays of the set-
ting sun.
The setting sun ! Ay, for the lower part of the hill
was growing cold; the shore at its foot was grey.
Then he had slept long, and the time was come. He
drew a deep breath and listened. But on all within
and without lay silence, a silence marked, rather
than broken, by the dull fall of a wave on the cause-
way. The day had been calm, but with the sunset a
light breeze was rising.
He set his teeth hard, and continued to listen. An
hour before sunset was the time they had named for
the exchange. What did it mean? In five minutes
the sun would be below the horizon; already the zone
of warmth on the hillside was moving and retreating
upwards. And Bigot and old Badelon? Why had
they left him while he slept? An hour before sun-
set! Why, the room was growing grey, grey and
dark in the corners, and what was that?
He started, so violently that he jarred his leg, and
AGAINST THE WALL. 395
the pain wrung a groan from him. At the foot of
the bed, overlooked until then, a woman lay prone on
the floor, her face resting on her outstretched arms.
She lay without motion, her head and her clasped
hands towards the loophole, her thick, clubbed hair
hiding her neck. A woman! Count Hanuiba 1
stared, and, fancying he dreamed, closed his eyes,
then looked again. It was no phantasm. It was the
Countess ; it was his wife !
He drew a deep breath, but he did not speak,
though the colour rose slowly to his cheek. And
slowly his eyes devoured her from head to foot, from
the hands lying white in the light below the window
to the shod feet ; unchecked he took his fill, of that
which he had so much desired the seeing her ! A
woman prone, with all of her hidden but her hands:
a hundred acquainted with her would not have
known her. But he knew her, and would have
known her from a hundred, nay from a thousand, by
her hands alone.
What was she doing here, and in this guise I He
pondered; then he looked from her for an instant
and saw that while he had gazed at her the sun had
set, the light had passed from the top of the hill ; the
world without and the room within were growing
cold. Was that the cause she no longer lay quiet?
He saw a shudder run through her, and a second;
then it seemed to him or was he going mad ? that
she moaned, and prayed in half -heard words, and,
wrestling with herself, beat her forehead on her
arms, and then was still again, as still as death. By
the time the paroxysm had passed, the last flush of
sunset had faded from the sky, and the hills were
growing dark.
CHAPTER XXXVL
HIS KINGDOM.
COUNT HANNIBAL conld not have said why he did
not speak to her at once. Warned by an instinct
vague and ill -understood, he remained silent, his
eyes riveted on her, until she rose from the floor. A
moment later she met his gaze, and he looked to see
her start. Instead she stood quiet and thoughtful,
regarding him with a kind of sad solemnity, as if
she saw not him only, but the dead ; while first one
tremor and then a second shook her frame.
At length, "It is over!" she whispered. "Pa-
tience, monsieur; have no fear, I will be brave.
But I must give a little to him. "
" To him ! " Count Hannibal muttered, his face ex-
traordinarily pale.
She smiled with an odd passionateness. "Who was
my lover! " she cried, her voice a- thrill. "Who will
ever be my lover, though I have denied him, though
I have left him to die! It was just. He who has so
tried me knows it was just! He whom I have sacri-
ficed he knows it too, now! But it is hard to be
just," with a quavering smile. "You who take all
may give him a little, may pardon me a little, may
have patience ! "
Count Hannibal uttered a strangled cry, between a
noan and a roar. A moment he beat the coverlid
HIS KINGDOM. 397
with his hands in impotence. Then he sank back on
the bed. " Water ! " he muttered. " Water ! "
She fetched it hurriedly, and, raising his head on
her arm, held it to his lips. He drank, and lay back
again with closed eyes. He lay so still and so long
that she thought that he had fainted; but after a
pause he spoke. "You have done that?" he whis-
pered, "you have done that?"
"Yes," she answered, shuddering. "God forgive
me ! I have done that ! I had to do that, or "
"And is it too late to undo it? "
" It is too late. " A sob choked her voice.
Tears tears incredible, unnatural welled from
under Count Hannibal's closed eyelids, and rolled
sluggishly down his harsh cheek to the edge of his
beard. " I would have gone, " he muttered. "If you
had spoken, I would have spared you this."
"I know," she answered unsteadily; "the men told
me."
"And yet "
"It was just. And you are my husband," she re-
plied. "More, I am the captive of your sword, and
as you spared me in your strength, my lord, I spared
you in your weakness. "
"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu, madame!" he cried, "at
what a cost ! "
And that arrested, that touched her in the depths
of her grief and her horror ; even while the gibbet on
the causeway, which had burned itself into her eye-
balls, hung before her. For she knew that it was the
cost to her he was counting. She knew that for him-
self he had ever held life cheap, that he could have
seen Tignonville suffer without a qualm. And the
thoughtf ulness for her, the value he placed on a thing
398 COUNT HANNIBAL.
even on a rival's life because it was dear to her,
touched her home, moved her as few things could
have moved her at that moment. She saw it of a
piece with all that had gone before, with all that had
passed between them, since that fatal Sunday in
Paris. But she made no sign. More than she had
said she would not say ; words of love, even of recon-
ciliation, had no place on her lips while he whom she
Jiad sacrificed awaited his burial.
And meantime the man beside her lay and found it
incredible. "It was just," she had said. And he
knew it; Tignouville's folly that and that only had
led them into the snare and caused his own capture.
But what had justice to do with the things of this
world? In his experience, the strong hand that
was justice, in France; and possession that was law.
By the strong hand he had taken her, and by the
strong hand she might have freed herself.
And she had not. There was the incredible thing.
She had chosen instead to do justice! It passed be-
lief. Opening his eyes on a silence which had lasted
some minutes, a silence rendered more solemn by the
lapping water without, Tavannes saw her kneeling in
the dusk of the chamber, her head bowed over his
couch, her face hidden in her hands. He knew that
she prayed, and feebly he deemed the whole a dream.
No scene akin to it had had place in his life ; and,
weakened and in pain, he prayed that the vision
might last for ever, that he might never awake.
But by-and-by, wrestling with the dread thought
of what she had done, and the horror which would
return upon her by fits and spasms, she flung out a
hand, and it fell 011 him. He started, and the move-
ment, jarring the broken limb, wrung from him a cry
HIS KINGDOM. 399
of pain. She looked up and was going to speak,
when a scuffling of feet under the gateway arch, and
a confused sound of several voices raised at once,
arrested the words 011 her lips. She rose to her feet
and listened. Dimly he could see her face through
the dusk. Her eyes were on the door, and she
breathed quickly.
A moment or two passed in this way, and then
from the hurly-burly in the gateway the footsteps of
two men one limped detached themselves and
came nearer and nearer. They stopped without. A
gleam of light shone under the door, and someone
knocked.
She went to the door, and, withdrawing the bar,
stepped quickly back to the bedside, where for an in-
stant the light borne by those who entered blinded
her. Then, above the lantern, the faces of La Tribe
and Bigot broke upon her, and their shining eyes told
her that they bore good news. It was well, for the
men seemed tongue-tied. The minister's fluency was
gone ; he was very pale, and it was Bigot who in the
end spoke for both. He stepped forward, and, kneel-
ing, kissed her cold hand.
"My lady," he said, "you have gained all, and lost
nothing. Blessed be God ! "
" Blessed be God ! " the minister wept. And from
the passage without came the sound of laughter and
weeping and many voices, with a flutter of lights and
flying skirts, and women's feet.
She stared at him wildly, doubtfully, her hand at
her throat. "What? " she said, "he is not dead M.
de Tiguouville ? "
"No, he is alive," La Tribe answered, "he is alive."
And he lifted up his hands as if he gave thanks.
400 COUNT HANNIBAL.
"Alive?" she cried. "Alive! Oh, heaven is
merciful ! You are sure ! You are sure ? "
"Sure, Madame, sure. He was not in their hands.
He was dismounted in the first shock, it seems, and,
coming to himself after a time, crept away and
reached St. Gilles, and came hither in a boat. But
the enemy learned that he had not entered with us,
and of this the priest wove his snare. Blessed be
God, who put it into your heart to escape it ! "
The Countess stood motionless and, with closed
eyes, pressed her hands to her temples. Once she
swayed as if she would fall her length, and Bigot
sprang forward to support and save her. But she
opened her eyes at that, sighed very deeply, and
seemed to recover herself.
"You are sure?" she said faintly. "It is no
trick? "
"No, madame, it is no trick," La Tribe answered.
"M. de Tignonville is alive, and here."
"Here!" She started at the word. The colour
fluttered in her cheek. "But the keys," she mur-
mured. And she passed her hand across her brow.
"I thought that I had them."
"He has not entered," the minister answered, "for
that reason. He is waiting at the postern, where he
landed. He came, hoping to be of use to you. "
She paused a moment, and when she spoke again
her aspect had undergone a subtle change. Her head
was high, a flush had risen to her cheeks, her eyes
were bright. "Then," she said, addressing La Tribe,
"do you, monsieur, go to him, and pray him in my
name to retire to St. Gilles, if he can do so without
peril. He has no place here now ; and if he can go
safely to his home it will be well that he do so.
HIS KINGDOM. 401
Add, if you please, that Madame de Tavannes thanks
him for his offer of aid, but in her husband's house
she needs no other protection."
Bigot's eyes sparkled with joy.
The minister hesitated. " No more, madame ? " he
faltered. He was tender-hearted, and Tigiionville
was of hL people.
"No more," she said gravely, bowing her head.
"It is not M. de Tignonville I have to thank, but
Heaven's mercy, that I do not stand here at this mo-
ment unhappy as I entered a woman accursed, to be
pointed at while I live. And the dead " she pointed
solemnly through the dark casement to the shore
"the dead lie there."
La Tribe went.
She stood a moment in thought, and then took the
keys from the rough stone window-ledge on which
she had laid them when she entered. As the cold
iron touched her fingers she shuddered. The contact
awoke again the horror and misery in which she had
groped, a lost thing, when she last felt that chill.
"Take them," she said; and she gave them to Bi-
got. " Until my lord can leave his couch they will re-
main in your charge, and you will answer for all to
him. Go, now, take the light ; and in half -an-hour
send Madame Carlat to me."
A wave broke heavily on the causeway and ran
down seething to the sea ; and another and another,
filling the room with rhythmical thunders. But tlie
voice of the sea was no longer the same in the dark-
ness, where the Countess knelt in silence beside the
bed knelt, her head bowed on her clasped hands, as
she had knelt before, but with a mind how different,
with what different thoughts! Count Hannibal could
26
402 COUNT HANNIBAL.
see her head but dimly, for the light shed upwards by
the spume of the sea fell only on the rafters. But he
knew she was there, arid he would fain, for his heart
was full, have laid his hand on her hair.
And yet he would not. He would not, out of
pride. Instead he bit on his harsh beard, and lay
looking upward to the rafters, waiting what would
come. He who had held her at his will now lay at
hers, and waited. He who had spared her life at a
price now took his own a gift at her hands, and
bore it.
"Afterwards, Madame de Tavannes "
His mind went back by some chance to those words
the words he had neither meant nor fulfilled. It
passed from them to the marriage and the blow ; to
the scene in the meadow beside the river ; to the last
ride between La Fleche and Angers the ride during
which he had played with her fears and hugged him-
self on the figure he would make on the morrow.
The figure! Alas! of all his plans for dazzling her
had come this ! Angers had defeated him, a priest
had worsted him. In place of releasing Tignonville
after the fashion of Bayard and the Paladins, and in
the teeth of snarling thousands, he had come near to
releasing him after another fashion and at his own
expense. Instead of dazzling her by his mastery and
winning her by his magnanimity, he lay here, owing
her his life, and so weak, so broken, that the tears of
childhood welled up in his eyes.
Out of the darkness a hand, cool and firm, slid into
his, clasped it tightly, drew it to warm lips, carried
it to a woman's bosom. "My lord," she murmured,
"I was the captive of your sword, and you spared
me. Him I loved you took and spared him too not
HIS KINGDOM. 403
once or twice. Augers, also, and my people you
would have saved for my sake. And you thought I
could do this ! Oh ! shame, shame ! " But her hand
held his always.
"You loved him," he muttered.
"Yes, I loved him," she answered slowly and
thoughtfully. " I loved him. " And she fell silent a
minute. Then, "And I feared you," she added, her
voice low. " Oh, how I feared you and hated you ! "
"And now?"
" I do not fear him, " she answered, smiling in the
darkness. "Nor hate him. And for you, my lord,
I am your wife and must do your bidding, whether I
will or no. I have no choice."
He was silent.
"Is that not so? " she asked.
He tried weakly to withdraw his hand.
But she clung to it. "I must bear your blows or
your kisses. I must be as you will and do as you
will, and go happy or sad, lonely or with you, as you
will! As you will, my lord! For I am your chat-
tel, your property, your own. Have you not told
me so 1 "
"But your heart," he cried fiercely, "is his! Your
heart, which you told me in the meadow could never
be mine ! "
"I lied," she murmured, laughing tearfully, and
her hands hovered over him. "It has come back!
And it is on my lips. "
And she leant over and kissed him. And Count
Hannibal knew that he had entered into his kingdom,
the sovereignty of a woman's heart.
404 COUNT HANNIBAL.
An hour later there was a stir in the village on the
mainland. Lanterns began to flit to and fro. Sulk-
ily men were saddling and preparing for the road.
It was far to Challans, farther to Lege more than
one day, and many a weary league to Fonts de C6
and the Loire. The men who had ridden gaily south-
wards on the scent of spoil and revenge turned their
backs on the castle with many a sullen oath and
word. They burned a hovel or two, and stripped
such as they spared, after the fashion of the day;
and it had gone ill with the peasant woman who fell
into their hands. Fortunately, under cover of the
previous night every soul had escaped from the vil-
lage, some to sea, and the rest to take shelter among
the sand dunes ; a,nd as the troopers rode up the path
from the beach, and through the green valley, where
their horses shied from the bodies of the men they
had slain, there was not an eye to see them go.
Or to mark the man who rode last, the man of the
white face scarred on the temple and the burning
eyes, who paused on the brow of the hill, and, before
he passed beyond, cursed with quivering lips the foe
who had escaped him. The words were lost, as soon
as spoken, in the murmur of the sea on the causeway ;
the sea, fit emblem of the Eternal, which rolled its
tide regardless of blessing or cursing, good or ill will,
nor spared one jot of ebb or flow because a puny
creature had spoken to the night.
THE END.
A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE SPORT OF FOOLS 1
II. THE KING OF NAVARRE 13
III. BOOT AXD SADDLE . 25
IV. MADEMOISELLE DE LA VIHE ..... 37
V. THE ROAD TO BLOIS 53
VI. MY MOTHER'S LODGING 64
VII. SIMON FLEIX 73
VIII. AN EMPTY ROOM 82
IX. THE HOUSE IN THE RDELLE D'ARCY ... 96
X. THE FIGHT ON THE STAIRS 106
XI. THE MAN AT THE DOOR ...... 117
XII. MAXIMILIAN DE BETHDNE, BARON DE ROSNY . . 125
XIII. AT ROSNY 138
XIV. M. DE RAMBOUILLET ....... 148
XV. VILAIN HERODES . 160
XVL IN THE KING'S CHAMBER 173
XVII. THE JACOBIN MONK . . . ' . . . .188
XVIII. THE OFFER OF THE LEAGUE . . . . . 198
XIX. MEN CALL IT CHANCE . . . . . . : . 206
XX. THE KING'S FACE . . . .'". . . 219
XXI. Two WOMEN . . . . . . ... 235
XXII. ' LA FEMME DISPOSE ' . . . ' ... 241
XXIII. THE LAST VALOIS . . . ... .250
XXIV. A ROYAL PERIL. 262
VI
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
XXV. TERMS OF SURRENDER
XXVI. MEDITATIONS
XXVII. To ME, MY FRIENDS !
XXVIII. THE CASTLE ON THE HILL
XXIX. PESTILENCE AND FAMINE .
XXX. STRICKEN .
XXXI. UNDER THE GREENWOOD .
XXXII. A TAVERN BRAWL .
XXXIII. AT MEUDON
XXXIV. ' 'Tis AN ILL WIND ' .
XXXV. <L,E KOI EST MORT' .
XXXVI. ' VIVE LE Roi ! '
PAGB
272
282
288
306
319
330
339
350
363
375
388
401
A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE.
CHAPTER I.
THE SPORT OF FOOLS.
THE death of the Prince of Conde, which occurred in the
spring of 1588, by depriving me of my only patron, reduced
me to such straits that the winter of that year, which saw
the King of Navarre come to spend his Christmas at St.
Jean d'Angely, saw also the nadir of my fortunes. I did
not know at this time I may confess it to-day without
shame whither to turn for a gold crown or a new scabbard,
and neither had nor discerned any hope of employment.
The peace lately patched up at Blois between the King of
France and the League persuaded many of the Huguenots
that their final ruin was at hand; but it could not fill their
exhausted treasury or enable them to put fresh troops into
the field.
The death of the Prince had left the King of Navarre
without a rival in the affections of the Huguenots; the
Vicomte de Turenne, whose turbulent ambition already be-
gan to make itself felt, and M. de Chatillon, ranking next
to him. It was my ill-fortune, however, to be equally
unknown to all three leaders, and as the month of December
which saw me thus miserably straitened saw me reach the
age of forty, which I regard, differing in that from many, as
the grand climacteric of a man's life, it will be believed that
2 A GENTLEMAN" OF FRANCE
I had need of all the courage which religion and a cam-
paigner's life could supply.
I had been compelled some time before to sell all my
horses except the black Sardinian with the white spot on
its forehead; and I now found myself obliged to part also
with my valet de chambre and groom, whom I dismissed
on the same day, paying them their wages with the last
links of gold chain left to me. It was not without grief
and dismay that I saw myself thus stripped of the appur-
tenances of a man of birth, and driven to groom my own
horse under cover of night. But this was not the worst.
My dress, which suffered inevitably from this menial em-
ployment, began in no long time to bear witness to the
change in my circumstances ; so that on the day of the King
of Navarre's entrance into St. Jean I dared not face the
crowd, always quick to remark the poverty of those above
them, but was fain to keep within doors and wear out my
pacience in the garret of the cutler's house in the Rue de la
Goutellerie, which was all the lodging I could now afford.
Pardieu, 'tis a strange world! Strange that time seems
to me; more strange compared with this. My reflections
on that day, I remember, were of the most melancholy.
Look at it how I would, I could not but see that my life's
spring was over. The crows'-feet were gathering about my
eyes, and my moustachios, which seemed with each day of
ill-fortune to stand out more fiercely in proportion as my
face grew leaner, were already grey. I was out at elbows,
with empty pockets, and a sword which peered through the
sheath. The meanest ruffler who, with broken feather and
tarnished lace, swaggered at the heels of Turenne, was
scarcely to be distinguished from me. I had still, it is true,
a rock and a few barren acres in Brittany, the last remains
of the family property; but the small sums which the peas-
ants could afford to pay were sent annually to Paris, to my
mother, who had no other dower. And this I would not
touch, being minded to die a gentleman, even if I could not
live in that estate.
THE SPORT OF FOOLS 3
Small as were my expectations of success, since I had no
one at the king's side to push my business, nor any friend
at Court, I nevertheless did all I could, in the only way that
occurred to me. I drew up a petition, and lying in wait
one day for M. Forget, the King of Navarre's secretary,
placed it in his hand, begging him to lay it before that
prince. He took it, and promised to do so, smoothly, and
with as much lip-civility as I had a right to expect. But
the careless manner in which he doubled up and thrust away
the paper on which I had spent so much labour, no less than
the covert sneer of his valet, who ran after me to get the
customary present and ran, as I still blush to remember,
in vain warned me to refrain from hope.
In this, however, having little save hope left, I failed so
signally as to spend the next day and the day after in a
fever of alternate confidence and despair, the cold fit fol-
lowing the hot with perfect regularity. At length, on the
morning of the third day I remember it lacked but three
of Christmas I heard a step on the stairs. My landlord
living in his shop, and the two intervening floors being
empty, I had no doubt the message was for me, and went
outside the door to receive it, my first glance at the messenger
confirming me in my highest hopes, as well as in all I had
ever heard of the generosity of the King of Navarre. For by
chance I knew the youth to be one of the royal pages ; a saucy
fellow who had a day or two before cried 'Old Clothes'
after me in the street. I was very far from resenting this
now, however, nor did he appear to recall it ; so that I drew
the happiest augury as to the contents of the note he bore
from the politeness with which he presented it to me.
I would not, however, run the risk of a mistake, and
before holding out my hand, I asked him directly and with
formality if it was for me.
He answered, with the utmost respect, that it was for the
Sieur de Marsac, and for me if I were he.
'There is an answer, perhaps?' I said, seeing that he
lingered.
4 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
'The King of Navarre, sir,' he replied, with a low bow,
'will receive your answer in person, I believe.' And with
that, replacing the hat which he had doffed out of respect to
me, he turned and went down the stairs.
Returning to my room, and locking the door, I hastily
opened the missive, which was sealed with a large seal, and
wore every appearance of importance. I found its contents
to exceed all my expectations. The King of Navarre desired
me to wait on him at noon on the following day, and the
letter concluded with such expressions of kindness and good-
will as left me in no doubt of the Prince's intentions. I
read it, I confess, with emotions of joy and gratitude which
would better have become a younger man, and then cheer-
fully sat down to spend the rest of the day in making such
improvements in my dress as seemed possible. With a
thankful heart I concluded that I had now escaped from
poverty, at any rate from such poverty as is disgraceful to
a gentleman ; and consoled myself for the meanness of the
appearance I must make at Court with the reflection that a
day or two would mend both habit and fortune.
Accordingly, it was with a stout heart that I left my lodg-
ings a few minutes before noon next morning, and walked
towards the castle. It was some time since I had made so
public an appearance in the streets, which the visit of the
King of Navarre's Court had filled with an unusual crowd,
and I could not help fancying as I passed that some of the
loiterers eyed me with a covert smile; and, indeed, I was
shabby enough. But finding that a frown more than sufficed.
to restore the gravity of these gentry, I set down the ap-
pearance to my own self-consciousness, and, stroking my
moustachios, strode along boldly until I saw before me, and
coming to meet me, the same page who had delivered the note.
He stopped in front of me with an air of consequence, and
making me a low bow whereat I saw the bystanders stare,
for he was as gay a young spark as maid-of -honour could
desire he begged me to hasten, as the king awaited me in
his closet.
THE SPORT OF FOOLS 5
'He has asked for you twice, sir,' he continued impor-
tantly, the feather of his cap almost sweeping the ground.
'I think,' I answered, quickening my steps, 'that the
king's letter says noon, young sir. If I am late on such an
occasion, he has indeed cause to complain of me. '
'Tut, tut! ' he rejoined, waving his hand with a dandified
air. 'It is no matter. One man may steal a horse when
another may not look over the wall, you know. '
A man may be gray-haired, he may be sad-complexioned,
and yet he may retain some of the freshness of youth. On
receiving this indication of a favour exceeding all expecta-
tion, I remember I felt the blood rise to my face, and ex-
perienced the most lively gratitude. I wondered who had
spoken in my behalf, who had befriended me ; and conclud-
ing at last that my part in the affair at Brouage had come
to the king's ears, though I could not conceive through
whom, I passed through the castle gates with an air of
confidence and elation which was not unnatural, I think,
under the circumstances. Thence, following my guide, I
mounted the ramp and entered the courtyard.
A number of grooms and valets were lounging here, some
leading horses to and fro, others exchanging jokes with the
wenches who leaned from the windows, while their fellows
again stamped up and down to keep their feet warm, or
played ball against the wall in imitation of their masters.
Such knaves are ever more insolent than their betters ; but
I remarked that they made way for me with respect, and
with rising spirits, yet a little irony, I reminded myself as
I mounted the stairs of the words, 'whom the king de-
lighteth to honour! '
Reaching the head of the flight, where was a soldier on
guard, the page opened the door of the antechamber, and
standing aside bade me enter. I did so, and heard the
door close behind me.
For a moment I stood still, bashful and confused. It
seemed to me that there were a hundred people in the room,
and that half the eyes which met mine were women's.
6 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
Though I was not altogether a stranger to such state as the
Prince of Conde had maintained, this crowded anteroom
filled me with surprise, and even with a degree of awe, of
which I was the next moment ashamed. True, the flutter
of silk and gleam of jewels surpassed anything I had
then seen, for my fortunes had never led me to the king's
Court; but an instant's reflection reminded me that my
fathers had held their own in such scenes, and with a bow
regulated rather by this thought than by the shabbiness of
my dress, I advanced amid a sudden silence.
'M. de Marsac!' the page announced, in a tone which
sounded a little odd in my ears ; so much so, that I turned
quickly to look at him. He was gone, however, and when
I turned again the eyes which met mine were full of smiles.
A young girl who stood near me tittered. Put out of
countenance by this, I looked round in embarrassment to
find someone to whom I might apply.
The room was long and narrow, panelled in chestnut,
with a row of windows on the one hand, and two fireplaces,
now heaped with glowing logs, on the other. Between the
fireplaces stood a rack of arms. Round the nearer hearth
lounged a group of pages, the exact counterparts of the
young blade who had brought me hither ; and talking with
these were as many young gentlewomen. Two great hounds
lay basking in the heat, and coiled between them, with her
head on the back of the larger, was a figure so strange that
at another time I should have doubted my eyes. It wore the
fool's motley and cap and bells, but a second glance showed
me the features were a woman's. A torrent of black hair
flowed loose about her neck, her eyes shone with wild mer-
riment, and her face, keen, thin, and hectic, glared at me
from the dog's back. Beyond her, round the farther fire-
place, clustered more than a score of gallants and ladies, of
whom one presently advanced to me.
'Sir,' he said politely and I wished I could match his
bow 'you wished to see ? '
' The King of Navarre, ' I answered, doing my best.
THE SPORT OF FOOLS 7
He turned to the group behind him, and said, in a pecu-
liarly even, placid tone, 'He wishes to see the King of
Navarre.' Then in solemn silence he bowed to me again
and went back to his fellows.
Upon the instant, and before I could make up my mind
how to take this, a second tripped forward, and saluting
me, said, 'M. de Marsac, I think?'
'At your service, sir,' I rejoined. In my eagerness to
escape the gaze of all those eyes, and the tittering which
was audible behind me, I took a step forward to be in readi-
ness to follow him. But he gave no sign. 'M. de Marsac
to see the King of Navarre ' was all he said, speaking as
the other had done to those behind. And with that he too
wheeled round and went back to the fire.
I stared, a first faint suspicion of the truth aroused in my
mind. Before I could act upon it, however in such a sit-
uation it was no easy task to decide how to act a third
advanced with the same measured steps. 'By appointment
I think, sir? ' he said, bowing lower than the others.
'Yes,' I replied sharply, beginning to grow warm, 'by
appointment at noon.'
'M. de Marsac,' he announced in a sing-song tone to those
behind him, 'to see the King of Navarre by appointment at
noon.' And with a second bow while I grew scarlet with
mortification he too wheeled gravely round and returned
to the fireplace.
I saw another preparing to advance, but he came too late.
Whether my face of anger and bewilderment was too much
for them, or some among them lacked patience to see the
end, a sudden uncontrollable shout of laughter, in which
all the room joined, cut short the farce. God knows it hurt
me : I winced, I looked this way and that, hoping here or
there to find sympathy and help. But it seemed to me that
the place rang with gibes, that every panel framed, how-
ever I turned myself, a cruel, sneering face. One behind
me cried 'Old Clothes,' and when I turned the other hearth
whispered the taunt. It added a thousandfold to my em-
8 A GENTLEMAAT OF FRANCE
barrassment that there was in all a certain orderliness, so
that while no one moved, and none, while I looked at them,
raised their voices, I seemed the more singled out, and
placed as a butt in the midst.
One face amid the pyramid of countenances which hid
the farther fireplace so burned itself into my recollection in
that miserable moment, that I never thereafter forgot it; a
small, delicate woman's face, belonging to a young girl who
stood boldly in front of her companions. It was a face full
of pride, and, as I saw it then, of scorn scorn that scarcely
deigned to laugh; while the girl's graceful figure, slight
and maidenly, yet perfectly proportioned, seemed instinct
with the same feeling of contemptuous amusement.
The play, which seemed long enough to me, might have
lasted longer, seeing that no one there had pity on me, had
I not, in my desperation, espied a door at the farther end of
the room, and concluded, seeing no other, that it was the
door of the king's bedchamber. The mortification I was
suffering was so great that I did not hesitate, but advanced
with boldness towards it. On the instant there was a lull
in the laughter round me, and half a dozen voices called on
me to stop.
'I have come to see the king,' I answered, turning on
them fiercely, for I was by this time in no mood for brow-?
beating, 'and I will see him! '
'He is out hunting,' cried all with one accord; and
they signed imperiously to me to go back the way I had
come.
But having the king's appointment safe in my pouch, I
thought I had good reason to disbelieve them; and taking
advantage of their surprise for they had not expected so
bold a step on my part I was at the door before they could
prevent me. I heard Mathurine, the fool, who had sprung
to her feet, cry 'Pardieu! he will take the Kingdom of
Heaven by force! ' And those were the last words I heard;
for, as I lifted the latch there was no one on guard there
a sudden swift silence fell upon the room behind me.
THE SPORT OF FOOLS 9
I pushed the door gently open and went in. There were
two men sitting in one of the windows, who turned and
looked angrily towards me. For the rest the room was
empty. The king's walking-shoes lay by his chair, and
beside them the boot-hooks and jack. A dog before the fire
got up slowly and growled, and one of the men, rising from
the trunk on which he had been sitting, came towards me
and asked me, with every sign of irritation, what I wanted
there, and who had given me leave to enter.
I was beginning to explain, with some diffidence the
stillness of the room sobering me that I wished to see the
king, when he who had advanced took me up sharply with,
'The king? the king? He is not here, man. He is hunting
at St. Valery. Did they not tell you so outside? '
I thought I recognised the speaker, than whom I have
seldom seen a man more grave and thoughtful for his years,
which were something less than mine, more striking in pres-
ence, or more soberly dressed. And being desirous to
evade his question, I asked him if I had not the honour to
address M. du Plessis Mornay; for that wise and courtly
statesman, now a pillar of Henry's counsels, it was.
'The same, sir,' he replied abruptly, and without taking
his eyes from me. 'I am Mornay. What of that? '
'I am M. de Marsac,' I explained. And there I stopped,
supposing that, as he was in the king's confidence, this
would make my errand clear to him.
But I was disappointed. 'Well, sir?' he said, and
waited impatiently.
So cold a reception, following such treatment as I had
suffered outside, would have sufficed to have dashed my
spirits utterly had I not felt the king's letter in my pocket.
Being pretty confident, however, that a single glance at
this would alter M. du Mornay 's bearing for the better, I
hastened, looking on it as a kind of talisman, to draw it out
and present it to him.
He took it, and looked at it, and opened it, but with so
cold and immovable an aspect as made my heart sink more
10 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
than all that had gone before. 'What is amiss?' I oried,
unable to keep silence. "Tis from the king, sir.'
'A king in motley! ' he answered, his lip curling.
The sense of his words did not at once strike home to me,
and I murmured, in great disorder, that the king had sent
for me.
'The king knows nothing of it,' was his blunt answer,
bluntly given. And he thrust the paper back into my
hands. 'It is a trick,' he continued, speaking with the
same abruptness, 'for which you have doubtless to thank
some of those idle young rascals without. You had sent an
application to the king, I suppose? Just so. No doubt
they got hold of it, and this is the result. They ought to
be whipped.'
It was not possible for me to doubt any longer that what
he said was true. I saw in a moment all my hopes vanish,
all my plans flung to the winds ; and in the first shock of
the discovery I could neither find voice to answer him nor
strength to withdraw. In a kind of vision I seemed to see
my own lean, haggard face looking at me as in a glass, and,
reading despair in my eyes, could have pitied myself.
My disorder was so great that M. du Mornay observed it.
Looking more closely at me, he two or three times muttered
my name, and at last said, 'M. de Mar sac? Ha! I remem-
ber. You were in the affair of Brouage, were you not? '
I nodded my head in token of assent, being unable at the
moment to speak, and so shaken that perforce I leaned
against the wall, my head sunk on my breast. The memory
of my age, my forty years, and my poverty, pressed hard
upon me, filling me with despair and bitterness. I could
have wept, but no tears came.
M. du Mornay, averting his eyes from me, took two or
three short, impatient turns up and dowu the chamber.
When he addressed me again his tone was full of respect,
mingled with such petulance as one brave man might feel,
seeing another so hard pressed. 'M. de Marsac,' he said,
'you have my sympathy. It is a shame that men who have
THE SPORT OF FOOLS 1 1
served the cause should be reduced to such straits. Were
it possible for me to increase my own train at present, I
should consider it an honour to have you with me. But
I am hard put to it myself, and so are we all, and the King
of Navarre not least among us. He has lived for a month
upon a wood which M. de Rosny has cut down. I will
mention your name to him, but I should be cruel rather
than kind were I not to warn you that nothing can come
of it.'
With that he offered me his hand, and, cheered as much
by this mark of consideration as by the kindness of his ex-
pressions, I rallied my spirits. True, I wanted comfort
more substantial, but it was not to be had. I thanked him
therefore as becomingly as I could, and seeing there was no
help for it, took my leave of him, and slowly and sorrow-
fully withdrew from the room.
Alas ! to escape I had to face the outside world, for which
his kind words were an ill preparation. I had to run the
gauntlet of the antechamber. The moment I appeared,
or rather the moment the door closed behind me, I was
hailed with a shout of derision. While one cried, 'Way!
way for the gentleman who has seen the king ! ' another
hailed me uproariously as Governor of Guyenne, and a third
requested a commission in my regiment.
. I heard these taunts with a heart full almost to bursting.
It seemed to me an unworthy thing that, merely by reason
of my poverty, I should be derided by youths who had still
all their battles before them ; but to stop or reproach them
would only, as I well knew, make matters worse, and,
moreover, I was so sore stricken that I had little spirit left
even to speak. Accordingly, I made my way through them
with what speed I might, my head bent, and my counte-
nance heavy with shame and depression. In this way I
wonder there were not among them some generous enough
to pity me I had nearly gained the door, and was begin-
ning to breathe, when I found my path stopped by that par-
ticular young lady of the Court whom I have described
12 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
above. Something had for the moment diverted her atten-
tion from me, and it required a word from her companions
to apprise her of my near neighbourhood. She turned
then, as one taken by surprise, and finding me so close to
her that my feet all but touched her gown, she stepped
quickly aside, and with a glance as cruel as her act, drew
her skirts away from contact with me.
The insult stung me, I know not why, more than all the
gibes which were being flung at me from every side, and
moved by a sudden impulse I stopped, and in the bitter-
ness of my heart spoke to her. 'Mademoiselle,' I said,
bowing low for, as I have stated, she was small, and more
like a fairy than a woman, though her face expressed both
pride and self-will 'Mademoiselle,' I said sternly, 'such
as I am, I have fought for France! Some day you may
learn that there are viler things in the world and have to
bear them than a poor gentleman ! '
The words were scarcely out of my mouth before I re-
pented of them, for Mathurine, the fool, who was at my
elbow, was quick to turn them into ridicule. Raising her
hands above our heads, as in act to bless us, she cried out
that Monsieur, having gained so rich an office, desired a
bride to grace it; and this, bringing down upon us a coarse
shout of laughter and some coarser gibes, I saw the young
girl's face flush hotly.
The next moment a voice in the crowd cried roughly,
'Out upon his wedding suit! ' and with that a sweetmeat
struck me in the face. Another and another followed, cov-
ering me with flour and comfits. This was the last straw.
For a moment, forgetting where I was, I turned upon them,
red and furious, every hair in my moustachios bristling.
The next, the full sense of my impotence and of the folly
of resentment prevailed with me, and, dropping my head
upon my breast, I rushed from the room.
I believe that the younger among them followed me, and
that the cry of ' Old Clothes ! ' pursued me evea to the door
of my lodgings in the Rue de la Coutellerie. But in the
THE KING OF NAVARRE 13
misery of the moment, and my strong desire to be within
doors and alone, I barely noticed this, and am not certain
whether it was so or not.
CHAPTER II.
THE KING OF NAVARRE.
I HAVE already referred to the danger with which the
alliance between Henry the Third and the League menaced
us, an alliance whereof the news, it was said, had blanched
the King of Navarre's moustache in a single night. Not-
withstanding this, the Court had never shown itself more
frolicsome or more free from care than at the time of which
I am speaking; even the lack of money seemed for the
moment forgotten. One amusement followed another, and
though, without doubt, something was doing under the sur-
face for the wiser of his foes held our prince in particular
dread when he seemed most deeply sunk in pleasure to
the outward eye St. Jean d'Angely appeared to be given
over to enjoyment from one end to the other.
The stir and bustle of the Court reached me even in my
garret, and contributed to make that Christmas, which fell
on a Sunday, a trial almost beyond sufferance. All day
long the rattle of hoofs on the pavement, and the laughter
of riders bent on diversion, came up to me, making the
hard stool seem harder, the bare walls more bare, and in-
creasing a hundredfold the solitarj 1 - gloom in which I sat.
For as sunshine deepens the shadows which fall athwart it,
and no silence is like that which follows the explosion of
a mine, so sadness and poverty are never more intolerable
than when hope and wealth rub elbows with them.
True, the great sermon which M. d' Amours preached in
the market-house on the morning of Christmas-day cheered
me, as it cheered all the more sober spirits. I was present
14 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
myself, sitting in an obscure corner of the building, and
heard the famous prediction, which was so soon to be ful-
filled. 'Sire,' said the preacher, turning to the King, of
Navarre, and referring, with the boldness that ever charac-
terised that great man and noble Christian, to the attempt
then being made to exclude the prince from the succession
'Sire, what God at your birth gave you man cannot take
away. A little while, a little patience, and you shall cause
us to preach beyond the Loire! With you for our Joshua
we shall cross the Jordan, and in the Promised Land the
Church shall be set up.'
Words so brave, and so well adapted to encourage the
Huguenots in the crisis through which their affairs were
then passing, charmed all hearers ; save indeed, those and
they were few who, being devoted to the Vicomte de Tu-
renne, disliked, though they could not controvert, this pub-
lic acknowledgment of the King of Navarre as the Huguenot
leader. The pleasure of those present was evinced in a
hundred ways, and to such an extent that even I returned
to my chamber soothed and exalted, and found, in dream-
ing of the speedy triumph of the cause, some compensation
for my own ill-fortune.
As the day wore on, however, and the evening brought
no change, but presented to me the same dreary prospect
with which morning had made me familiar, I .confess with-
out shame that my heart sank once more, particularly as I
saw that I should be forced in a day or two to sell either
my remaining horse or some part of my equipment as
essential; a step which I could not contemplate without
feelings of the utmost despair. In this state of mind I was
adding up by the light of a solitary candle the few coins I
had left, when I heard footsteps ascending the stairs. 1
made them out to be the steps of two persons, and was still
lost in conjectures who they might be, when a hand knocked
gently at my door.
Fearing another trick, I did not at once open, the more
as there was something stealthy and insinuating in the
THE KING OF NAVARRE 15
knock. Thereupon my visitors held a whispered consulta-
tion; then they, knocked again. I asked loudly who was
there, but to this they did not choose to give any answer,
while I, on my part, determined not to open until they did.
The door was strong, and I smiled grimly at the thought
that this time they would have their trouble for their pains.
To my surprise, however, they did not desist, and go
away, as I expected, but continued to knock at intervals
and whisper much between times. More than once they
called me softly by name and bade me open, but as they
steadily refrained from saying who they were, I sat still.
Occasionally I heard them laugh, but under their breath as
it were ; and persuaded by this that they were bent on a
frolic, I might have persisted in my silence until midnight,
which was not more than two hours off, had not a slight
sound, as of a rat gnawing behind the wainscot, drawn my
attention to the door. Eaising my candle and shading my
eyes I espied something small and bright protruding be-
neath it, and sprang up, thinking they were about to prise
it in. To my surprise, however, I could discover, on tak-
ing the candle to the threshold, nothing more threatening
than a couple of gold livres, which had been thrust through
the crevice between the door and the floor.
My astonishment may be conceived. I stood for full a
minute staring at the coins, the candle in my hand. Then,
reflecting that the young sparks at the Court would be very
unlikely to spend such a sum on a jest, I hesitated no
longer, but putting down the candle, drew the bolt of the
door, purposing to confer with my visitors outside. In
this, however, I was disappointed, for the moment the
door was open they pushed forcibly past me and, entering the
room pell-mell, bade me by signs to close the door again.
I did so suspiciously, and without averting my eyes from
my visitors. Great were my embarrassment and confusion,
therefore, when, the door being shut, they dropped their
cloaks one after the other, and I saw before me M. du Mor-
nay and the well-known figure of the King of Navarre.
16 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
They seemed so much diverted, looking at one another
and laughing, that for a moment I thought some chance
resemblance deceived me, and that here were my jokers
again. Hence while a man might count ten I stood staring;
and the king was the first to speak. 'We have made no
mistake, Du Mornay, have we? ' he said, casting a laughing
glance at me.
'No, sire,' Da Mornay answered. 'This is the Sieur de
Marsac, the gentleman whom I mentioned to you.'
I hastened, confused, wondering, and with a hundred
apologies, to pay my respects to the king. He speedily
cut me short, however, saying, with an air of much kind-
ness, 'Of Marsac, in Brittany, I think, sir?'
'The same, sire.'
'Then you are of the family of Bonne? '
'I am the last survivor of that family, sire,' I answered
respectfully.
'It has played its pa.rt,' he rejoined. And therewith he
took his seat on my stool with an easy grace which charmed
me. 'Your motto is " Bonne foi," is it not? And Marsac,
if I remember rightly, is not far from Kennes, on the
Vilaine? '
I answered that it Was, adding, with a full heart, that it
grieved me to be compelled to receive so great a prince in
so poor a lodging.
'Well, I confess,' Du Mornay struck in, looking care-
lessly round him, 'you have a queer taste, M. de Marsac,
in the arrangement of your furniture. You '
'Mornay! ' the king cried sharply.
'Sire?'
'Chut! your elbow is in the candle. Beware of it! '
But I well understood him. If my heart had been full
before, it overflowed now. Poverty is not so shameful as
the shifts to which it drives men. I had been compelled
some days before, in order to make as good a show as possi-
ble since it is the undoubted duty of a gentleman to hide
his nakedness from impertinent eyes, and especially from
THE KING OF NAVARRE 17
the eyes of the canaille, who are wont to judge from exter-
nals to remove such of my furniture and equipage as re-
mained to that side of the room, which was visible from
without when the door was open. This left the farther side
of the room vacant and bare. To anyone within doors the
artitice was, of course, apparent, and I am bound to say
that M. du Mornay's words brought the blood to my brow.
I rejoiced, however, a moment later that he had uttered
them; for without them I might never have known, or
known so early, the kindness of heart and singular quick-
ness of apprehension which ever distinguished the king, my
master. So, in my heart, I began to call him from that
hour.
The King of Navarre was at this time thirty-five years
old, his hair brown, his complexion ruddy, his moustache,
on one side at least, beginning to turn grey. His features,
which Nature had cast in a harsh and imperious mould,
were relieved by a constant sparkle and animation such as
I have never seen in any other man, but in him became
ever more conspicuous in gloomy and perilous times. In-
ured to danger from his earliest youth, he had come to
enjoy it as others a festival, hailing its advent with a reck-
less gaiety which astonished even brave men, and led others
to think him the least prudent of mankind. Yet such he
was not: nay, he was the opposite of this. Never did
Marshal of France make more careful dispositions for a
battle albeit once in it he bore himself like any captain of
horse nor ever did Du Mornay himself sit down to a con-
ference with a more accurate knowledge of affairs. His
prodigious wit and the affability of his manners, while they
endeared him to his servants, again and again blinded his
adversaries; who, thinking that so much brilliance could
arise only from a shallow nature, found when it was too
late that they had been outwitted by him whom they con-
temptuously styled the Prince of Beam, a man a hundred-
fold more astute than themselves, and master alike of pen
and sword.
1 8 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
Much of this, which all the world now knows, I learned
afterwards. At the moment I could think of little save the
king's kindness; to which he added by insisting that I
should sit on the bed while we talked. 'You wonder, M.
de Marsac,' he said, 'what brings me here, and why 1 have
come to you instead of sending for you? Still more, per-
haps, why I have come to you at night and with such pre-
cautions? I will tell you. But first, that my coming may
not fill you with false hopes, let me say frankly, that
though I may relieve your present necessities, whether you
fall into the plan I am going to mention, or not, I cannot
take you into my service; wherein, indeed, every post is
doubly filled. Du Mornay mentioned your name to me,
but in fairness to others I had to answer that I could do
nothing.'
I am bound to confess that this strange exordium dashed
hopes which had already risen to a high pitch. Recover-
ing myself as quickly as possible, however, I murmured
that the honour of a visit from the King of Navarre was
sufficient happiness for me.
'Nay, but that honour I must take from you' he replied,
smiling; 'though I see that you would make an excellent
courtier far better than Du Mornay here, who never in
his life made so pretty a speech. For I must lay my
commands on you to keep this visit a secret, M. de Marsac.
Should but the slightest whisper of it get abroad, your use-
fulness, as far as I am concerned, would be gone, and gone
for good! '
So remarkable a statement filled me with wonder I
could scarcely disguise. It was with difficulty I found
words to assure the king that his commands should be
faithfully obeyed.
'Of that I am sure,' he answered with the utmost kind-
ness. 'Were I not, and sure, too, from what I am told of
your gallantry when my cousin took Brouage, that you are
a man of deeds rather than words, I should not be here
with the proposition I am going to lay before you. It is
THE KING OF NAVARRE 19
tbV I can give you no hope of public employment, M. de
Mar-sac, but I can offer you an adventure if adventures be
to your taste as dangerous and as thankless as any Amadis
ever undertook.'
'As thankless, sire?' I stammered, doubting if I had
heard aright, the expression was so strange.
'As thankless,' he answered, his keen eyes seeming to
read my soul. 'I am frank with you, you see, sir,' he con-
tinued, carelessly. 'I can suggest this adventure it is for
the good of the State I can do no more. The King of
Navarre cannot appear in it, nor can he protect you.
Succeed or fail in it, you stand alone. The only promise I
make is, that if it ever be safe for me to acknowledge the
act, I will reward the doer.'
He paused, and for a few moments I stared at him in
sheer amazement. What did he mean? Were he and the
other real figures, or was I dreaming?
'Do you understand?' he asked at length, with a touch
of impatience.
'Yes, sire, I think I do,' I murmured, very certain in
truth and reality that I did not.
'What do you say, then yes or no? ' he rejoined. 'Will
you undertake the adventure, or would you hear more be-
fore you make up your mind? '
I hesitated. Had I been a younger man by ten years I
should doubtless have cried assent there and then, having
been all my life ready enough to embark on such enterprises
as offered a chance of distinction. But something in the
strangeness of the king's preface, although I had it in my
heart to die for him, gave me check, and I answered, with
an air of great humility, 'You will think me but a poor
courtier now, sire, yet he is a fool who jumps into a ditch
without measuring the depth. I would fain, if I may say
it without disrespect, hear all that you can tell me.'
'Then I fear,' he answered quickly, 'if you would have
more light on the matter, my friend, you must get another
candle.'
c2
2O
I started, he spoke so abruptly; but perceiving that the
candle had indeed burned down to the socket, I rose, with
many apologies, and fetched another from the cupboard. It
did not occur to me at the moment, though it did later, that
the king had purposely sought this opportunity of consult-
ing with his companion. I merely remarked, when I re-
turned to my place on the bed, that they were sitting a little
nearer one another, and that the king eyed me before he
spoke though he still swung one foot carelessly in the ai)
with close attention.
' I speak to you, of course, sir, ' he presently went on, ' in
confidence, believing you to be an honourable as well as a
brave man. That which I wish you to do is briefly, and in
a word, to carry off a lady. Nay, ' he added quickly, with
a laughing grimace, 'have no fear! She is no sweetheart of
mine, nor should I go to my grave friend here did I need
assistance of that kind. Henry of Bourbon, I pray God,
will always be able to free his own lady-love. This is a
State affair, and a matter of quite another character,
though we cannot at present entrust you with the meaning
of it.'
I bowed in silence, feeling somewhat chilled and per-
plexed, as who would not, having such an invitation before
him? I had anticipated an affair with men only a secret
assault or a petard expedition. But seeing the bareness of
my room, and the honour the king was doing me, I felt I
had no choice, and I answered, 'That being the case, sire,
I am wholly at your service.'
'That is well,' he answered briskly, though methought he
looked at Du Mornay reproachfully, as doubting his com-
mendation of me. 'But will yoxi say the same,' he contin-
ued, removing his eyes to me, and speaking slowly, as
though he would try me, 'when I tell you that the lady to
be carried off is the ward of the Vicomte de Turenne, whose
arm is well-nigh as long as my own, and who would fain
make it longer; who never travels, as he told me yester-
day, with less than fifty gentlemen, and has a thousand
THE KING OF NAVARRE 21
arquebusiers in his pay? Is the adventure still to your
liking, M. de Marsac, now that you knew that? '
'It is more to my liking, sire,' 1 answered stoutly.
'Understand this too,' he rejoined. 'It is essential that
this lady, who is at present confined in the Vicouite's house
at Chize, should be released; but it is equally essential that
there should be no breach between the Vicomte and myself.
Therefore the affair must be the work of an independent
man, who has never been in my service, nor in any way
connected with me. If captured, you pay the penalty with-
out recourse to me. '
'I fully understand, sire,' I answered.
'Ventre Saint Gris! ' he cried, breaking into a low laugh.
'I swear the man is more afraid of the lady than he is of
the Vicomte ! That is not the way of most of our Court. '
Du Mornay, wlio had been sitting nursing his knee in
silence, pursed up his lips, though it was easy to see that
he was well content with the king's approbation. He now
intervened. 'With your permission, sire,' he said, 'I will
let this gentleman know the details.'
'Do, my friend,' the king answered. 'And be short, for
if we are here much longer I shall be missed, and in a
twinkling the Court will have found me a new mistress.'
He spoke in jest and with a laugh, but I saw Du Mornay
start at the words, as though they were little to his liking;
and I learned afterwards that the Court was really much
exercised at this time with the question who would be the
next favourite, the king's passion for the Countess de
la Guiche being evidently on the wane, and that which he
presently evinced for Madame de Guercheville being as yet
a matter of conjecture.
Du Mornay took no overt notice of the king's words,
however, but proceeded to give me my directions. 'Chize,
which you know by name,' he said, 'is six leagues from
here. Mademoiselle de la Vire is confined in the north-
west room, on the first-floor, overlooking the park. More
I cannot tell you, except that her woman' r- name is Fan-
22 A GENTLEMAN" OF FRANCE
chette, and that she is to be trusted. The house is welj.
guarded, and you will need four or five men. There are
plenty of cut-throats to be hired, only see, M. de Marsac,
that they are such as you can manage, and that Mademoi-
selle takes no hurt among them. Have horses in waiting,
and the moment you have released the lady ride north with
her as fast as her strength will permit. Indeed, you must
not spare her, if Turenne be on your heels. You should
be across the Loire in sixty hours after leaving Chize.'
'Across the Loire?' I exclaimed in astonishment.
'Yes, sir, across the Loire,' he replied, with some stern-
ness. 'Your task, be good enough to understand, is to con-
voy Mademoiselle de la Vire with all speed to Blois. There,
attracting as little notice as may be, you will inquire for
the Baron de Eosny at the Bleeding Heart, in the Rue de
St. Denys. He will take charge of the lady, or direct you
how to dispose of her, and your task will then be accom-
plished. You follow me? '
'Perfectly,' I answered, speaking in my turn with some
dryness. 'But Mademoiselle I understand is young. What
if she will not accompany me, a stranger, entering her room
at night, and by the window? '
'That has been thought of was the answer. He turned
to the King of Navarre, who, after a moment's search, pro-
duced a small object from his pouch. This he gave to his
companion, and the latter transferred it to me. I took it
with curiosity. It was the half of a gold carolus, the broken
edge of the coin being rough and jagged. 'Show that to
Mademoiselle, my friend,' Du Mornay continued, 'and she
will accompany you. She has the other half.'
'But be careful,' Henry added eagerly, 'to make no men-
tion, even to her, of the King of Navarre. You mark me,
M. de Marsac! If you have at any time occasion to speak
of me, you may have the honour of calling me your friend,
and referring to me always in the same manner. '
This he said with so gracious an air that I was charmed,
and thought myself happy indeed to be addressed in this
THE KING OF NAVARRE 23
wise by a prince whose name was already so glorious. Nor
was my satisfaction diminished when his companion drew
out a bag containing, as he told me, three hundred crowns
in gold, and placed it in my hands, bidding me defray there-
from the cost of the journey. 'Be careful, however,' he
added earnestly, 'to avoid, in hiring your men, any appear-
ance of wealth, lest the adventure seem to be suggested by
some outside person; instead of being dictated by the des-
perate state of your own fortunes. Promise rather than give,
so far as that will avail. And for what you must give, let
each livre seem to be the last in your pouch. '
Henry nodded assent. 'Excellent advice! ' he muttered,
rising and drawing on his cloak, 'such as you ever give me,
Mornay, and I as seldom take more's the pity! But, after
all, of little avail without this.' He lifted my sword from
the table as he spoke, and weighed it in his hand. 'A
pretty tool, ' he continued, turning suddenly and looking me
very closely in the face. 'A very pretty tool. Were I in
your place, M. de Marsac, I would see that it hung loose
in the scabbard. Ay, and more, man, use it ! ' he added,
sinking his voice and sticking out his chin, while his grey
eyes, looking ever closer into mine, seemed to grow cold
and hard as steel. 'Use it to the last, for if you fall into
Turenne's hands, God help you! I cannot! '
'If I am taken, sire,' I answered, trembling, but not with
fear, 'my fate be on my own head.'
I saw the king's eyes soften at that, and his face change
so swiftly that I scarce knew him for the same man. He
let the weapon drop with a clash on the table. 'Ventre
Saint Gris ! ' he exclaimed with a strange thrill of yearning
in his tone. 'I swear by God, I would I were in your
shoes, sir. To strike a blow or two with no care what
came of it. To take the road with a good horse a^d a good
sword, and see what fortune would send. To be rid of all
this statecraft and protocolling, and never to issue another
declaration in this world, but just to be for once a Gentle-
man of France, with all to win and nothing to lose save the
24 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
love of my lady ! Ah ! Mornay, would it not be sweet to
leave all this fret and fume, and ride away to the green
woods by Coarraze? '
'Certainly, if you prefer them to the Louvre, sire,' Du
Mornay answered drily; while I stpod, silent and amazed,
before this strange man, who could so suddenly change
from grave to gay, and one moment spoke so sagely, and
the next like any wild lad in his teens. 'Certainly,' he
answered, 'if that be your choice, sire; and if you think
that even there the Duke of Guise will leave you in peace.
Turenne, I am sure, will be glad to hear of your decision.
Doubtless he will be elected Protector of the Churches.
Nay, sire, for shame! ' Du Mornay continued, almost with
sternness. 'Would you leave France, which at odd times I
have heard you say you loved, to shift for herself? Would
you deprive her of the only man who does love her for her
own sake? '
'Well, well, but she is such a fickle sweetheart, my friend, '
the king answered, laughing, the side glance of his eye on
me. 'Never was one so coy or so hard to clip! And, be-
sides, has not the Pope divorced us? '
'The Pope! A fig for the Pope! ' Du Mornay rejoined
with impatient heat. 'What has he to do with France?
An impertinent meddler, and an Italian to boot! I would
he and all the brood of them were sunk a hundred fathoms
deep in the sea. But, meantime, I would send him a text
to digest.'
'Exemplum ? ' said the king.
'Whom God has joined together let no man put asunder.'
'Amen! ' quoth Henry softly. 'And France is a fair and
comely bride.'
After that he kept such a silence, falling as it seemed to
me into a brown study, that he went away without so much
as bidding me farewell, or being conscious, as far as I could
tell, of my presence. Du Mornay exchanged a few words
with me, to assure himself that I understood what I had to
do, and then, with many kind expressions, which I did not
BOOT AND SADDLE 25
fail to treasure up and con over in the times that were
coming, hastened downstairs after his master.
My joy when I found myself alone may be conceived.
Yet was it no ecstasy, but a sober exhilaration; such as
stirred my pulses indeed, and bade me once more face the
world with a firm eye and an assured brow, but was far
from holding out before me a troubadour's palace or any
dazzling prospect. The longer I dwelt on the interview,
the more clearly I saw the truth. As the glamour which
Henry's presence and singular kindness had cast over me
began to lose some of its power, I recognised more and more
surely why he had come to me. It was not out of any
special favour for one whom he knew by report only, if at
all by name ; but because he had need of a man poor, and
therefore reckless, middle-aged (of which comes discretion),
obscure therefore a safe instrument ; to crown all, a gen-
tleman, seeing that both a secret and a woman were in
question.
Withal I wondered too. Looking from the bag of money
on the table to the broken coin in my hand, I scarcely knew
which to admire more : the confidence which entrusted the
one to a man broken and beggared, or the courage of the
gentlewoman who should accompany me on the faith of
the other.
CHAPTER III.
BOOT AND SADDLE.
As was natural, I meditated deeply and far into the night
on the difficulties of the task entrusted to me. I saw that
it fell into two parts : the release of the lady, and her safe
conduct to Blois, a distance of sixty leagues. The release
I thought it probable I could effect single-handed, or with
one companion only; but in the troubled condition of the
country at this time, more particularly on both sides of the
26 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
Loire, I scarcely saw how I could ensure a lady's safety on
the road northwards unless I had with me at least five
swords.
To get these together at a few hours' notice promised to
be no easy task; although the presence of the Court of
Navarre had filled St. Jean with a crowd of adventurers.
Yet the king's command was urgent, and at some sacrifice,
even at some risk, must be obeyed. Pressed by these con-
siderations, I could think of no better man to begin with
than Fresnoy.
His character was bad, and he had long forfeited such
claim as he had ever possessed I believe it was a misty
one ? on the distaff side to gentility. But the same cause
which had rendered me destitute I mean the death of the
Prince of Conde had stripped him to the last rag; and
this, perhaps, inclining me to serve him, I was the more
quick to see his merits. I knew him already for a hardy,
reckless man, very capable of striking a shrewd blow. I
gave him credit for being trusty, as long as his duty jumped
with his interest.
Accordingly, as soon as it was light, having fed and
groomed the Cid, which was always the first employment
of my day, I set out in search of Fresnoy, and was pres-
ently lucky enough to find him taking his morning draught
outside the 'Three Pigeons,' a little inn not far from the
north gate. It was more than a fortnight since I had set
eyes on him, and the lapse of time had worked so great a
change for the worse in him that, forgetting my own shab-
biness, I looked at him askance, as doubting the wisdom of
enlisting one who bore so plainly the marks of poverty and
dissipation. His great face he was a large man had
suffered recent ill-usage, and was swollen and discoloured,
one eye being as good as closed. He was unshaven, his
hair was ill-kempt, his doublet unfastened at the throat,
and torn and stained besides. Despite the cold for the
morning was sharp and frosty, though free from wind
there were half a dozen packmen drinking and squabbling
BOOT AND SADDLE 27
before the inn, while the beasts they drove quenched their
thirst at the trough. But these men seemed with one
accord to leave him in possession of the bench at which he
sat; nor did I wonder much at this when I saw the morose
and savage glance which he shot at me as I approached.
Whether he read my first impressions in my face, or for
some other reason felt distaste for my company, I could not
determine. But, undeterred by his behaviour, I sat down
beside him and called for wine.
He nodded sulkily in answer to my greeting, and cast a
half-shamed, half-angry look at me out of the corners of
his eyes. 'You need not look at me as though I were a
dog,' he muttered presently. 'You are not so very spruce
yourself, my friend. But I suppose you have grown proud
since you got that fat appointment at Court!' And he
laughed out loud, so that I confess I was in two minds
whether I should not force the jest down his ugly throat.
However I restrained myself, though my cheeks burned.
'You have heard about it, then,' I said, striving to speak
indifferently.
'Who has not?' he said, laughing with his lips, though
his eyes were far from merry. 'The Sieur de Marsac's ap-
pointment! Ha! ha! Why, man '
'Enough of it now!' I exclaimed. And I dare say I
writhed on my seat. 'As far as I am concerned the jest is
a stale one, sir, and does not amuse me.'
'But it amuses me,' he rejoined with a grin.
'Let it be, nevertheless,' I said; and I think he read a
warning in my eyes. 'I have come to speak to you upon
another matter.'
He did not refuse to listen, but threw one leg over the
other, and looking up at the inn-sign began to whistle in a
rude, offensive manner. Still, having an object in view, I
controlled myself and continued. 'It is this, my friend:
money is not very plentiful at present with either of us.'
Before I could say any more he turned on me savagely,
and with a loud oath thrust his bloated face, flushed with
28 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
passion, close to mine. 'Now look here, M. de Marsacl
he cried violently, 'once for all, it is no good! I have not
got the money, and I cannot pay it. I said a fortnight ago,
when you lent it, that you should have it this week. Well, '
slapping his hand on the bench, 'I have not got it, and it
is no good beginning upon me. You cannot have it, and
that is flat! '
'Damn the money! ' I cried.
'What? ' he exclaimed, scarcely believing his ears.
'Let the money be! ' I repeated fiercely. 'Do you hear?
I have not come about it. I am here to offer you work
good, well-paid work if you will enlist with me and play
me fair, Fresnoy.'
'Play fair! ' he cried with an oath.
'There, there,' I said, 'I am willing to let bygones be by-
gones if you are. The point is, that I have an adventure
on hand, and, wanting help, can pay you for it.'
He looked at me cunningly, his eye travelling over each
rent and darn in my doublet. 'I will help you fast enough,'
he said at last. 'But I should like to see the money first.'
'You shall,' I answered.
'Then I am with you, my friend. Count on me til?
death! ' he cried, rising and laying his hand in mine with a
boisterous frankness which did not deceive me into trusting
him far. 'And now, whose is the affair, and what is it? '
'The affair is mine,' I said coldly. 'It is to carry off a
lady.'
He whistled and looked me over again, an impudent leer
in his eyes. 'A lady?' he exclaimed. 'Umph! I could
understand a young spark going in for such but that's
your affair. Who is it? '
'That is my affair, too,' I ansAvered coolly, disgusted by
the man's venality and meanness, and fully persuaded that
I must trust him no farther than the length of my sword.
'All I want you to do, M. Fresnoy,' I continued stiffly, 'is
to place yourself at my disposal and under my orders for
ten days. I will find you a horse and pay you the enter
BOOT AND SADDLE 29
prise is a hazardous one, and 1 take that into account two
gold crowns a day, and ten more if we succeed in reaching
a place of safety.'
'Such a place as '
'Never mind that,' I replied. 'The question is, do you
accept? '
He looked down sullenly, and I could see he was greatly
angered by my determination to keep the matter to myself.
'Am I to know no more than that? ' he asked, digging the
point of his scabbard again and again into the ground.
'No more,' I answered firmly. 'I am bent on a desperate
attempt to mend my fortunes before they fall as low as
yours; and that is as much as I mean to tell living man.
Tf you are loth to risk your life with your eyes shut, say
, and I will go to someone else.'
But he was not in a position, as I well knew, to refuse
such an offer, and presently he accepted it with a fresh
semblance of heartiness. I told him I should want four
troopers to escort us, and these he offered to procure, say-
ing that he knew just the knaves to suit me. I bade him
hire two only, however, being too wise to put myself alto-
gether in his hands; and then, having given him money to
buy himself a horse I made it a term that the men should
bring their own and named a rendezvous for the firsi; hour
after noon, I parted from him and went rather sadly away.
For I began to see that the king had not underrated the
dangers of an enterprise on which none but desperate men
and such as were down in the world could be expected to
embark. Seeing this, and also a thing which followed
clearly from it that I should have as much to fear from
my own company as from the enemy I looked forward
with little hope to a journey during every day and every
hour of which I must bear a growing weight of fear and
responsibility.
It was too late to turn back, however, and I went about
my preparations, if with little cheerfulness, at least with
steadfast purpose. I had my sword ground and my pistols
30 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
put in order by the cutler over whom I lodged, and who
performed this last office for me with the same goodwill
which had characterised all his dealings with me. I sought
out and hired a couple of stout fellows whom I believed to
be indifferently honest, but who possessed the advantage of
having horses; and besides bought two led horses myself
for mademoiselle and her woman. Such other equipments
as were absolutely necessary I purchased, reducing my stock
of money in this way to two hundred and ten crowns. How
to dispose of this sum so that it might be safe and yet at
my command was a question which greatly exercised me.
In the end I had recourse to my friend the cutler, who sug-
gested hiding a hundred crowns of it in my cap, and deftly
contrived a place for the purpose. This, the cap being
lined with steel, was a matter of no great difficulty. A
second hundred I sewed up in the stuffing of my saddle,
placing the remainder in my pouch for present necessities.
A small rain was falling in the streets when, a little
after noon, I started with my two knaves behind me and
made for the north gate. So many were moving this way
and the other that we passed unnoticed, ana might have
done so had we numbered six swords instead of three.
When we reached the rendezvous, a mile beyond the gate,
we found Fresnoy already there, taking shelter in the lee
of a big holly-tree. He had four horsemen with him, and
on our appearance rode forward to meet us, crying heartily,
'Welcome, M. le Capitaine ! '
'Welcome, certainly,' I answered, pulling the Cid up
sharply, and holding off from him. 'But who are these,
M. Fresnoy?' and I pointed with my riding-cane to his
four companions.
He tried to pass the matter off with a laugh. 'Oh!
these?' he said. 'That is soon explained. The Evangel-
ists would not be divided, so I brought them all Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John thinking it Hkely you might fail
to secure your men. And I will warrant them for four as
gallant boys as you will ever find behind you! '
BOOT AND SADDLE 31
They were certainly four as arrant ruffians as I had ever
seen before me, and I saw I must not hesitate. 'Two or
none, M. Fresnoy, ' I said firmly. 'I gave you a commis-
sion for two, and two I will take Matthew o,nd Mark, or
Luke and John, as you please.'
"Tis a pity to break the party,' said he, scowling.
'If that be all,' I retorted, 'one of my men is called John.
And we will dub the other Luke, if that will mend the
matter.'
'The Prince of Conde,' he muttered sullenly, 'employed
these men.'
'The Prince of Conde employed some queer people some-
times, M. Fresnoy,' I answered, looking him straight be-
tween the eyes, 'as we all must. A truce to this, if you
please. We will take Matthew and Mark. The other two
be good enough to dismiss.'
He seemed to waver for a moment, as if he had a mind
to disobey, but in the end, thinking better of it, he bade
the men return; and as I complimented each of them with
a piece of silver, they went off, after some swearing, in
tolerably good humour. Thereon Fresnoy was for taking
the road at once, but having no mind to be followed, I gave
the word to wait until the two were out of sight.
I think, as we sat our horses in the rain, the holly-bush
not being large enough to shelter us all, we were as sorry a
band as ever set out to rescue a lady; nor was it without
pain that I looked round and saw myself reduced to com-
mand such people. There was scarcely one whole un-
patched garment among us, and three of my squires had
but a spur apiece. To make up for this deficiency we mus-
tered two black eyes, Fresnoy's included, and a broken
nose. Matthew's nag lacked a tail, and, more remarkable
still, its rider, as I presently discovered, was stone-deaf;
while Mark's sword was innocent of a scabbard, and his
bridle was plain rope. One thing, indeed, I observed with
pleasure. The two men who had come with me looked
askance at the two who had come with Fresnoy, and these
32 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
returned the stare with interest. On this division and on
the length of my sword I based all my hopes of safety and
of something more. On it I was about to stake, not my
own life only which was no great thing, seeing what my
prospects were but the life and honour of a woman,
young, helpless, and as yet unknown to me.
Weighed down as I was by these considerations, I had to
bear the additional burden of hiding my fears and suspi-
cions under a cheerful demeanour. I made a short speech
to my following, who one and all responded by swearing to
stand by me to the death. I then gave the word, and we
started, Fresnoy and I leading the way, Luke and John
with the led horses following, and the other two bringing
up the rear.
The rain continuing to fall and the country in this part
being dreary and monotonous, even in fair weather, I felt
my spirits sink still lower as the day advanced. The re-
sponsibility I was going to incur assumed more serious pro-
portions each time I scanned my following; while Fresnoy,
plying me with perpetual questions respecting my plans,
was as uneasy a companion as my worst enemy could have
wished me.
'Come!' he grumbled presently, when we had covered
four leagues or so, 'you have not told me yet, sieur, where
we stay to-night. You are travelling so slowly that '
'I am saving the horses,' I answered shortly. 'We shall
do a long day to-morrow.'
'Yours looks fit for a week of days,' he sneered, with an
evil look at my Sardinian, which was, indeed, in better case
than its master. 'It is sleek enough, any way!'
'It is as good as it looks,' I answered, a little nettL-.l
by his tone.
'There is a better here,' he responded.
'I don't see it,' I said. I had already eyed the nags all
round, and assured myself that, ugly and blemished as they
were, they were up to their work. But I had discerned no
special merit among them. I looked them over again now,
BOOT AND SADDLE 33
and carne to the same conclusion that, except the led
horses, which I had chosen with some care, there was noth-
ing among them to vie with the Cid, either in speed or
looks. I told Fresnoy so.
'Would you like to try? ' he said tauntingly.
I laughed, adding, 'If you think I am going to tire our
horses by racing them, with such work as we have before
us, you are mistaken, Fresnoy. I am not a boy, you
know. '
'There need be no question of racing,' he answered more
quietly. 'You have only to get on that rat-tailed bay of
Matthew's to feel its paces and say I am right.'
I looked at the bay, a bald-faced, fiddle-headed horse,
and saw that, with no signs of breeding, it was still a big-
boned animal with good shoulders and powerful hips. I
thought it possible Fresnoy might be right, and if so, and
the bay's manners were tolerable, it might do for mademoi-
selle better than the horse I had chosen. At any rate, if
we had a fast horse among us, it was well to know the fact,
so bidding Matthew change with me, and be careful of the
Cid, I mounted the bay, and soon discovered that its paces
were easy and promised speed, while its manners seemed
as good as even a timid rider could desire.
Our road at the- time lay across a flat desolate heath,
dotted here and there with thorn-bushes; the track being
broken and stony, extended more than a score of yards in
width, through travellers straying to this side and that to
escape the worst places. Fresnoy and I, in making the
change, had fallen slightly behind the other three, and
were riding abreast of Matthew on the Cid.
'Well,' he said, 'was I not right?'
'In part,' I answered. 'The horse is better than its
looks.'
'Like many others,' he rejoined, a spark of resentment
in his tone 'men as well as horses, M. de Marsac. But
what do you say? Shall we canter on a little and overtake
the others?'
34 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
Thinking it well to do so, I assented readily, and we
started together. We had ridden, however, no more than
a hundred yards, and I was only beginning to extend the
bay, when Fresnoy, slightly drawing rein, turned in his
saddle and looked back. The next moment he cried,
'Hallo! what is this? Those fellows are not following us,
are they? '
I turned sharply to look. At that moment, without
falter or warning, the bay horse went down under me as if
shot dead, throwing me half a dozen yards over its head;
and that so suddenly that I had no time to raise my arms,
but, falling heavily on my head and shoulder, lost con-
sciousness.
I have had many falls, but no other to vie with that in
utter unexpectedness. When I recovered my senses I found
myself leaning, giddy and sick, against the bole of an old
thorn-tree. Fresnoy and Matthew supported me on either
side, and asked me how I found myself; while the other
three men, their forms black against the stormy evening
sky, sat their horses a few paces in front of me. I was too
much dazed at first to see more, and this only in a mechani-
cal fashion; but gradually, my brain grew clearer, and I
advanced from wondering who the strangers round me were
to recognising them, and finally to remembering what had
happened to me.
'Is the horse hurt?' I muttered as soon as I could speak.
'Not a whit,' Fresnoy answered, chuckling, or I was
much mistaken. 'I am afraid you came off the worse of
the two, captain.'
He exchanged a look with the men on horseback as he
spoke, and in a dull fashion I fancied I saw them smile.
One even laughed, and another turned in his saddle as if to
hide his face. I had a vague general sense that there was
some joke on foot in which I had no part. But I was too
much shaken at the moment to be curious, and gratefully
accepted the offer of one of the men to fetch me a little
water. While he was away the rest stood round me, the
BOOT AND SADDLE 35
same look of ill-concealed drollery on their faces. Fresnoy
alone talked, speaking volubly of the accident, pouring out
expressions of sympathy and cursing the road, the horse,
and the wintry light until the water came; when, much
refreshed by the draught, I managed to climb to the Cid's
saddle and plod slowly onwards with them.
'A bad beginning,' Fresnoy said presently, stealing a sly
glance at me as we jogged along side by side, Chize half a
league before us, and darkness not far off.
By this time, however, I was myself again, save for a
little humming in the head, and, shrugging my shoulders,
I told him so. 'All's well that ends well,' I added. 'Not
that it was a pleasant fall, or that I wish to have such
another. '
'No, I should think not,' he answered. His face was
turned from me, but I fancied I heard him snigger.
Something, which may have been a vague suspicion, led
me a moment later to put my hand into my pouch. Then
I understood. I understood too well. The sharp surprise
of fche discovery was such that involuntarily I drove my
spurs into the Cid, and the horse sprang forward.
'What is the matter?' Fresnoy asked.
'The matter? ' I echoed, my hand still at my belt, feeling
feeling hopelessly.
'Yes, what is it?' he asked, a brazen smile on his ras-
cally face.
I looked at him, my brow as red as fire. 'Oh! nothing
nothing,' I said. 'Let us trot on.'
In truth I had discovered that, taking advantage of my
helplessness, the scoundrels had robbed me, while I lay
insensible, of every gold crown in my purse ! Nor was this
all, or the worst, for I saw at once that in doing so they
had effected something which was a thousandfold more
ominous and formidable established against me that secret
understanding which it was my especial aim to prevent, and
on the absence of which I had been counting. Nay, I saw
that for my very life I had only my friend the cutler and
D2
36 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE
my own prudence to thank, seeing that these rogues would
certainly have murdered me without scruple had they suc-
ceeded in finding the bulk of my money. Baffled in this,
while still persuaded that I had other resources, they had
stopped short of that villany or this memoir had never
been written. They had kindly permitted me to live until
a more favourable opportunity of enriching themselves at
my expense should put them in possession of my last crown !
Though I was sufficiently master of myself to refrain
from complaints which I felt must be useless, and from
menaces which it has never been my habit to utter unless
I had also the power to put them into execution, it must
not be imagined that I did not, as I rode on by Fresnoy's
side, feel my position acutely or see how absurd a figure I
cut in my dual character of leader and dupe. Indeed, the
reflection that, being in this perilous position, I was about
to stake another's safety as well as my own, made me feel
the need of a few minutes' thought so urgent that I deter-
mined to gain them, even at the risk of leaving my men at
liberty to plot further mischief. Coming almost immedi-
ately afterwards within sight of the turrets of the Chateau
of Chize, I told Fresnoy that we should lie the night at the
village; and bade him take the men on and secure quartern
at the inn. Attacked instantly by suspicion and curiosity,
he demurred stoutly to leaving me, and might have per-
sisted in his refusal had I not pulled up, and clearly shown
him that I would have my own way in this case or come to
an open breach. He shrank, as I expected, from the latter
alternative, and, bidding me a sullen adieu, trotted on with
his troop. I waited until they were out of sight, and then,
turning the Cid's head, crossed a small brook which divided
the road from the chase, and choosing a ride which seemed
to pierce the wood in the direction of the Chateau, pro-
ceeded down it, keeping a sharp look-out on either hand.
It was then, my thoughts turning to the lady who was
now so near, and who, noble, rich, and a stranger, seemed,
as I approached her, not the least formidable of the embar-
MADEMOISELLE DE LA VIRE 37
rassments before me it was then that I made a discovery
which sent a cold shiver through my frame, and in a
moment swept all memory of my paltry ten crowns from
my head. Ten crowns! Alas! I had lost that which was
worth all my crowns put together the broken coin which
the King of Navarre had entrusted to me, and which formed
my sole credential, my only means of persuading Mademoi-
selle de la Vire that I came from him. I had put it in my
pouch, and of course, though the loss of it only came home
to my mind now, it had disappeared with the rest.
I drew rein and sat for some time motionless, the image
of despair. The wind which stirred the naked boughs over-
head, and whirled the dead leaves in volleys past my feet,
and died away at last among the whispering bracken, met
nowhere with wretchedness greater, I believe, than was mine
at that moment.
CHAPTER IV.
MADEMOISELLE DE LA VIRE.
MY first desperate impulse on discovering the magnitude
of my loss was to ride after the knaves and demand the
token at the sword's point. The certainty, however, of
finding them united, and the difficulty of saying which of
the five possessed what I wanted, led me to reject this plan
as I grew cooler; and since I did not dream, even in this
dilemma, of abandoning the expedition, the only alternative
seemed to be to act as if I still had the broken coin, and
essay what a frank explanation might effect when the time
came.
After some wretched, very wretched, moments of debate,
I resolved to adopt this course; and, for the present, think-
ing I might gain some knowledge of the surroundings while
the light lasted, I pushed cautiously forward through the
38 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
trees and came in less than five minutes within sight of a
corner of the chateau, which I found to be a modern build-
ing of the time of Henry II., raised, like the houses of that
time, for pleasure rather than defence, and decorated with
many handsome casements and tourelles. Despite this, it
wore, as I saw it, a grey and desolate air, due in part to
the loneliness of the situation and the lateness of the hour;
and in part, I think, to the smallness of the household
maintained, for no one was visible on the terrace or at the
windows. The rain dripped from the trees, which on two
aides pressed so closely on the house as almost to darken
the rooms, and everything I saw encouraged me to hope
that mademoiselle's wishes would second my entreaties,
and incline her to lend a ready ear to my story.
The appearance of the house, indeed, was a strong in-
ducement to me to proceed, for it was impossible to believe
that a young lady, a kinswoman of the gay and vivacious
Turenne, and already introduced to the pleasures of the
Court, would elect of her own free will to spend the winter
in so dreary a solitude.
Taking advantage of the last moments of daylight, I rode
cautiously round the house, and, keeping in the shadow of
the trees, had no difficulty in discovering at the north-east
corner the balcony of which I had been told. It was semi-
circular in shape, with a stone balustrade, and hung some
fifteen feet above a terraced walk which ran below it, and
was separated from the chase by a low sunk fence.
I was surprised to observe that, notwithstanding the rain
and the coldness of the evening, the window which gave
upon this balcony was open. Nor was this all. Luck was
in store for me at last. I had not gazed at the window
more than a minute, calculating its height and other partic-
ulars, when, to my great joy, a female figure, closely
hooded, stepped out and stood looking up at the sky. I
was too far off to be able to discern by that uncertain light
tvhether this was Mademoiselle de la Vire or her woman;
but the attitude was so clearly one of dejection and despon-
MADEMOISELLE DE LA VIRE 39
dency, that I felt sure it was either one or the other. De-
termined not to let the opportunity slip, I dismounted has-
tily and, leaving the Cid loose, advanced on foot until I
stood within half-a-dozen paces of the window.
At that point the watcher became aware of me. She
started back, but did not withdraw. Still peering down at
me, she called softly to some one inside the chamber, and
immediately a second figure, taller and stouter, appeared.
I had already doffed my cap, and I now, in a low voice,
begged to know if I had the honour of speaking to Made-
moiselle de la Vire. In the growing darkness it was im-
possible to distinguish faces.
'Hush! ' the stouter figure muttered in a tone of warning.
'Speak lower. Who are you, and what do you here? '
'I am here,' I answered respectfully, 'commissioned by a
friend of the lady I have named, to convey her to a place
of safety. '
'Mondieu! ' was the sharp answer. 'Now? It is impos-
sible.'
'No,' I murmured, 'not now, but to-night. The moon
rises at half -past two. My horses need rest and food. At
three I will be below this window with the means of escape,
if mademoiselle choose to use them. '
I felt that they were staring at me through the dusk, as
though they would read my breast. 'Your name, sir?' the
shorter figure murmured at last, after a pause which was
full of suspense and excitement.
'I do not think my name of much import at present,
Mademoiselle, ' I answered, reluctant to proclaim myself a
stranger. ' When '
' Your name, your name, sir ! ' she repeated imperiously,
and I heard her little heel rap upon the stone floor of the
balcony.
'Gaston de Marsac,' I answered unwillingly.
They both started, and cried out together. 'Impossible! '
the last speaker exclaimed, amazement and anger in her
tone. 'This is a jest, sir. This '
40 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
What more she would have said I was left to guess, foi
at that moment her attendant I had no doubt now which
was mademoiselle and which Fanchette suddenly laid her
hand on her mistress's mouth and pointed to the room
behind them. A second's suspense, and with a warning
gesture the two turned and disappeared through the
window.
I lost no time in regaining the shelter of the trees ; and
concluding, though I was far from satisfied with the inter-
view, that I could do nothing more now, but might rather,
by loitering in the neighbourhood, awaken suspicion, I re-
mounted and made for the highway and the village, where
I found my men in noisy occupation of the inn, a poor
place, with unglazed windows, and a fire in the middle of
the earthen floor. My first care was to stable the Cid in a
shed at the back, where I provided for its wants as far as
I could with the aid of a half -naked boy, who seemed to be
in hiding there.
This done, I returned to the front of the house, having
pretty well made up my mind how I would set about the
task before me. As I passed one of the windows, which
was partially closed by a rude curtain made of old sacks, I
stopped to look in. Fresnoy and his four rascals were
seated on blocks of wood round the hearth, talking loudly
and fiercely, and ruffling it as if the fire and the room were
their own. A pedlar, seated on his goods in one corner,
was eyeing them with evident fear and suspicion ; in an-
other corner two children had taken refuge under a donkey,
which some fowls had chosen as a roosting-pole. The inn-
keeper, a sturdy fellow, with a great club in his fist, sat
moodily at the foot of a ladder which led to the loft above,
while a slatternly woman, who was going to and fro getting
supper, seemed in equal terror of her guests and her good
man.
Confirmed by what I saw, and assured that the villains
were ripe for any mischief, and, if not checked, would
speedily be beyond my control, I noisily flung the door
MADEMOISELLE DE LA VIRE 41
open and entered. Fresnoy looked up with a sneer as I
did so, and one of the men laughed. The others became
silent; but no one moved or greeted me. Without a
moment's hesitation I stepped to the nearest fellow and,
with a sturdy kick, sent his log from under him. 'Kise,
you rascal, when I enter ! ' I cried, giving vent to the anger
I had long felt. 'And you, too! ' and with a second kick I
sent his neighbour's stool flying also, and administered a
couple of cuts with my riding-cane across the man's shoul-
ders. 'Have you no manners, sirrah? Across with you,
and leave this side to your betters.'
The two rose, snarling and feeling for their weapons, and
for a moment stood facing me, looking now at me and now
askance at Fresnoy. But as he gave no sign, and their
comrades only laughed, the men's courage failed them at
the pinch, and with a very poor grace they sneaked over to
the other side of the fire and sat there scowling.
I seated myself beside their leader. 'This gentleman
and I will eat here,' I cried to the man at the foot of the
ladder. 'Bid your wife lay for us, and of the best you
have; and do you give those knaves their provender where
the smell of their greasy jackets will not come between us
and our victuals.'
The man came forward, glad enough, as I saw, to discover
any one in authority, and very civilly began to draw wine
and place a board for us, while his wife filled our platters
from the black pot which hung over the fire. Fresnoy's
face meanwhile wore the amused smile of one who compre-
hended my motives, but felt sufficiently sure of his position
and influence with his followers to be indifferent to my
proceedings. I presently showed him, however, that I
had not yet done with him. Our table was laid in obedi-
ence to my orders at such a distance from the men that they
could not overhear our talk, and by-and-by I leant over to
him.
'M. Fresnoy,' I said, 'you are in danger of forgetting
one thing, I fancy, which it behoves you to remember- '
42 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
'What? ' he muttered, scarcely deigning to look up at me.
'That you have to do with Gaston de Marsac,' I answered
quietly. 'I am making, as I told you this morning, a last
attempt to recruit my fortunes, and I will let no man no
man, do you understand, M. Fresnoy? thwart me and go
harmless.'
'Who wishes to thwart you? ' he asked impudently.
'You,' I answered unmoved, helping myself, as I spoke,
from the roll of black bread which lay beside me. 'You
robbed me this afternoon; I passed it over. You encour-
aged those men to be insolent ; I passed it over. But let
me tell you this. If you fail me to-night, on the honour
of a gentleman, M. Fresnoy, I will run you through as I
would spit a lark.'
'Will you? But two can play at that game,' he cried,
rising nimbly from his stool. 'Still better six! Don't you
think, M. de Marsac, you had better have waited ? '
'I think you had better hear one word more,' I answered
coolly, keeping my seat, 'before you appeal to your fellows
there.'
'Well,' he said, still standing, 'what is it?'
'Nay,' I replied, after once more pointing to his stool in
vain, 'if you prefer to take my orders standing, well and
good. '
'Your orders?' he shrieked, growing suddenly excited.
'Yes, my orders!' I retorted, rising as suddenly to my
feet and hitching forward my sword. 'My orders, sir,' I
repeated fiercely, 'or, if you dispute my right to command
as well as to pay this party, let us decide the question here
and now you and I, foot to foot, M. Fresnoy. '
The quarrel flashed up so suddenly, though I had been
preparing it all along, that no one moved. The woman,
indeed, fell back to her children, but the rest looked on
open-mouthed. Had they stirred, or had a moment's
hurly-burly heated his blood, I doubt not Fresnoy would
have taken up my challenge, for he did not lack hardihood.
But as it was, face to face with me in the silence, his cour-
MADEMOISELLE DE LA VIRE 43
age failed him. He paused, glowering at me uncertainly,
and did not speak.
'Well,' I said, 'don't you think that if I pay I ought to
give orders, sir? '
'Who wishes to oppose your orders? ' he muttered, drink-
ing off a bumper, and sitting down with an air of impudent
bravado, assumed to hide his discomfiture.
'If you don't, no one else does,' I answered. 'So that is
settled. Landlord, some more wine.'
He was very sulky with me for a while, fingering his
glass in silence and scowling at the table. He had enough
gentility to feel the humiliation to which he had exposed
himself, and a sufficiency of wit to understand that that
.moment's hesitation had cost him the allegiance of his
fellow-ruffians. I hastened, therefore, to set him at his
ease by explaining my plans for the night, and presently
succeeded beyond my hopes; for when he heard who the
lady was whom I proposed to carry off, and that she was
lying that evening at the Chateau de Chize, his surprise
swept away the last trace of resentment. He stared at me
as at a maniac.
'Mon Dieu! ' he exclaimed. 'Do you know what you are
doing, Sieur? '
'I think so,' I answered.
'Do you know to whom the chateau belongs? '
'To the Vicomte de Turenne.'
'And that Mademoiselle de la Vire is his relation? '
'Yes,' I said.
'Mon Dieu! ' he exclaimed again. And he looked at me
open-mouthed.
'What is the matter? ' I asked, though I had an uneasy
consciousness that I knew that I knew very well.
'Man, he will crush you as I crush this hat! ' he answered
in great excitement. 'As easily. Who do you think will
protect you from him in a private quarrel of this kind?
Navarre? France? our good man? Not one of them.
You had better steal the king's crown jewels he is weak;
44 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
or Guise's last plot he is generous at times ; or Navarre's
last sweetheart he is as easy as an old shoe. You had
better have to do with all these together, I tell you, than
touch Turenne's ewe-lambs, unless your aim be to be broken
on the wheel ! Mon Dieu, yes ! '
'I am much obliged to you for your advice,' I said stiffly,
'but the die is cast. My mind is made up. On the other
hand, if you are afraid, M. Fresnoy '
'I am afraid; very much afraid,' he answered frankly.
'Still your name need not be brought into the matter,' I
replied, 'I will take the responsibility. I will let them
know my name here at the inn, where, doubtless, inquiries
will be made.'
'To be sure, that is something,' he answered thoughtfully.
'Well, it is an ugly business, but I am in for it. You want
me to go with you a little after two, do you? and the others
to be in the saddle at three? Is that it? '
I assented, pleased to find him so far acquiescent ; and in
this way, talking the details over more than once, we set-
tled our course, arranging to fly by way of Poitiers and
Tours. Of course I did not tell him why I selected Blois as
our refuge, nor what was my purpose there; though he
pressed me more than once on the point, and grew thought-
ful and somewhat gloomy when I continually evaded it.
A little after eight we retired to the loft to sleep; our men
remaining below round the fire and snoring so merrily as
almost to shake the crazy old building. The host was
charged to sit up and call us as soon as the moon rose, but,
as it turned out, I might as well have taken this office on
myself, for between excitement and distrust I slept little,
and was wide awake when I heard his step on the ladder
and knew it was time to rise.
I was up in a moment, and Fresnoy was little behind me;
so that, losing no time in talk, we were mounted and on the
road, each with a spare horse at his knee, before the moon
was well above the trees. Once in the Chase we found it
necessary to proceed on foot, but, the distance being short,
MADEMOISELLE DE LA VIRE 45
we presently emerged without misadventure and stood op-
posite to the chateau, the upper part of which shone cold
and white in the moon's rays.
There was something so solemn in the aspect of the
place, the night being fine and the sky without a cloud,
that I stood for a minute awed and impressed, the sense of
the responsibility I was here to accept strong upon me. In
that short space of time all the dangers before me, as well
the common risks of the road as the vengeance of Turenne
and the turbulence of my own men, presented themselves
to my mind, and made a last appeal to me to turn back from
an enterprise so foolhardy. The blood in a man's veins
runs low and slow at that hour, and mine was chilled by
lack of sleep and the wintry air. It needed the remem-
brance of my solitary condition, of my past spent in straits
and failure, of the grey hairs which swept my cheek, of
the sword which I had long used honourably, if with little
profit to myself; it needed the thought of all these things
to restore me to courage and myself.
I judged at a later period that my companion was affected
in somewhat the same way; for, as I stooped to press home
the pegs which I had brought to tether the horses, he laid
his hand on my arm. Glancing up to see what he wanted,
I Avas struck by the wild look in his face (which the moon-
light invested with a peculiar mottled pallor), and partic-
ularly in his eyes, which glittered like a madman's. He
tried to speak, but seemed to find a difficulty in doing so;
and I had to question him roughly before he found his
tongue. When he did speak, it was only to implore me
in an odd, excited manner to give up the expedition and
return.
'What, now?' I said, surprised. 'Now we are here,
Fresnoy ? '
'Ay, give it up! ' he cried, shaking me almost fiercely by
the arm. 'Give it up, man! It will end badly, I tell you!
In God's name, give it up, and go home before worse comes
of it.'
46 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE
'Whatever comes of it,' I answered coldly, shaking his
grasp from my arm, and wondering much at this sudden tit
of cowardice, 'I go on. You, M. Fresnoy, may do as you
please ! '
He started and drew back from me ; but he did not reply,
nor did he speak again. When I presently went off to
fetch a ladder, of the position of which I had made a note
during the afternoon, he accompanied me, and followed me
back in the same dull silence to the walk below the balcony.
I had looked more than once and eagerly at mademoiselle's
window without any light or movement in that quarter
rewarding my vigilance; but, undeterred by this, which
might mean either that my plot was known, or that Made-
moiselle de la Vire distrusted me, I set the ladder softly
against the balcony, which was in deep shadow, and paused
only to give Fresnoy his last instructions. These were
simply to stand on guard at the foot of the ladder and
defend it in case of surprise; so that, whatever happened
inside the chateau, my retreat by the window might not
be cut off.
Then I went cautiously up the ladder, and, with my
sheathed sword in my left hand, stepped over the balus-
trade. Taking one pace forward, with fingers outstretched,
I felt the leaded panes of the window and tapped softly.
As softly the casement gave way, and I .followed it. A
hand which I could see but not feel was laid on mine. All
was darkness in the room, and before me, but the hand
guided me two paces forward, then by a sudden pressure
bade me stand. I heard the sound of a curtain being drawn
behind me, and the next moment the cover of a rushlight was
removed, and a feeble but sufficient light filled the chamber.
I comprehended that the drawing of that curtain over the
window had cut off my retreat as effectually as if a door had
been closed behind me. But distrust and suspicion gave
way the next moment to .the natural embarrassment of the
man who finds himself in a false position and knows he
can escape from it only by an awkward explanation.
MADEMOISELLE DE LA VIRE 47
The room in which I found myself was long, narrow, and
low in the ceiling; and being hung with some dark stuff
which swallowed up the light, terminated funereally at the
farther end in the still deeper gloom of an alcove. Two or
three huge chests, one bearing the remnants of a meal, stood
against the walls. The middle of the floor was covered
with a strip of coarse matting, on which a small table, a
chair and foot-rest, and a couple of stools had place, with
some smaller articles which lay scattered round a pair of
half-filled saddle-bags. The slighter and smaller of the
two figures I had seen stood beside the table, wearing a
mask and riding cloak; and by her silent manner of gazing
at me, as well as by a cold, disdainful bearing, which
neither her mask nor cloak could hide, did more to chill
and discomfit me than even my own knowledge that I had
lost the pass-key which should have admitted me to her
confidence.
The stouter figure of the afternoon turned out to be a
red-cheeked, sturdy woman of thirty, with bright black
eyes and a manner which lost nothing of its fierce impa-
tience when she came a little later to address me. All my
ideas of Fanchette were upset by the appearance of this
woman, who, rustic in her speech and ways, seemed more
like a duenna than the waiting-maid of a court beauty, and
better fitted to guard a wayward damsel than to aid her in
such an escapade as we had in hand.
She stood slightly behind her mistress, her coarse red
hand resting on the back of the chair from which mademoi-
selle had apparently risen on my entrance. For a few
seconds, which seemed minutes to me, we stood gazing at
one another in silence, mademoiselle acknowledging my bow
by a slight movement of the head. Then, seeing that they
waited for me to speak, I did so.
'Mademoiselle de la Vire? ' I murmured doubtfully.
She bent her head again; that was all.
I strove to speak with confidence. 'You will pardon me,
mademoiselle,' I said, 'if I seem to be abrupt, but time is
48 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
everything. The horses are standing within a Imndred
yards of the house, and all the preparations for your night
are made. If we leave now, we can do so without opposi-
tion. The delay even of an hour may lead to discovery.'
For answer she laughed behind her mask laughed coldly
and ironically. 'You go too fast, sir,' she said, her low
clear voice matching the laugh and rousing a feeling almost
of anger in my heart. 'I do not know you; or, rather,
I know nothing of you which should entitle you to interfere
in iny affairs. You are too quick to presume, sir. Y"ou
say you come from a friend. From whom? '
'From one whom I am proud to call by that title,' I an-
swered with what patience I might.
'His name! '
I answered firmly that I could not give it. And I eyed
her steadily as I did so.
This for the moment seemed to baffle and confuse her,
but after a pause she continued: 'Where do you propose to
take me, sir? '
'To Blois; to the lodging of a friend of my friend.'
'You speak bravely,' she replied with a faint sneer.
'You have made some great friends lately it seems! But
you bring me some letter, no doubt; at least some sign,
some token, some warranty, that you are the person you
pretend to be, M. de Marsac? '
'The truth is, mademoiselle,' I stammered, 'I must ex-
plain. I should tell you '
'Nay, sir,' she cried impetuously, 'there is no need of
telling. If you have what I say, show it me! It is you
who lose time. Let us have no more words ! '
I had used very few words, and, God knows, was not in
the mind to use many; but, being in the wrong, I had no
answer to make except the truth, and that humbly. 'I had
such a token as you mention, mademoiselle,' I said, 'no
farther back than this afternoon, in the shape of half a gold
coin, entrusted to me by my friend. But, to my shame I
say it, it was stolen from me a few hours back.'
MADEMOISELLE DE LA VIRE 49
'Stolen from you! ' she exclaimed.
'Yes, mademoiselle; and for that reason I cannot show
it,' I answered.
'You cannot show it? And you dare to come to me with-
out it! ' she cried, speaking with a vehemence which fairly
startled me, prepared as I was for reproaches. 'You come
to me ! You ! ' she continued. And with that, scarcely
stopping to take breath, she loaded me with abuse; calling
me impertinent, a meddler, and a hundred other things,
which I now blush to recall, and displaying in all a passion
which even in her attendant would have surprised me, but
in one so slight and seemingly delicate, overwhelmed and
confounded me. In fault as I was, I could not understand
the peculiar bitterness she displayed, or the contemptuous
force of her language, and I stared at her in silent wonder
until, of her own accord, she supplied the key to her feel-
ings. In a fresh outburst of rage she snatched off her mask,
and to my astonishment I saw before me the young maid
of honour whom I had encountered in the King of Navarre's
ante-chamber, and whom I had been so unfortunate as to
expose to the raillery of Mathurine.
'Who has paid you, sir,' she continued, clenching her
small hands and speaking with tears of anger in her eyes,
'to make me the laughing-stock of the Court? It was bad
enough when I thought you the proper agent of those to
whom I have a right to look for aid! It was bad enough
when I thought myself forced, through their inconsiderate
choice, to decide between an odious imprisonment and the
ridicule to which your intervention must expose me! But
that you should have dared, of your own notion, to follow
me, you, the butt of the Court '
'Mademoiselle! ' I cried.
'A needy, out-at-elbows adventurer!' she persisted,
triumphing in her cruelty. 'It exceeds all bearing! It is
not to be suffered ! It '
'Nay, mademoiselle; you shall hear me! ' I cried, with a
sternness which at last stopped her. 'Granted I am poor,
So A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
I am still a gentleman; yes, mademoiselle,' I continued,
firmly, 'a gentleman, and the last of a family which has
spoken with yours on equal terms. And 1 claim to be
heard. I swear that when I came here to-night I believed
you to be a perfect stranger! I was unaware that I had
ever seen you, unaware that I had ever met you before.'
'Then why did you come? ' she said viciously.
'I was engaged to come by those whom you have men-
tioned, and there, and there only am I in fault. They
entrusted to me a token which I have lost. For that I
crave your pardon.'
'You have need to,' she answered bitterly, yet with a
changed countenance, or I was mistaken, 'if your story be
true, sir.'
'Ay, that you have!' the woman beside her echoed.
'Hoity toity, indeed! Here is a fuss about nothing. You
call yourself a gentleman, and wear such a doublet as '
'Peace, Fanchette!' mademoiselle said imperiously.
And then for a moment she stood silent, eyeing me intently,
her lips trembling with excitement and two red spots burn-
ing in her cheeks. It was clear from her dress and other
things that she had made up her mind to fly had the token
been forthcoming; and seeing this, and knowing how un-
willing a young girl is to forego her own way, I still had
some hopes that she might not persevere in her distrust
and refusal. And so it turned out.
Her manner had changed to one of quiet scorn when she
next spoke. 'You defend yourself skilfully, sir,' she said,
drumming with her fingers on the table and eyeing me
steadfastly. 'But can you give me any reason for the per-
son you name making choice of such a messenger? '
'Yes, ' I answered, boldly. 'That he may not be suspected
of conniving at your escape. '
' Oh ! ' she cried, with a spark of her former passion.
'Then it is to be put about that Mademoiselle de la Vire
had fled from Chize with M. de Marsac, is it? I thought
that! '
MADEMOISELLE DE LA VI RE 51
'Through the assistance of M. de Marsac,' I retorted,
correcting her coldly. 'It is for you, mademoiselle,' I con-
tinued, 'to weigh that disadvantage against the unpleasant-
ness of remaining here. It only remains for me to ask you
to decide quickly. Time presses, and I have stayed here
too long already.'
The words had barely passed my lips when they received
unwelcome confirmation in the shape of a distant soiind
the noisy closing of a door, which, clanging through the
house at such an hour I judged it to be after three o'clock
could scarcely mean anything but mischief. This noise
was followed immediately, even while we stood listening
with raised fingers, by other sounds a muffled cry, and
the tramp of heavy footsteps in a distant passage. Made-
moiselle looked at me, and I at her woman. 'The door! ' I
muttered. 'Is it locked? '
'And bolted! ' Fanchette answered; 'and a great chest set
against it. Let them ramp; they will do no harm for a bit.'
'Then you have still time, mademoiselle,' I whispered,
retreating a step and laying my hand on the curtain before
the window. Perhaps I affected greater coolness than I
felt. 'It is not too late. If you choose to remain, well
and good. I cannot help it. If, on the other hand, you
decide to trust yourself to me, I swear, on the honour of
a gentleman, to be worthy of the trust to serve you truly
and protect you to the last! I can say no more.'
She trembled, looking from me to the door, on which
some one had just begun to knock loudly. That seemed to
decide her. Her lips apart, her eyes full of excitement,
she turned hastity to Fanchette.
'Ay, go if you like,' the woman answered doggedly,
reading the meaning of her look. 'There cannot be a
greater villain than the one we know of. But once started,
heaven help us, for if he overtakes us we'll pay dearly
for it!'
The girl did not speak herself, bur it was enough.
The noise at the door increased each second, and began to
2
52 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
be mingled with angry appeals to Fanchette to open, and
with threats in casa she delayed. I cut the matter short
by snatching up one of the saddle-bags the other we left
behind and flung back the curtain which covered the win-
dow. At the same time the woman dashed out the light
a timely precaution and throwing open the casement I
stepped on to the balcony, the others following me closely.
The moon had risen high, and flooding with light the
small open space about the house enabled me to see clearly
all round the foot of the ladder. To my surprise Fresnoy
was not at his post, nor was he to be seen anywhere; but
as, at the moment I observed this, an outcry away to my
left, at the rear of the chateau, came to my ears, and an-
nounced that the danger was no longer confined to the inte-
rior of the house, I concluded that he had gone that way to
intercept the attack. Without more, therefore, I began to
descend as quickly as I could, my sword under one arm and
the bag under the other.
I was half-way down, and mademoiselle was already
stepping on to the ladder to follow, when I heard footsteps
below, and saw him run up, his sword in his hand.
'Quick, Fresnoy! ' I cried. 'To the horses and unfasten
them ! Quick ! '
I slid down the rest of the way, thinking he had gone to
do my bidding. But my feet were scarcely on the ground
when a tremendous blow in the side sent me staggering
three paces from the ladder. The attack was so sudden,
so unexpected, that but for the sight of Fresnoy's scowling
face, wild with rage, at my shoulder, and the sound of his
iierce breathing as he strove to release his sword, which had
passed through my saddle-bag, I might never have known
who struck the blow, or how narrow had been my escape.
Fortunately the knowledge did come to me in time, and
before he freed his blade; and it nerved my hand. To
draw my blade at such close quarters was impossible, but,
dropping the bag which had saved my life, I dashed my
hilt twice in his face with such violence that he fell back'
THE ROAD TO BLO1S 53
wards and lay on the turf, a dark stain growing and spread-
ing on his upturned face.
It was scarcely done before the women reached the foot
of the ladder and stood beside me. 'Quick!' I cried to
them, 'or they will be upon us.' Seizing mademoiselle's
hand, just as half-a-dozen men came running round the
corner of the house, I jumped with her down the haha, and,
urging her to her utmost speed, dashed across the open
ground which lay between us and the belt of trees. Once
in the shelter of the latter, where our movements were
hidden from view, I had still to free the horses and mount
mademoiselle arid her woman, and this in haste. But my
companions' admirable coolness and presence of mind, and
the objection which our pursuers, who did not know our
numbers, felt to leaving the open ground, enabled us to do
all with comparative ease. I sprang on the Cid (it has
always been my habit to teach my horse to stand for me,
nor do I know any accomplishment more serviceable at a
pinch), and giving Fresnoy's grey a cut over the flanks
which despatched it ahead, led the way down the ride by
which I had gained the chateau in the afternoon. I knew
it to be level and clear of trees, and the fact that we chose
it might throw our pursuers off the track for a time, by
leading them to think we had taken the south road instead
of that through the village.
CHAPTER V.
THE ROAD TO BLOIS.
WE gained the road without let or hindrance, whence a
sharp burst in the moonlight soon brought us to the village.
Through this we swept on to the inn, almost running over
the four evangelists, whom we found standing at the door
ready for the saddle. I bade them, in a quick peremptory
54 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
tone, to get to horse, and was overjoyed to see them obey
without demur or word of Fresnoy. In another minute,
with a great clatter of hoofs, we sprang clear of the hamlet,
and were well on the road to Melle, with Poitiers some
thirteen leagues before us. I looked back, and thought I
discerned lights moving in the direction of the chateau;
but the dawn was still two hours off, and the moonlight left
me in doubt whether these were real or the creatures of my
own fearful fancy.
I remember, three years before this time, on the occasion
of the famous retreat from Angers when the Prince of
Conde had involved his army beyond the Loire, and saw
himself, in the impossibility of recrossing the river, com-
pelled to take ship for England, leaving every one to shift
for himself I well remember on that occasion riding,
alone and pistol in hand, through more than thirty miles
of the enemy's country without drawing rein. But my
anxieties were then confined to the four shoes of my horse.
The dangers to which I was exposed at every ford and cross
road were such as are inseparable from a campaign, and
breed in generous hearts only a fierce pleasure, rarely to
be otherwise enjoyed. And though I then rode warily, and
where I could not carry terror, had all to fear myself, there
was nothing secret or underhand in my business.
It was very different now. During the first few hours of
our flight from Chize I experienced a painful excitement,
an alarm, a feverish anxiety to get forward, which was new
to me; which oppressed my spirits to the very ground;
which led me to take every sound borne to us on the wind
for the sound of pursuit, transforming the clang of a ham-
mer on the anvil into the ring of swords, and the voices of
my own men into those of the pursuers. It was in vain
mademoiselle rode with a free hand, and leaping such
obstacles as lay in our way, gave promise of courage and
endurance beyond my expectations. I could think of noth-
ing but the three long days before us, with twenty-four
hours to every day, and each hour fraught with a hundred
chances of disaster and ruin.
THE ROAD TO tfLOIS 55
In fact, the longer I considered our position and as we
pounded along, now splashing through a founderous hollow,
now stumbling as we wound over a stony shoulder, I had
ample time to reflect upon it the greater seemed the diffi-
culties before us. The loss of Fresnoy, while it freed me
from some embarrassment, meant also the loss of a good
sword, and we had mustered only too few before. The
country which lay between us and the Loire, being the
borderland between our party and the League, had been
laid desolate so often as to be abandoned to pillage and dis-
order of every kind. The peasants had flocked into the
towns. Their places had been taken by bands of robbers
and deserters from both parties, who haunted the ruined
villages about Poitiers, and preyed upon all who dared to
pass. To add to our perils, the royal army under the Duke
of Nevers was reported to be moving slowly southward, not
very far to the left of our road; while a Huguenot expedi-
tion against Niort was also in progress within a few
leagues of us.
With four staunch and trustworthy comrades at my back,
I might have faced even this situation with a smile and a
light heart; but the knowledge that my four knaves might
mutiny at any moment, or, worse still, rid themselves of
me and all restraint by a single treacherous blow such as
Fresnoy had aimed at me, filled me with an ever-present
dread; which it taxed my utmost energies to hide from
them, and which I strove in vain to conceal from mademoi-
selle's keener vision.
Whether it was this had an effect upon her, giving her a
meaner opinion of me than that which I had for a while
hoped she entertained, or that she began, now it was too
late, to regret her flight and resent my part in it, I scarcely
know; but from daybreak onwards she assumed an attitude
of cold suspicion towards me, which was only less unpleas-
ant than the scornful distance of her manner when she
deigned, which was seldom, to address me.
Not once did she allow me to forget that I was in ier
56 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
eyes a needy adventurer, paid by her friends to escort laer
to a place of safety, but without any claim to the smallest
privilege of intimacy or equality. When I would have
adjusted her saddle, she bade her woman come and hold up
her skirt, that my hands might not touch its hem even by
accident. And when I would have brought wine to her at
Melle, where we stayed for twenty minutes, she called
Fanchette to hand it to her. She rode for the most part in
her mask ; and with her woman. One good effect only her
pride and reserve had; they impressed our men with a
strong sense of her importance, and the danger to which
any interference with her might expose them.
The two men whom Fresnoy had enlisted I directed to
ride a score of paces in advance. Luke and John I placed
in the rear. In this manner I thought to keep them some-
what apart. For myself, I proposed to ride abreast of
mademoiselle, but she made it so clear that my neighbour-
hood displeased her that I fell back, leaving her to ride
with Fanchette; and contented myself with plodding at
their heels, and striving to attach the later evangelists to
my interests.
We were so fortunate, despite my fears, as to find the
road nearly deserted as, alas, was much of the country on
either side and to meet none but small parties travelling
along it ; who were glad enough, seeing the villainous looks
of our outriders, to give us a wide berth, and be quit of us
for the fright. We skirted Lusignan, shunning the streets,
but passing near enough for me to point out to mademoi-
selle the site of the famous tower built, according to tradi-
tion, by the fairy Melusina, and rased thirteen years back
by the Leaguers. She received my information so frigidly,
however, that I offered no more, but fell back shrugging
my shoulders, and rode in silence, until, some two hours
after noon, the city of Poitiers came into sight, lying with-
in its circle of walls and towers on a low hill in the middle
of a country clothed in summer with rich vineyards, but
now brown and bare and cheerless to the eye.
THE ROAD TO BLOfS 57
Fanchette turned and asked me abruptly if that were
Poitiers.
I answered that it was, but added that for certain reasons
I proposed not to halt, but to lie at a village a league be-
yond the city, where there was a tolerable inn.
'We shall do very well here,' the woman answered rudely.
'Any way, my lady will go no farther. She is tired and
cold, and wet besides, and has gone far enough.'
'Still,' I answered, nettled by the woman's familiarity,
'I think mademoiselle will change her mind when she hears
my reasons for going farther.'
'Mademoiselle does not wish to hear them, sir,' the lady
replied herself, and very sharply.
'Nevertheless, I think you had better hear them,' I per-
sisted, turning to her respectfully. 'You see, mademoi-
selle '
'I see only one thing, sir,' she exclaimed, snatching off
her mask and displaying a countenance beautiful indeed,
but flushed for the moment with anger and impatience,
'that, whatever betides, I stay at Poitiers to-night.'
'If it would content you to rest an hour?' I suggested
gently.
'It will not content me! ' she rejoined with spirit. 'And
let me tell you, sir,' she went on impetuously, 'once for
all, that you take too much upon yourself. You are here
to escort me, and to give orders to these ragamuffins, for
they are nothing better, with whom you have thought fit to
disgrace our company; but not to give orders to me or to
control my movements. Confine yourself for the future,
sir, to your duties, if you please.'
'I desire only to obey you,' I answered, suppressing the
angry feelings which rose in my breast, and speaking as
coolly as lay in my power. 'But, as the first of my duties
is to provide for your safety, I am determined to omit
nothing whidh can conduce to that end. You have not con-
sidered that, if a party in pursuit of us reaches Poitiers
to-night, search will be made for us in the city, and we
58 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE
shall be taken. If, on the other hand, we are known to
have passed through, the hunt may go no farther ; certainly
will go no farther to-night. Therefore we must not, made-
moiselle, ' I added firmly, 'lie in Poitiers to-night.'
'Si ',' she exclaimed, looking at me, her face crimson
with wonder and indignation, 'do you dare to ?'
'I dare do my duty, mademoiselle,' I answered, plucking
up a spirit, though my heart was sore. 'I am a man old
enough to be your father, and with little to lose, or I had
not been here. I care nothing what you think or what
you say of me, provided I can do what I have undertaken
to do and place you safely in the hands of your friends.
But enough, mademoiselle, we are at the gate. If you will
permit me, I will ride through the streets beside you. We
shall so attract less attention.'
Without waiting for a permission which she was very
unlikely to give, I pushed my horse forward, and took my
place beside her, signing to Fanchette to fall back. The
maid obeyed, speechless with indignation; while mademoi-
selle flashed a scathing glance at me and looked round in
helpless anger, as though it was in her mind to appeal
against me even to the passers-by. But she thought better
of it, and contenting herself with muttering the word 'Im-
pertinent ' put on her mask with fingers which trembled, I
fancy, not a little.
A small rain was falling and the afternoon was well
advanced when we entered the town, but I noticed that,
notwithstanding this, the streets presented a busy and ani-
mated appearance, being full of knots of people engaged in
earnest talk. A bell was tolling somewhere, and near the
cathedral a crowd of no little size was standing, listening
to a man who seemed to be reading a placard or manifesto
attached to the wall. In another place a soldier, wearing
the crimson colours of the League, but splashed and stained
as with recent travel, was holding forth to a breathless
circle who seemed to hang upon his lips. A neighbouring
corner sheltered a handful of priests who whispered to-
THE ROAD TO BLO1S 59
gether with gloomy faces. Many stared at us as we passed,
and some would have spoken; but I rode steadily on, in-
viting no converse. Nevertheless at the north gate I got
a rare fright ; for, though it wanted a full half-hour of sun-
set, the porter was in the act of closing it. Seeing us, he
waited grumbling until we came up, and then muttered, in
answer to my remonstrance, something about queer times
and wilful people having their way. I took little notice
of what he said, however, being anxious only to get
through the gate and leave as few traces of our passage
as might be.
As soon as we were outside the town I fell back, permit
ting Fanchette to take my place. For another league,
a long and dreary one, we plodded on in silence, horses and
men alike jaded and sullen, and the women scarcely able
to keep their saddles for fatigue. At last, much to my
relief, seeing that I began to fear I had taxed mademoi-
selle's strength too far, the long low buildings of the inn
at which I proposed to stay came in sight, at the crossing
of the road and river. The place looked blank and cheer-
less, for the dusk was thickening; but as we trailed one by
one into the courtyard a stream of firelight burst on us
from doors and windows, and a dozen sounds of life and
comfort greeted our ears.
Noticing that mademoiselle was benumbed and cramped
with long sitting, I would have helped her to dismount;
but she fiercely rejected my aid, and I had to content my-
self with requesting the landlord to assign the best accom-
modation he had to the lady and her attendant, and secure
as much privacy for them as possible. The man assented
very civilly and said all should be done; but I noticed that
his eyes wandered while I talked, and that he seemed to
have something on his mind. When he returned, after
disposing of them, it came out.
'Did you ever happen to see him, sir?' he asked with a
sigh; yet was there a smug air of pleasure mingled with
his melancholy.
60 A GENTLEMAN. OF FRANCE
'See whom?' I answered, staring at him, for neither of
us had mentioned any one.
'The Duke, sir.'
I stared again between wonder and suspicion. 'The Duke
of Nevers is not in this part, is he? ' I said slowly. 'I heard
he was on the Brittany border, away to the westward.'
'Mon Dieu!' my host exclaimed, raising his hands in
astonishment. 'You have not heard, sir? '
'I have heard nothing,' I answered impatiently.
'You have not heard, sir, that the most puissant and
illustrious lord the Duke of Guise is dead?'
'M. de Guise dead? It is not true! ' I cried astonished.
He nodded, however, several times with an air of great
importance, and seemed as if he would have gone on to
give me some particulars. But, remembering, as I fancied,
that he spoke in the hearing of half-a-dozen guests who sat
about the great fire behind me, and had both eyes and ears
open, he contented himself with shifting his towel to his
other arm and adding only, 'Yes, sir, dead as any nail.
The news came through here yesterday, and made a pretty
stir. It happened at Blois the day but one before Christ-
mas, if all be true.'
I was thunderstruck. This was news which might change
the face of France. 'How did it happen? ' I asked.
My host covered his mouth with his hand and coughed,
and, privily twitching my sleeve, gave me to understand
with some shamefacedness that he could not say more in
public. I was about to make some excuse to retire with
him, when a harsh voice, addressed apparently to me,
caused me to turn sharply. I found at my "elbow a tall
thin-faced monk in the habit of the Jacobin order. He had
risen from his seat beside the fire, and seemed to be labour-
ing under great excitement.
'Who asked how it happened?' he cried, rolling his eyes
in a kind of frenzy, while still observant, or I was much
mistaken, of his listeners. Is there a man J ''\ France to
whom the tale has not been told? Is there?'
THE ROAD TO BLOIS 61
'I will answer for one,' I replied, regarding him with
little favour. 'I have heard nothing. 5
'Then you shall! Listen!' he exclaimed, raising his right
hand and brandishing it as though he denounced a person then
present. 'Hear my accusation, made in the name of Mother
Church and the saints against the arch hypocrite, the per-
jurer and assassin sitting in high places ! He shall_be An-
athema Maranatha, for he has shed the blood of the holy
and the pure, the chosen of Heaven ! He shall go down to
the pit, and that soon. The blood that he has shed shall
be required of him, and that before he is one year older.'
'Tut-tut. All that sounds very fine, good father/ I said,
taxing impatient, and a little scornful; for I saw that he
was one of those wandering and often crazy monks in
whom the League found their most useful emissaries. 'But
I should profit more by your gentle words, if I knew whom
you were cursing.'
'The man of blood!' he cried; 'through whom the last
but not the least of God's saints and martyrs entered into
glory on the Friday before Christmas.'
Moved by such profanity, and judging him, notwithstand-
ing the extravagance of his words and gestures, to be less
mad than he seemed, and at least as much knave as ft )\, I
bade Lira sternly have done with his cursing, and proceed
to his story if he had one.
He glowered at me for a moment, as though he were
minded to launch his spiritual weapons at my head; but
as I returned his glare with an unmoved eye and my four
rascals, who were as impatient as myself to learn the news,
and had scarce more reverence for a shaven crown, began
to murmur he thought better of it, and cooling as sud-
denly as he had flamed up, lost no more time in satisfying
our curiosity.
It would ill become me, however, to set down the ex-
travagant and often blasphemous harangue in which, styl-
ing M. de Guise the martyr of God, he told the story now
so familiar the story of that dark wintry morning at Blois,
62 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
when the king's messenger, knocking early at the duke's
door, bade him hurry, for the king wanted him. The story
is trite enough now. When I heard it first in the inn on
the Clain, it was all new and all marvellous.
The monk, too, telling the story as if he had seen the
events with his own eyes, omitted nothing which might
impress his hearers. He told us hqw the duke received
warning after warning, and answered in the very ante-
chamber, 'He dare not! ' How his blood, mysteriously
advised of coming dissolution, grew chill, and his eye,
wounded at Chateau Thierry, began to run, so that he had
to send for the handkerchief he had forgotten to bring. He
told us, even, how the duke drew his assassins up and down
the chamber, how he cried for mercy, and how he died at
last at the foot of the king's bed, and how the king, who had
never dared to face him living, came and spurned him dead !
There were pale faces round the fire when he ceased, and
bent brows and lips hard pressed together. When he stood
and cursed the King of France cursing him openly by the
name of Henry of Valois, a thing I had never looked to
hear in France though no one said 'Amen/ and all glanced
over their shoulders, and our host pattered from the room
as if he had seen a ghost, it seemed to be no man's duty to
gainsay him.
For myself, I was full of thoughts which it would have
been unsafe to utter in that company or so near the Loire.
I looked back sixteen years. Who but Henry of Guise
had spurned the corpse of Coligny? And who but Henry
of Valois had backed him in the act? Who but Henry of
Guise had drenched Paris with blood, and who but Henry
of Valois had ridden by his side? One 23rd of the month
a day never to be erased from France's annals had pur-
chased for him a term of greatness. A second 23rd saw
him pay the price saw his ashes cast secretly and by night
no man knows where !
Moved by such thoughts, and observing that the priest
was going the round of the company collecting money for
THE ROAD TO BLOIS 63
masses for the duke's soul, to which object I could neither
give with a good conscience nor refuse without exciting
suspicion, I slipped out ; and finding a man of decent ap-
pearance talking with the landlord in a small room beside
the kitchen, I called for a flask of the best wine, and by
means of that introduction obtained my supper in their
company.
The stranger was a Norman horsedealer, returning home
after disposing of his string. He seemed to be in a large
way of business, and being of a bluff, independent spirit,
as many of those Norman townsmen are, was inclined at
first to treat me with more familiarity than respect; the
fact of my nag, for which he would have chaffered, excel-
ling my coat in quality, leading him to set me down as a
steward or intendant. The pursuit of his trade, however,
had brought him into connection with all classes of men,
and he quickly perceived his mistake; and as he knew the
provinces between the Seine and Loire to perfection, and
made it part of his business to foresee the chances of peace
and war, I obtained a great amount of information from
him, and indeed conceived no little liking for him. He
believed that the assassination of M. de Guise would alien-
ate so much of France from the king that his majesty would
have little left save the towns on the Loire, and some other
places lying within easy reach of his court at Blois.
'But,' I said, 'things seem quiet now. Here, for in-
stance.'
'It is the calm before the storm,' he answered. 'There
is a monk in there. Have you heard him? '
I nodded.
: He is only one among a hundred a thousand,' the
horsedealer continued, looking at me and nodding with
meaning. He was a brown-haired man with shrewd grey
eyes, such as many Normans have. 'They will get their
way too, you will see,' he went on. 'Well, horses will go
up, so I have no cause to grumble; but, if I were on my
way to Blois with women or gear of that kind, I should
64 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE
not choose this time for picking posies on the road. I
should see the inside of the gates as soon as possible.'
I thought there was much in what he said; and when he
went on to maintain that the king would find himself be-
tween the hammer and the anvil between the League hold-
ing all the north and the Huguenots holding all the south
and must needs in time come to terms with the latter,
seeing that the former would rest content with nothing
short of his deposition, I began to agree with him that we
should shortly see great changes and very stirring times.
'Still if they depose the king,' I said, 'the King of Na-
varre must succeed him. He is the heir of France.'
'Bah! ' my companion replied somewhat contemptuously.
'The League will see to that. He goes with the other.'
'Then the kings are in one cry, and you are right,' I said
with conviction. 'They must unite.'
'So they will. It is only a question of time,' he said.
In the morning, having only one man with him, and, as
I guessed, a considerable sum of money, he volunteered to
join our party as far as Blois. I assented gladly, and he
did so, this addition to our numbers ridding me at once of
the greater part of my fears. I did not expect any oppo-
sition on the part of mademoiselle, who would gain in con-
sequence as well as in safety. Nor did she offer any. She
was content, I think, to welcome any addition to our party
which would save her from the necessity of riding in the
company of my old cloak.
CHAPTER VI.
MY MOTHER'S LODGING.
TRAVELLING by way of Chatelherault and Tours, we
reached the neighbourhood of Blois a little after noon on
the third day without misadventure or any intimation of
MY MOTHER'S LODGING 65
pursuit. The Norman proved himself a cheerful compan-
ion on the road, as I already knew him to be a man of sense
and shrewdness; while his presence rendered the task of
keeping my men in order an easy one. I began to consider
the adventure as practically achieved; and regarding Mad-
emoiselle de la Vire as already in effect transferred to the
care of M. de Rosny, I ventured to turn my thoughts to the
development of my own plans and the choice of a haven in
which I might rest secure from the vengeance of M. de
Turenne.
For the moment I had evaded his pursuit, and, assisted
by the confusion caused everywhere by the death of Guise,
had succeeded in thwarting his plans and affronting his
authority with seeming ease. But I knew too much of
his power and had heard too many instances of his fierce
temper and resolute will to presume on short impunity or
to expect the future with anything but diffidence and
dismay.
The exclamations of my companions on coming within
sight of Blois aroused me from these reflections. I joined
them, and fully shared their emotion as I gazed on the
stately towers which had witnessed so many royal festivi-
ties, and, alas! one royal tragedy; which had sheltered
Louis the Well-beloved and Francis the Great, and rung
with the laughter of Diana of Poitiers and the second
Henry. The play of fancy wreathed the sombre building
with a hundred memories grave and gay. But, though the
rich plain of the Loire still swelled upward as of old in
gentle homage at the feet of the gillant town, the shadow
of crime seemed to darken all, and dim even the glories of
the royal standard which hung idly in the air.
We had heard so many reports of the fear and suspicion
which reigned in the city and of the strict supervision which
was exercised over all who entered the king dreading a
repetition of the day of the Barricades that we halted at a
little inn a mile short of the gate and broke up our com-
pany. I parted from my Norman friend with mutual ex-
66 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
pressions of esteem, and from my own men, whom I had
paid off in the morning, complimenting each of them with
a handsome present, with a feeling of relief equally sin-
cere. I hoped but the hope was not fated to be gratified
that I might never see the knaves again.
It wanted less than an hour of sunset when I rode up to
the gate, a few paces in front of mademoiselle and her
woman ; as if I had really been the intendant for whom the
horse-dealer had mistaken me. We found the guardhouse
lined with soldiers, who scanned us very narrowly as we
approached, and whose stern features and ordered weapons
showed that they were not there for mere effect. The fact,
however, that we came from Tours, a city still in the king's
hands, served to allay suspicion, and we passed without
accident.
Once in the streets, and riding in single file between the
houses, to the windows of which the townsfolk seemed to
be attracted by the slightest commotion, so full of terror
was the air, I experienced a moment of huge relief. This
was Blois Blois at last. We were within a few score
yards of the Bleeding Heart. In a few minutes I should
receive a quittance, and be free to think only of myself.
ISTor was my pleasure much lessened by the fact that I was
so soon to part from Mademoiselle de la Vire. Frankly,
I was far from liking her. Exposure to the air of a court
had spoiled, it seemed to me, whatever graces of disposi-
tion the young lady had ever possessed. She still main-
tained, and had maintained throughout the journey, the
cold and suspicious attitude assumed at starting; nor had
she ever expressed the least solicitude on my behalf, or the
slightest sense that we were incurring danger in her ser-
vice. She had not scrupled constantly to prefer her whims
to the common advantage, and even safety ; while her sense
of self-importance had come to be so great, that she seemed
to hold herself exempt from the duty of thanking any
human creature. I could not deny that she was beautiful
indeed, I often thought, when watching her, of the day
MY MOTHER'S LODGING 67
when I had seen her in the King of ^Navarre's antechamber
in all the glory of her charms. But I felt none the less
that I could turn my back on her leaving her in safety
without regret; and be thankful that her path would never
again cross mine.
With such thoughts in my breast I turned the corner of
the Rue de St. Denys and came at once upon the Bleeding
Heart, a small but decent-looking hostelry situate near the
end of the street and opposite a church. A bluff, grey-
haired man, who was standing in the doorway, came for-
ward as we halted, and looking curiously at mademoiselle
asked what I lacked; adding civilly that the house was
full and they had no sleeping room, the late events having
drawn a great assemblage to Blois.
'I want only an address,' I answered, leaning from the
saddle and speaking in a low voice that I might not be
overheard by the passers-by. 'The Baron de Rosny is in
Blois, is he not? '
The man started at the name of the Huguenot leader,
and looked round him nervously. But, seeing that no one
was very near us, he answered: 'He was, sir; but he left
town a week ago and more. There have been strange
doings here, and M. de Rosny thought that the climate
suited him ill.'
He said this with so much meaning, as well as concern
that he should not be overheard, that, though I was taken
aback and bitterly disappointed, I succeeded in restraining
all exclamations and even show of feeling. After a pause
of dismay, I asked whither M. de Eosny had gone.
'To Rosny,' was the answer.
'And Rosny? '
'Is beyond Chartres, pretty well all the way to Mantes/
the man answered, stroking my horse's neck. 'Say thirty
leagues. '
I turned my horse, and hurriedly communicated what he
said to mademoiselle, who was waiting a few paces away.
Unwelcome to me, the news was still less welcome to her.
F2
68 A GENTLEMAN" OF FRANCE
Her chagrin and indignation knew no bounds. For a
moment words failed her, but her flashing eyes said more
than her tongue as she cried to me: 'Well, sir, and what
now? Is this the end of your fine promises? Where is
your Rosny, if all be not a lying invention of your own?'
Feeling that she had some excuse I suppressed my
choler, and humbly repeating that Kosny was at his house,
two days farther on, and that I could see nothing for it but
to go to him, I asked the landlord where we could find a
lodging for the night.
'Indeed, sir, that is more than I can say,' he answered,
looking curiously at us, and thinking, I doubt not, that
with my shabby cloak and fine horse, and mademoiselle's
mask and spattered riding-coat, we were an odd couple.
'There is not an inn which is not full to the garrets nay,
and the stables ; and, what is more, people are chary of
taking strangers in. These are strange times. They say,'
he continued in a lower tone, 'that the old queen is dying
up there, and will not last the night.'
I nodded. 'We must go somewhere,' I said.
'I would help you if I could,' he answered, shrug-
ging his shoulders. 'But there it is! Blois is full from
the tiles to the cellars.'
My horse shivered under me, and mademoiselle, whose
patience was gone, cried harshly to me to do something.
' We cannot spend the night in the streets, ' she said fiercely.
I saw that she was worn out and scarcely mistress of her-
selt'. The light was falling, and with it some rain. The
reek of the kennels and the close air from the houses seemed
to stifle us. The bell at the church behind us was jangling
out vespers. A few people, attracted by the sight of our
horses standing before the inn, had gathered round and
were watching us.
Something I saw must be done, and done quickly. In
despair, and seeing no other resort, I broached a proposal
of which I had not hitherto even dreamed. 'Mademoiselle,'
I said bluntly, 'I must take you to my mother's.'
69
'To your mother's, sir?' she cried, rousing herself. Her
voice rang with haughty surprise.
'Yes,' I replied brusquely; 'since, as you say, we cannot
spend the night in the streets, and I do not know where
else I can dispose of you. From the last advices I had I
believe her to have followed the court hither. My friend,'
I continued, turning to the landlord, 'do you know by name
a Madame de Bonne, who should be in Blois? '
'A Madame de Bonne?' he muttered, reflecting. 'I have
heard the name lately. Wait a moment.' Disappearing
into the house, he returned almost immediately, followed
by a lanky pale-faced youth wearing a tattered black sou-
tane. 'Yes,' he said nodding, 'there is a worthy lady of
that name lodging in the next street, I am told. As it
happens, this young man lives in the same house, and will
guide you, if you like.'
I assented, and, thanking him for his information, turned
my horse and requested the youth to lead the way. We
had scarcely passed the corner of the street, however, and
entered one somewhat more narrow and less frequented,
when mademoiselle, vho was riding behind me, stopped and
railed jo jne. I drew rein, and, turning, asked what it was.
'I am not coming,' she said, her voice trembling slightly,
but whether with alarm or anger I could not determine. 'I
know nothing of you, and I I demand to be taken to M.
de Rosnj 7 .'
' If you cry that name aloud in the streets of Blois, made-
moiselle,' I retorted, 'you are like enough to be taken
whither you will not care to go! As for M. de Eosny, I
have told you that he is not here. He has gone to his seat
at Mantes.'
' Then take me to him ! '
'At this hour of the night? ' I said drily. 'It is two
days' journey from here.'
'Then I will go to an inn,' she replied sullenly.
'You have heard that there is no room in the inns,' 1 re-
joined with what patience I could. 'And to go from inn to
70 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
inn at this hour might lead us into trouble. I can assure
you that I am as much taken aback by M. de Rosny's ab-
sence as you are. For the present, we are close to my
mother's lodging, and '
'I know nothing of your mother! ' she exclaimed passion-
ately, her voice raised. 'You have enticed me hither by
false pretences, sir, and I will endure it no longer. I
will '
'What you will do, I do not know then, mademoiselle,' I
replied, quite at my Avits' end; for what with the rain and
the darkness, the unknown streets in which our tarrying
might at any moment collect a crowd and this stubborn
girl's opposition, I knew not whither to turn. 'For my
part I can suggest nothing else. It does not become me to
speak of my mother,' I continued, 'or I might say that even
Mademoiselle de la Vire need not be ashamed to accept the
hospitality of Madame de Bonne. Nor are my mother's
circumstances,' I added proudly, 'though narrow, so mean
as to deprive her of the privileges of her birth.'
My last words appeared to make some impression upon
my companion. She turned and spoke to her woman, who
replied in a low voice, tossing her head the while and glar-
ing at me in speechless indignation. Had there been any-
thing else for it, they would doubtless have flouted my offer
still; but apparently Fanchette could suggest nothing, and
presently mademoiselle, with a sullen air, bade me lead on.
Taking this for permission, the lanky youth in the black
soutane, who had remained at my bridle throughout the dis-
cussion, now listening and now staring, nodded and resumed
his way; and I followed. After proceeding a little more
than fifty yards he stopped before a mean-looking doorway,
flanked by grated windows, and fronted by a lofty wall
which I took to be the back of some nobleman's garden.
The street at this point was unlighted, and little better
than an alley; nor was the appearance of the house, which
was narrow and ill-looking, though lofty, calculated, as far
as I could make it out in the darkness, to allay mademoi-
MY MOTHER'S LODGING 71
selle's suspicions. Knowing, however, that people of posi-
tion are often obliged in towns to lodge in poor houses, I
thought nothing of this, and only strove to get mademoiselle
dismounted as quickly as possible. The lad groped about
and found two rings beside the door, and to these I tied up
the horses. Then, bidding him lead the way, and begging
mademoiselle to follow, I plunged into the darkness of the
passage and felt my way to the foot of the staircase, which
was entirely unlighted, and smelled close and unpleasant.
'Which floor? ' I asked my guide.
'The fourth,' he answered quietly.
'Morbleu! ' I muttered, as I began to ascend, my hand
on the wall. 'What is the meaning of this? '
For I was perplexed. The revenues of Marsac, though
small, should have kept my mother, whom I had last seen
in Paris before the Nemours edict, in tolerable comfort
such modest comfort, at any rate, as could scarcely be
looked for in such a house as this obscure, ill-tended, un-
lighted. To my perplexity was added, before I reached
the top of the stairs, disquietude disquietude on her
account as well as on mademoiselle's. I felt that some-
thing was wrong, and would have given much to recall the
invitation I had pressed on the latter.
What the young lady thought herself I could pretty well
guess, as I listened to her hurried breathing at my shoulder.
With every step I expected her to refuse to go farther.
But, having once made up her mind, she followed me stub-
bornly, though the darkness was such that involuntarily I
loosened my dagger, and prepared to defend myself should
this turn out to be a trap.
We reached the top, however, without accident. Our
guide knocked softly at a door and immediately opened it
without waiting for an answer. A feeble light shone out
on the stair-head, and bending my head, for the lintel was
low, I stepped into the room.
I advanced two paces and stood looking about me in
angry bewilderment. The bareness of extreme poveny
72 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
marked everything on which my eyes rested. A cracked
earthenware lamp smoked and sputtered on a stool in the
middle of the rotting floor. An old black cloak nailed to
the wall, and flapping to and fro in the draught like some
dead gallowsbird, hung in front of the unglazed window.
A jar in a corner caught the drippings from a hole in the
roof. An iron pot and a second stool the latter casting a
long shadow across the floor stood beside the handful of
wood ashes, which smouldered on the hearth. And that
was all the furniture I saAV, except a bed which filled the
farther end of the long narrow room, and was curtained off
so as to form a kind of miserable alcove.
A glance sufficed to show me all this, and that the room
was empty, or apparently empty. Yet I looked again and
again, stupefied. At last finding my voice, I turned to the
young man who had brought us hither, and with a fierce
oath demanded of him what he meant.
He shrank back behind the open door, and yet answered
with a kind of sullen surprise that I had asked for Madame
de Bonne's, and this was it.
'Madame de Bonne's!' I muttered. 'This Madame de
Bonne's! '
He nodded.
'Of course it is! And you know it!' mademoiselle
hissed in my ear, her voice, as she interposed, hoarse with
passion. 'Don't think that you can deceive us any longer.
We know all! This,' she continued, looking round, her
cheeks scarlet, her eyes ablaze with scorn, 'is your
mother's, is it! Your mother who has followed the court
hither whose means are narrow, but not so small as to
deprive her of the privileges of her rank! This is your
mother's hospitality, is it? You are a cheat, sir! and a
detected cheat! Let us begone! Let me go, sir, I say! '
Twice I had tried to stop the current of her words; but
in vain. Now with anger which surpassed hers a hundred-
fold for who, being a man, would hear himself misnamed
before his mother? I succeeded. 'Silence, mademoiselle ! '
SIMON FLEIX 73
I cried, my grasp on her wrist. ' Silence, I say ! This is
my mother ! '
And running forward to the bed, I fell on my knees
beside it. A feeble hand had half withdrawn the curtain,
and through the gap my mother's stricken face looked out,
a great fear stamped upon it.
CHAPTER VII.
SIMON FLEIX.
FOK some minutes I forgot mademoiselle in paying those
assiduous attentions to my mother which her state and my
duty demanded ; and which I offered the more anxiously
that I recognised, with a sinking heart, the changes which
age and illness had made in her since my last visit. The
shock of mademoiselle's words had thrown her into a syn-
cope, from which she did not recover for some time ; and
then rather through the assistance of our strange guide,
who seemed well aware what to do, than through my
efforts. Anxious as I was to learn what had reduced her
to such straits and such a place, this was not the time to
satisfy my curiosity, and I prepared myself instead for the
task of effacing the painful impression which mademoiselle's
words had made on her mind.
On first coming to herself she did not remember them,
but, content to find me by her side for there is something
so alchemic in a mother's love that I doubt not my presence
changed her garret to a palace she spent herself in feeble
caresses and broken words. Presently, however, her eye fall-
ing on mademoiselle and her maid, who remained standing
by the hearth, looking darkly at us from time to time, she
recalled, first the shock which had prostrated her, and then
its cause, and raising herself on her elbow, looked about
her wildly. ' Gaston ! ' she cried, clutching my hand with
74 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
her thin fingers, * what was it I heard ? It was of you
someone spoke a woman ! She called you or did I dream
it? a cheat ! You ! '
' Madame, madame,' I said, striving to speak carelessly,
though the sight of her grey hair, straggling and dishev-
elled, moved me strangely, ' was it likely ? Would anyone
dare to use such expressions of me in your presence ?
You must indeed have dreamed it ! '
The words, however, returning more and more vividly to
her mind, she looked at me very pitifully, and in great agi-
tation laid her arm on my neck, as though she would shelter
me with the puny strength which just enabled her to rise
in bed. 'But someone,' she muttered, her eyes on the
strangers, 'said it, Gaston ? I heard it. What did it
mean ? '
' What you heard, madame,' I answered, with an attempt
at gaiety, though the tears stood in my eyes, * was, doubt-
less, mademoiselle here scolding our guide from Tours, who
demanded three times the proper pourboire. The impudent
rascal deserved all that was said to him, I assure you.'
' Was that it ? ' she murmured doubtfully.
'That must have been what you heard, madame,' I an-
swered, as if I felt no doubt.
She fell back with a sigh of relief, and a little colour
came into her wan face. But her eyes still dwelt curiously,
and with apprehension, on mademoiselle, who stood looking
sullenly into the fire ; and seeing this my heart misgave me
sorely that I had done a foolish thing in bringing the girl
there. I foresaw a hundred questions which would be
asked, and a hundred complications which must ensue,
and felt already the blush of shame mounting to my
cheek.
' Who is that ? ' my mother asked softly. ' I am ill.
She must excuse me.' She pointed with her fragile finger
to my companions.
I rose, and still keeping her hand in mine, turned so as
to face the hearth. ' This, madame/ I answered formally,
SIMON FLEIX 75
' is Mademoiselle , but her name I will commit to you
later, and in private. Suffice it to say that she is a lady
of rank, who has been committed to my charge by a high
personage.'
' A high personage ? ' my mother repeated gently, glanc-
ing at me with a smile of gratification.
' One of the highest,' I said. ' Such a charge being a
great honour to me, I felt that I could not better execute
it, madame, since we must lie in Blois one night, than by
requesting your hospitality on her behalf.'
I dared mademoiselle as I spoke I dared her with my
eye to contradict or interrupt me. For answer, she looked
at me once, inclining her head a little, and gazing at us
from under her long eyelashes. Then she turned back to
the fire, and her foot resumed its angry tapping on the floor.
' I regret that I cannot receive her better,' my mother
answered feebly. ' I have had losses of late. I but I
will speak of that at another time. Mademoiselle doubt-
less knows,' she continued with dignity, 'you and your
position in the South too well to think ill of the momentary
straits to which she finds me reduced.'
I saw mademoiselle start, and I writhed under the glance
of covert scorn, of amazed indignation, which she shot at
me. But my mother gently patting my hand, I answered
patiently, ' Mademoiselle will think only what is kind,
madame of that I am assured. And lodgings are scarce
to-night in Blois.'
' But tell me of yourself, Gaston,' my mother cried
eagerly; and I had not the heart, with her touch on my
hand, her eyes on my face, to tear myself away, much as
I dreaded what was coming, and longed to end the scene.
' Tell me of yourself. You are still in favour with the king
of I will not name him here ? '
' Still, madame,' I answered, looking steadily at made-
moiselle, though my face burned.
1 You are still he consults you, Gaston ? "
* Still, madame.'
76 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
My mother heaved a happy sigh, and sank lower in the
bed. 'And your employments ? ' she murmured, her voice
trembling with gratification. ' They have not been re-
duced ? You still retain them, Gaston ? "
f Still, madame,' I answered, the perspiration standing on
my brow, my shame almost more than I could bear.
1 Twelve thousand livres a year, I think ? '
' The same, madame.'
' And your establishment ? How many do you keep
now ? Your valet, of course ? And lackeys how many
at present ? ' She glanced, with an eye of pride, while she
waited for my answer, first at the two silent figures by the
fire, then at the poverty-stricken room ; as if the sight of
its bareness heightened for her the joy of my prosperity.
She had no suspicion of my trouble, my misery, or that
the last question almost filled the cup too full. Hitherto
all had been easy, but this seemed to choke me. I stam-
mered and lost my voice. Mademoiselle, her head bowed,
was gazing into the fire. Fanchette was staring at me, her
black eyes round as saucers, her mouth half-open. ' Well,
madame,' I muttered at length, ' to tell you the truth, at
present, you must understand, I have been forced to '
' What, Gaston ? ' Madame de Bonne half rose in bed.
Her voice was sharp with disappointment and apprehen-
sion ; the grasp of her fingers on my hand grew closer.
I could not resist that appeal. I flung away the last rag
of shame. ' To reduce my establishment somewhat,' I an-
swered, looking a miserable defiance at mademoiselle's
averted figure. She had called me a liar and a cheat here
in the room ! I must stand before her a liar and a cheat
confessed. ' I keep but three lackeys now, madame.'
' Still it is creditable,' my mother muttered thoughtfully,
her eyes shining. ' Your dress, however, Gaston only my
eyes are weak seems to me '
' Tut, tut ! It is but a disguise,' I answered quickly.
' I might have known that,' she rejoined, sinking back
with a smile and a sigh of content. f But when I first saw
SIMON FLEIX 77
you I was almost afraid that something had happened to
you. And I have been uneasy lately,' she went on, releas-
ing my hand, and beginning to play with the coverlet, as
though the remembrance troubled her. ' There was a man
here a while ago a friend of Simon Meix there who had
been south to Pau and Nerac, and he said there was no
M. de Marsac about the Court.'
' He probably knew less of the Court than the wine-
tavern,' I answered with a ghastly smile.
' That was just what I told him,' my mother responded
quickly and eagerly. ' I warrant you I sent him away ill-
satisfied.'
' Of course,' I said ; ' there will always be people of that
kind. But now, if you will permit me, madame, I will
make such arrangements for mademoiselle as are necessary.'
Begging her accordingly to lie down and compose her-
self for even so short a conversation, following on the
excitement of our arrival, had exhausted her to a painful
degree I took the youth, who had just returned from
stabling our horses, a little aside, and learning that he
lodged in a smaller chamber on the farther side of the
landing, secured it for the use of mademoiselle and her
woman. In spite of a certain excitability which marked
him at times, he seemed to be a quick, ready fellow, and he
willingly undertook to go out, late as it was, and procure
some provisions and a few other things which were sadly
needed, as well for my mother's comfort as for our own.
I directed Fanchette to aid him in the preparation of the
other chamber, and thus for a while I was left alone with
mademoiselle. She had taken one of the stools, and sat
cowering over the fire, the hood of her cloak drawn about
her head ; in such a manner that even when she looked at
me, which she did from time to time, I saw little more than
her eyes, bright with contemptuous anger.
' So, sir,' she presently began, speaking in a low voice,
and turning slightly towards me, 'you practise lying even
here ? '
78 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
I felt so strongly the futility of denial or explanation that
I shrugged my shoulders and remained silent under the
sneer. Two more days two more days would take us to
Rosny, and my task would be done, and mademoiselle and
I would part for good and all. What would it matter then
what she thought of me ? What did it matter now ?
For the first time in our intercourse my silence seemed to
disconcert and displease her. 'Have you nothing to say for
yourself ? ' she muttered sharply, crushing a fragment of
charcoal under her foot, and stooping to peer at the ashes.
' Have you not another lie in your quiver, M. de Marsac ?
De Marsac ! ' And she repeated the title, with a scornful
laugh, as if she put no faith in my claim to it.
But I would answer nothing nothing ; and we remained
silent until Fanchette, coming in to say that the chamber
was ready, held the light for her mistress to pass out. I
told the woman to come back and fetch mademoiselle's sup-
per, and then, being left alone with my mother, who had
fallen asleep, with a smile on her thin, worn face, I began
to wonder what had happened to reduce her to such dire
poverty.
I feared to agitate her by referring to it ; but later in the
evening, when her curtains were drawn and Simon Fleix and
I were left together, eyeing one another across the embers
like dogs of different breeds with a certain strangeness
and suspicion my thoughts recurred to the question ; and
determining first to learn something about my companion,
whose pale, eager face and tattered, black dress gave him
a certain individuality, I asked him whether he had come
from Paris with Madame de Bonne.
He nodded without speaking.
I asked him if he had known her long.
* Twelve months,' he answered. ' I lodged on the fifth,
madame on the second, floor of the same house in Paris.'
I leaned forward and plucked the hem of his black robe.
'What is this?' I said, with a little contempt. 'You are
not a priest, man.'
SIMON FLEIX 79
' No,' he answered, fingering the stuff himself, and gazing
at me in a curious, vacant fashion. ' I am a student of the
Sorbonne.'
I drew off from him with a muttered oath, wondering
while I looked at him with suspicious eyes how he came
to be here, and particularly how he came to be in attendance
on my mother, who had been educated from childhood in
the Eeligion, and had professed it in private all her life. I
could think of no one who, in old days, would have been
less welcome in her house than a Sorbonnist, and began
to fancy that here should lie the secret of her miserable
condition.
'You don't like the Sorbonne?' he said, reading my
thoughts ; which were, indeed, plain enough.
' No more than I love the devil ! ' I said bluntly.
He leaned forward and, stretching out a thin, nervous
hand, laid it on my knee. 'What if they are right, though ?'
he muttered, his voice hoarse. 'What if they are right, M.
de Marsac?'
' Who right ? ' I asked roughly, drawing back afresh.
'The Sorbonue,' he repeated, his face red with excite-
ment, his eyes peering uncannily into mine. ' Don't you
see,' he continued, pinching my knee in his earnestness, and
thrusting his face nearer and nearer to mine, ' it all turns
on that? It all turns on that salvation or damnation!
Are they right ? Are you right ? You say yes to this, no
to that, you white-coats; and you say it lightly, but are you
right ? Are you right ? Mon Dieu ! ' he continued, draw-
ing back abruptly and clawing the air with impatience, ' I
have read, read, read ! I have listened to sermons, theses,
disputations, and I know nothing. I know no more than
when I began.'
He sprang up and began to pace the floor, while I gazed
at him with a feeling of pity. A very learned person once
told me that the troubles of these times bred four kinds of
men, who were much to be compassionated : fanatics on the
one side or the other, who lost sight of all else in the
80 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
intensity of their faith ; men who, like Simon Fleix, sought
desperately after something to believe, and found it not;
and lastly, scoffers, who, believing in nothing, looked on all
religion as a mockery.
He presently stopped walking in his utmost excitement
I remarked that he never forgot my mother, but trod more
lightly when he drew near the alcove and spoke again.
' You are a Huguenot ? ' he said.
'Yes/ I replied.
'So is she,' he rejoined, pointing towards the bed. 'But
do you feel no doubts ? '
' None,' I said quietly.
* Nor does she,' he answered again, stopping opposite me.
You made up your mind how ? '
' I was born in the Religion,' I said.
'And you have never questioned it ?'
'Never.'
'Nor thought much about it? J
' Not a great deal,' I answered.
'Saint Gris !' he exclaimed in a low tone. ' And do you
never think of hell-fire of the worm which dieth not, and
the fire which shall not be quenched ? Do you never think
of that, M. de Marsac ? '
'No, my friend, never!' I answered, rising impatiently ;
for at that hour, and in that silent, gloomy room I found
his conversation dispiriting. 'I believe what I was taught
to believe, and I strive to hurt no one but the enemy. I
think little ; and if I were you I would think less. ' I would
do something, man fight, play, work, anything but think !
Leave that to clerks.'
' I am a clerk,' he answered.
'A poor one, it seems,' I retorted, with a little scorn
in my tone. ' Leave it, man. Work ! Fight ! Do some-
thing ! '
' Fight ? ' he said, as if the idea were a novel one.
' Fight ? But there, I might be kill ed ; and then hell-fire-
you see ! '
SIMON FLEIX 8 1
* Zounds, man ! ' I cried, out of patience with a folly
which, to tell the truth, the lamp burning low, and the
rain pattering on the roof, made the skin of my back feel
cold and creepy. 'Enough of this! Keep your doubts
and your tire to yourself ! And answer me/ I continued,
sternly. 'How came Madame de Bonne so poor? How
did she come down to this place ? '
He sat down on his stool, the excitement dying quickly
out of his fare. ' She gave away all her money,' he said
slowly and reluctantly. It may be imagined that this
answer surprised me. ' Gave it away? ' I exclaimed. 'To
whom ? And when ?'
He moved uneasily on his seat and avoided my eye, his
altered manner tilling me with saspicions which the insight
I had just obtained into his character did not altogether
preclude. At last he said, ' I had nothing to do with it, if
you mean that ; nothing. On the contrary, I have done all
I could to make it up to her. I followed her here. I swear
that is so, M. de Marsac/
'You have not told me yet to whom she gave it/ I said
sternly.
' She gave it,' he muttered, ' to a priest. 3
'To what priest?'
' I do not know his name. He is a Jacobin.'
'And why?' I asked, gazing incredulously at the stu-
dent. ' Why did she give it to him ? Come, come ! have
a care. Let me have none of your Sorbonne inventions ! '
He hesitated a moment, looking at me timidly, and then
seemed to make up his mind to tell me. ' He found out
it was when we lived in Paris, you understand, last June
that she was a Huguenot. It was about the time they
burned the Foucards, and he frightened her with that, and
made her pay him money, a little at first, and then more
and more, to keep her secret. When the king came to Blois
she followed his Majesty, thinking to be safer here; but
the priest came too, and got more money, and more, until
he left her this.'
82 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
' This ! ' I said. And I set my teeth together.
Simon Fleix nodded.
I looked round the wretched garret to which my mother
had been reduced, and pictured the days and hours of fear
and suspense through which she had lived ; through which
she must have lived with that caitiff's threat hanging over
her grey head ! I thought of her birth and her humiliation ,
of her frail form and patient, undying love for me ; and sol-
emnly, and before heaven, I swore that night to punish the
man. My anger was too great for words, and for tears I
was too old. I asked Simon Fleix no more questions, save
when the priest might be looked for again which he could
not tell me and whether he would know him again to
which he answered, 'Yes.' But, wrapping myself in my
cloak, I lay down by the fire and pondered long and sadly.
So, while I had been pinching there, my mother had been
starving here. She had deceived me, and I her. The lamp
flickered, throwing uncertain shadows as the draught tossed
the strange window-curtain to and fro. The leakage from
the roof fell drop by drop, and now and again the wind
shook the crazy building, as though it would lift it up
bodily and carry it away.
CHAPTER VIIL
AN EMPTY KOOM.
DESIRING to start as early as possible, that we might
reach Rosny on the second evening, I roused Simon Fleix
before it was light, and learning from him where the horses
were stabled, went out to attend to them ; preferring to do
this myself, that I might have an opportunity of seeking
out a tailor, and providing myself with clothes better suited
to my rank than those to which I had been reduced of late.
I found that I still had ninety crowns left of the sum which
AN EMPTY ROOM 83
the King of Navarre had given me, and twelve of these I
laid out on a doublet of black cloth with russet points and
ribands, a dark cloak lined with the same sober colour, and
a new cap and feather. The tradesman would fain have
provided me with a new scabbard also, seeing my old one
was worn-out at the heel; but this I declined, having a
fancy to go with my point bare until I should have pun-
ished the scoundrel who had made my mother's failing days
a misery to her ; a business which, the King of Navarre's
once done, I promised myself to pursue with energy and at
all costs.
The choice of my clothes, and a few alterations which it
was necessary to make in them, detained me some time, so
that it was later than I could have wished when I turned
my face towards the house again, bent on getting my party
to horse as speedily as possible. The morning, I remember,
was bright, frosty, and cold; the kennels were dry, the
streets comparatively clean. Here and there a ray of early
sunshine, darting between the overhanging eaves, gave
promise of glorious travelling-weather. But the faces, I
remarked in my walk, did not reflect the surrounding cheer-
fulness. Moody looks met me everywhere and on every
side ; and while courier after courier galloped by me bound
for the castle, the townsfolk stood aloof in doorways listless
and inactive, or, gathering in groups in corners, talked what
I took to be treason under the breath. The queen-mother
still lived, but Orleans had revolted, and Sens and Mans,
Chartres and Melun. Rouen was said to be wavering, Lyons
in arms, while Paris had deposed her king, and cursed him
daily from a hundred altars. In fine, the great rebellion
which followed the death of Guise, and lasted so many
years, was already in progress ; so that on this first day of
the new year the king's writ scarce ran farther than he could
see, peering anxiously out from the towers above my head.
Beaching the house, I climbed the long staircase hastily,
abusing its darkness and foulness, and planning as I went
how my mother might most easily and quickly be moved to
o2
84 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
a better lodging. Gaining the top of the last flight, I saw
that mademoiselle's door on the left of the landing was
open, and concluding from this that she was up, and ready
to start, I entered my mother's room with a brisk step and
spirits reinforced by the crisp morning air.
But on the threshold. I stopped, and stood silent and
amazed. At first I thought the room was empty. Then,
at a second glance, I saw the student. He was on his knees
beside the bed in the alcove, from which the curtain had
been partially dragged away. The curtain before the win-
dow had been torn down also, and the cold light of day,
pouring in on the unsightly bareness of the room, struck a
chill to rny heart. A stool lay overturned by the fire, and
above it a grey cat, which I had not hitherto noticed,
crouched on a beam and eyed me with stealthy fierceness.
Mademoiselle was not to be seen, nor was Fanchette, and
Simon Fleix did not hear me. He was doing something at
the bed for my mother it seemed.
* What is it, man ? ' I cried softly, advancing on tiptoe
to the bedside. 'Where are the others ?'
The student looked round and saw me. His face was
pale and gloomy. His eyes burned, and yet there were
tears in them, and on his cheeks. He did not speak, but
the chilliness, the bareness, the emptiness of the room
spoke for him, and my heart sank.
I took him by the shoulders. ' Find your tongue, man ! '
I said angrily. ' Where are they ? '
He rose from his knees and stood staring at me. ' They
are gone ! * he said stupidly.
( Gone ? } I exclaimed. * Impossible ! When ? Whither ?'
' Half an hour ago. Whither I do not know.'
Confounded and amazed, I glared at him between fear
and rage. ' You do not know ? 3 I cried. ' They are gone,
and you do not know ? '
He turned suddenly on me and gripped my arm. 'No, I
do not know ! I do not know ! ' he cried, with a complete
change of manner and in a tone of fierce excitement.
AN EMPTY ROOM 85
*Only, may the fiend go with them ! But I do know this.
I know this, M. de Marsac, with whom they went, these
friends of yours I A fop came, a dolt, a fine spark, and
gave them line words and fine speeches and a gold token,
and, hey presto ! they went, and forgot yon ! '
1 What ! ' I cri&d, beginning to understand, and snatching
fiercely at the one clue in his speech. ' A gold token ? They
have been decoyed away then ! There is no time to be lost.
I must follow.*
'No, for that is not all!* he replied, interrupting me
sternly, while his grasp on my arm grew tighter and his
eyes flashed as they looked into mine. 'You have not
heard all. They have gone with one who called you an
impostor, and a thief, and a beggar, and that to your
mother's face and killed her ! Killed her as surely as
if he had taken a sword to her, M. de Marsac 1 Will you,
after that, leave her for them ? '
He spoke plainly. And yet> God forgive me, it was some
time before I understood him : before I took in the meaning
of his words, or could transfer my thoughts from the absent
to my mother lying on the bed before me. When I did do so,
and turned to her, and saw her still face and thin hair strag-
gling over the coarse pillow, then, indeed, the sight over-
came me. I thought no more of others for I thought her
dead ; and with a great and bitter cry I fell on my knees
beside her and hid my face. What, after all, was this head-
strong girl to me ? what were even kings and king's com-
missions to me beside her beside the one human being who
loved me still, the one being of my blood and name left, the
one ever-patient, ever-constant heart which for years had
beaten only for me ? For a while, for a few moments, I
was worthy of her- for I forgot all others.
Simon Fleix roused me at last from iny stupor, making
me understand that she was not dead, but in a deep swoon,
the result of the shock she had undergone. A leech, for
whom he had despatched a neighbour, came in as I rose,
and taking my place, presently restored her to conscious-
86 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
ness. But her extreme feebleness warned me not to hope
for more than a temporary recovery ; nor had I sat by her
long before I discerned that this last blow, following on so
many fears and privations, had reached a vital part, and that
she was even now dying.
She lay for a while with her hand in mine and her eyes
closed, but about noon, the student, contriving to give her
some broth, she revived, and, recognising me, lay for more
than an hour gazing at me with unspeakable content and
satisfaction. At the end of that time, and when I thought
she was past speaking, she signed to me to bend over her,
and whispered something, which at first I could not catch.
Presently I made it out to be, i She is gone The girl you
brought ? '
Much troubled, I answered yes, begging her not to think
about the matter. I need not have feared, however, for
when she spoke again she did so without emotion, and
rather as one seeing clearly something before her.
' When you find her, Gaston,' she murmured, ' do not be
angry with her. It was not her fault. She he deceived
her. See ! '
I followed the direction rather of her eyes than her hand,
and found beneath the pillow a length of gold chain. ' She
left that ? ' I murmured, a strange tumult of emotions in my
breast.
' She laid it there,' my mother whispered. ' And she
would have stopped him saying what he did ' a shudder
ran through my mother's frame at the remembrance of the
man's words, though her eyes still gazed into mine with
faith and confidence ' she would have stopped him, but she
could not, Gaston. And then he hurried her away.'
' He showed her a token, madame, did he not ? ' I could
not for my life repress the question, so much seemed to
turn on the point.
1 A bit of gold,' my mother whispered, smiling faintly.
'Now let me sleep.' And, clinging always to my hand,
she closed her eyes.
AN EMPTY ROOM 87
The student came back soon afterwards with some com-
forts for which I had despatched him, and we sat by her
until the evening fell, and far into the night. It was a
relief to me to learn from the leech that she had been ailing
for some time, and that in any case the end must have come
soon. She suffered no pain and felt no fears, but meeting
my eyes whenever she opened her own, or came out of the
drowsiness which possessed her, thanked God, I think, and
was content. As for me, I remember that room became,
for the time, the world. Its stillness swallowed up all the
tumults which filled the cities of France, and its one inter-
est the coming and going of a feeble breath eclipsed the
ambitions and hopes of a lifetime.
Before it grew light Simon Fleix stole out to attend to
the horses. When he returned he came to me and whis-
pered in my ear that he had something to tell me ; and my
mother lying in a quiet sleep at the time, I disengaged my
hand, and, rising softly, went with him to the hearth.
Instead of speaking, he held his fist before me and sud-
denly unclosed the fingers. ' Do you know it ? ' he said,
glancing at me abruptly.
I took what he held, and looking at it, nodded. It was a
knot of velvet of a peculiar dark red colour, and had formed,
as I knew the moment I set eyes on it, part of the fastening
of mademoiselle's mask. ' Where did you find it ? ' I mut-
tered, supposing that he had picked it up on the stairs.
' Look at it ! ' he answered impatiently. ' You have not
looked.'
I turned it over, and then saw something which had
escaped me at first that the wider part of the velvet was
disfigured by a fantastic stitching, done very roughly and
rudely with a thread of white silk. The stitches formed
letters, the letters words. With a start I read, ' A moi I '
and saw in a corner, in smaller stitches, the initials
< C. d. 1. V.'
I looked eagerly at the student. f Where did you find
this ? ' I said.
88 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
'I picked it up in the street/ he answered quietly, 'not
three hundred paces from here.'
I thought a moment. ' In the gutter, or near the wall ? '
I asked.
' Near the wall, to be sure,'
' Under a window ? '
1 Precisely,' he said. ' You may be easy ; I am not a fooL
I marked the place, M. de Marsac, and shall not forget it.'
Even the sorrow and solicitude I felt on my mother's be-
half feelings which had seemed a minute before to secure
me against all other cares or anxieties whatever were not
proof against this discovery. For I found myself placed
in a strait so cruel I must suffer either way. On the one
hand, I could not leave my mother ; I were a heartless
ingrate to do that. On the other, I could not, without
grievous pain, stand still and inactive while Mademoiselle
de la Vire, whom I had sworn to protect, and who was now
suffering through my laches and mischance, appealed to me
for help. For I could not doubt that this was what the
bow of velvet meant ; still less that it was intended for me,
since few save myself would be likely to recognise it, and she
would naturally expect me to make some attempt at pursuit.
And I could not think little of the sign. Remembering
mademoiselle's proud and fearless spirit, and the light in
which she had always regarded me, I augured the worst
from it. I felt assured that no imaginary danger and no
emergency save the last would have induced her to stoop so
low ; and this consideration, taken with the fear I felt that
she had fallen into the hands of Fresnoy, whom I believed
to be the person who had robbed me of the gold coin, filled
me with a horrible doubt which way my duty lay. I was
pulled, as it were, both ways. I felt my honour engaged
both to go and to stay, and while my hand went to my hilt,
and my feet trembled to be gone, my eyes sought my
mother, and my ears listened for her gentle breathing.
Perplexed and distracted, I looked at the student, and he
at me. ' You saw the man who took her away/ I muttered.
Afi EMPTY ROOM 89
Hitherto, in my absorption on my mother's account, I had
put few questions, and let the matter pass as though it
moved me little and concerned me less. ' What was he
like ? Was he a big, bloated man, Simon, with his head
bandaged, or perhaps a wound on his face ? '
'The gentleman who went away with mademoiselle, do
you mean ? ' he asked.
' Yes, yes, gentleman if you like ! '
c Not at all,' the student answered. e He was a tall young
gallant, very gaily dressed, dark-haired, and with a rich
complexion. I heard him tell her that he came from a
friend of hers too high to be named in public or in Blois.
He added that he brought a token from him ; and when
mademoiselle mentioned you she had just entered ma-
dame's room with her woman when he appeared '
< He had watched me out, of course.'
( Just so. Well, when she mentioned you, he swore you
were an adventurer, and a beggarly impostor, and what not,
and bade her say whether she thought it likely that her
friend would have entrusted such a mission, to such a man.'
' And then she went with him ? '
The student nodded.
' Readily ? Of her own free-will ? '
' Certainly,' he answered. ' It seemed so to me. She
tried to prevent him speaking before your mother, but that
was all.'
On the impulse of the moment I took a step towards the
door ; recollecting my position, I turned back with a groan.
Almost beside myself, and longing for any vent for my
feelings, I caught the lad by the shoulder, where he stood
on the hearth, and sJiook him to and fro.
' Tell me, man, what am I to do ?' I said between my
teeth. 'Speak! think! invent something !'
But he shook his head.
I let him go with a muttered oath, and sat down on a
stool by the bed and took my head between my hands* At
that very moment, however, relief came came from an un-
90 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
expected quarter. The door opened and the leech entered.
He was a skilful man, and, though much employed about
the Court, a Huguenot a fact which had emboldened
Simon Fleix to apply to him through the landlord of the
' Bleeding Heart/ the secret rendezvous of the Religion in
Blois. When he had made his examination he was for
leaving, being a grave and silent man, and full of business,
but at the door I stopped him.
' Well, sir ? ' I said in a low tone, my hand on his cloak.
' She has rallied, and may live three days,' he answered
quietly. 'Four, it may be, and as many more as God
wills.'
Pressing two crowns into his hand, I begged him to call
daily, which he promised to do ; and then he went. My
mother was still dozing peacefully, and I turned to Simon
Fleix, my doubts resolved and my mind made up.
'Listen,' I said, 'and answer me shortly. We cannot
both leave ; that is certain. Yet I must go, and at once, to
the place where you found the velvet knot. Do you describe
the spot exactly, so that I may find it, and make no
mistake.'
He nodded, and after a moment's reflection answered,
' You know the Rue St. Denys, M. de Mar sac ? Well, go
down it, keeping the "Bleeding Heart" on your left. Take
the second turning on the same side after passing the inn.
The third house from the corner, on the left again, consists
of a gateway leading to the Hospital of the Holy Cross.
Above the gateway are two windows in the lower story, and
above them two more. The knot lay below the first win-
dow you come to. Do you understand ? '
'Perfectly,' I said. 'It is something to be a clerk,
Simon.'
He looked at me thoughtfully, but added nothing ; and I
was busy tightening my sword-hilt, and disposing my cloak
about the lower part of my face. When I had arranged
this to my satisfaction, I took out and counted over the
sum of thirty -five crowns, which I gave to him, impressing
AN EMPTY ROOM 91
on him the necessity of staying beside my mother should I
not return ; for though I proposed to reconnoitre only, and
learn if possible whether mademoiselle was still in Blois,
the future was uncertain, and whereas I was known to my
enemies, they were strangers to me.
Having enjoined this duty upon him, I bade my mother a
silent farewell, and, leaving the room, went slowly down
the stairs, the picture of her worn and patient face going
with me, and seeming, I remember, to hallow the purpose I
had in my mind.
The clocks were striking the hour before noon as I
stepped from the doorway, and, standing a moment in the
lane, looked this way and that for any sign of espionage.
I could detect none, however. The lane was deserted ; and
feeling assured that any attempt to mislead my opponents,
who probably knew Blois better than I did, must fail, I
made none, but deliberately took my way towards the
'Bleeding Heart,' in the Eue St. Denys. The streets pre-
sented the same appearance of gloomy suspense which I
had noticed on the previous day. The same groups stood
about in the same corners, the same suspicious glances
met me in common with all other strangers who showed
themselves; the same listless inaction characterised the
townsfolk, the same anxious hurry those who came and
went with news. I saw that even here, under the walls of
the palace, the bonds of law and order were strained almost
to bursting, and judged that if there ever was a time in
France when right counted for little, and the strong hand
for much, it was this. Such a state of things was not
unfavourable to my present design, and caring little for
suspicious looks, I went resolutely on my way.
I had no difficulty in finding the gateway of which Simon
had spoken, or in identifying the window beneath which
he had picked up the velvet knot. An alley opening almost
opposite, I took advantage of this to examine the house at
my leisure, and remarked at once, that whereas the lower
window was guarded only by strong shutters, now open,
92 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
that in the story above was heavily barred. Naturally 1
concentrated my attention on the latter. The house, an
old building of stone, seemed sufficiently reputable, nor
could I discern anything about it which would have aroused
my distrust had the knot been found elsewhere. It bore
the arms of a religious brotherhood, and had probably at
one time formed the principal entrance to the hospital,
which still stood behind it, but it had now come, as I
judged, to be used as a dwelling of the better class.
Whether the two floors were separately inhabited or not I
failed to decide.
After watching it for some time without seeing anyone
pass in or out, or anything occurring to enlighten me one
way or the other, I resolved to venture in, the street being
quiet and the house giving no sign of being strongly garri-
soned. The entrance lay under the archway, through a
door on the right side. I judged from what I saw that
the porter was probably absent, busying himself with his
gossips in matters of State.
And this proved to be the case, for when I had made the
passage of the street with success, and slipped quietly in
through the half-open door, I found only his staff and
charcoal-pan there to represent him. A single look satisfied
me on that point; forthwith, without hesitation, I turned to
the stairs and began to mount, assured that if I would
effect anything single-handed I must trust to audacity and
surprise rather than to caution or forethought.
The staircase was poorly lighted by loopholes looking
towards the rear, but it was clean and well-kept. Silence,
broken only by the sound of my footsteps, prevailed through-
out the house,, and all seemed so regular and decent and
orderly that the higher I rose the lower fell my hopes of
success. Still, I held resolutely on until I reached the -eefr-
ond floor and stood before a closed door. The moment had
come to put all to the touch. I listened for a few seconds,
but hearing nothing, cautiously lifted the latch. Somewhat
to my surprise the door yielded to my hand, and I entered.
AN EMPTY ROOM 93
A high settle stood inside, interrupting my view of the
room, which seemed to be spacious and full of rich stuffs
and furniture, but low in the roof, and somewhat dimly
lighted by two windows rather wide than high. The warm
glow of a fire shone on the woodwork of the ceiling, and as
I softly closed the door a log on the hearth gave way, with
a crackling of sparks, which pleasantly broke the luxurious
silence. The next moment a low, sweet voice asked, ' Al-
phonse, is that you ? '
I walked round the settle and came face to face with a
beautiful woman reclining on a couch. On hearing the door
open she had raised herself on her elbow. Now, seeing a
stranger before her, she sprang up with a low cry, and stood
gazing at me, her face expressing both astonishment and
anger. She was of middling height, her features regular
though somewhat childlike, her complexion singularly fair.
A profusion of golden hair hung in disorder about her neck,
and matched the deep blue of her eyes, wherein it seemed
to me, there lurked more spirit and fire than the general cast
of her features led one to expect.
After a moment's silence, during which she scanned me
from head to foot with great haughtiness and I her with
curiosity and wonder she spoke, < Sir ! ' she said slowly,
'to what am I to attribute this visit ?'
For the moment I was so taken aback by her appearance
and extraordinary beauty, as well as by the absence of any
sign of those I sought, that I could not gather my thoughts
to reply, but stood looking vaguely at her. I had expected,
when I entered the room, something so different from this !
' Well, sir? ' she said again, speaking sharply, and tapping
her foot on the floor.
1 This visit, madame ? ' I stammered.
' Call it intrusion, sir, if you please ! ' she cried imperi-
ously. * Only explain it, or begone.'
*I crave leave to do both, madame,' I answered, collecting
myself by an effort. ' I ascended these stairs and opened
your door in error that is the simple fact hoping to find
94 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
a friend of mine here. I was mistaken, it seems, and it only
remains for me to withdraw, offering at the same time the
humblest apologies.' And as I spoke I bowed low and pre-
pared to retire.
1 One moment, sir ! ' she said quickly, and in an altered
tone. { You are, perhaps, a friend of M. de Bruhl of my
husband. In that case, if you desire to leave any message
I will I shall be glad to deliver it.'
She looked so charming that, despite the tumult of my
feelings, I could not but regard her with admiration. 'Alas !
madame, I cannot plead that excuse,' I answered. 'I regret
that I have not the honour of his acquaintance.'
She eyed me with some surprise. ' Yet still, sir,' she
answered, smiling a little, and toying with a gold brooch
which clasped her habit, ' you must have had some ground,
some reason, for supposing you would find a friend here ?'
' True, madame,' I answered, ' but I was mistaken.'
I saw her colour suddenly. With a smile and a faint
twinkle of the eye she said, ' It is not possible, sir, I sup-
pose you have not come here, I mean, out of any reason
connected with a a knot of velvet, for instance ? '
I started, and involuntarily advanced a step towards her.
' A knot of velvet ! ' I exclaimed, with emotion. ' Mon Dieu !
Then I was not mistaken ! I have come to the right house,
and you you know something of this ! Madame,' I con-
tinued impulsively, ' that knot of velvet ? Tell me what it
means, I implore you ! '
She seemed alarmed by my violence, retreating a step or
two, and looking at me haughtily, yet with a kind of shame-
facedness. 'Believe me, it means nothing,' she said hur-
riedly. ' I beg you to understand that, sir. It was a foolish
jest.'
'A jest?' I said. 'It fell from this window.'
' It was a jest, sir/ she answered stubbornly. But I could
see that, with all her pride, she was alarmed; her face was
troubled, and there were tears in her eyes. And this ren-
dered me under the circumstances only the more persistent.
AN EMPTY ROOM 95
'I have the velvet here, madame,' I said. ' You must tell
me more about it.'
She looked at me with a weightier imp ulse of anger than
she had yet exhibited. ' I do not think 3 ou know to whom
you are speaking,' she said, breathing fast. 'Leave the
room, sir, and at once ! I have told you it was a jest. If
you are a gentleman you will believe me, and go.' And she
pointed to the door.
But I held my ground, with an obstinate determination
to pierce the mystery. 'I am a gentleman, madame,' I
said, ' and yet I must know more. Until I know more I
cannot go.'
' Oh, this is insufferable ! ' she cried, looking round as if
for a way of escape ; but; I was between her and the only
door. ' This is unbearable ! The knot was never intended
for you, sir. And what is more, if M. de Bruhl come and
find you here, you will repent it bitterly.'
I saw that she was at least as much concerned on her
own account as on mine, and thought myself justified under
the circumstances in taking advantage of her fears. I
deliberately laid my cap on the table which stood beside
me. 'I will go, madame,' I said, looking at her fixedly,
' when I know all that you know about this knot I hold,
and not before. If you are unwilling to tell me, I must
wait for M. de Bruhl, and ask him.'
She cried out ' Insolent ! ' and looked at me as if in her
rage and dismay she would gladly have killed me ; being, I
could see, a passionate woman. But I held my ground,
and after a moment she spoke. 'What do you want to
know ? ' she said, frowning darkly.
' This knot how did it come to lie in the street below
your window ? I want to know that first.'
'I dropped it,' she answered sullenly.
'Why?' I said.
' Because ' And then she stopped and looked at me,
and then again looked down, her face crimson. ' Because,
if you must know,' she continued hurriedly, tracing a
96 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE
pattern on the table with her finger, 'I saw it bore the
words "A moi." I have been married only two months,
and I thought my husband might find it and bring it to
me. It was a silly fancy/
' But where did you get it ? * I asked, and I stared at her
in growing wonder and perplexity. For the more questions
I put, the further, it seemed to me, I strayed from my object.
'I picked it up in the Ruelle d'Arcy,' she answeredj
lapping her foot on the floor resentfully. ' It was the silly
thing put it into my head to to do what I did. And now,
have you any more questions, sir ? '
'One only,' I said, seeing it all clearly enough. 'Will
you tell me, please, exactly where you found it ? '
' I have told you. In the Ruelle d'Arcy, ten paces from
the Rue de Valois. Now, sir, will you go ? '
'One word, madam e. Did '
But she cried, ' Go, sir, go I go ! ' so violently, that after
making one more attempt to express my thanks, I thought
it better to obey her. I had learned all she knew ; I had
solved the puzzle. But, solving it, I found myself no
nearer to the end I had in view, no nearer to mademoiselle.
I closed the door with a silent bow, and began to descend
the stairs, my mind full of anxious doubts and calculations.
The velvet knot was the only clue I possessed, but was I
right in placing any dependence on it ? I knew now that,
wherever it had originally lain, it had been removed once.
If once, why not twice ? why not three times ?
CHAPTER IX.
THE HOUSE IW THE RTJELLE
I HAD not gone down half a dozen steps before I heard
a man enter the staircase from the street, and begin to
ascend. It struck me at once that this might be M. de
THE HOUSE IN THE RUELLE D^ARCY 97
Bruhl ; and I realised that. I had not left madame's apart-
ment a moment too soon. The last thing I desired, having
so much on my hands, was to embroil myself with a
stranger, and accordingly I quickened my pace, hoping to
meet him so near the foot of the stairs as to leave him in
doubt whether I had been visiting the upper or lower part
of the house. The staircase was dark, however, and being
familiar with it, he had the advantage over me. He came
leaping up two steps at a time, and turning the angle
abruptly, surprised me before I was clear of the upper flight.
On seeing ine, he stopped short and stared ; thinking at
first, I fancy, that he ought to recognise me. When he did
not, he stood back a pace. ' Umph ! ' he said. ' Have you
been have you any message for me, sir ? '
'No/ I said, <I have not.'
He frowned. * I am M. de Bruhl,' he said.
' Indeed ? ' I muttered, not knowing what else to say.
{ You have been '
' Up your stairs, sir ? Yes. In error,' I answered bluntly.
He gave a kind of grunt at that, and stood aside, incred-
ulous and dissatisfied, yet uncertain how to proceed. I met
his black looks with a steady countenance, and passed by
him, becoming aware, however, as I went on down the stairs
that he had turned and was looking after me. He was a tall,
handsome man, dark, and somewhat ruddy of complexion,
and was dressed in the extreme of Court fashion, in a suit
of myrtle-green trimmed with sable. He carried also a
cloak lined with the same on his arm. Beyond looking
back when I reached the street, to see that he did not fol-
low me, I thought no more of him. But we were to meet
again, and often. Nay, had I then known all that was to
be known I would have gone back and But of that in
another place.
The Eue de Valois, to which a tradesman, who was peer-
ing cautiously out of his shop, directed ine, proved to be
one of the main streets of the city, narrow and dirty, and
darkened by overhanging eaves and signboards, but full of
98 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
noise and bustle. One end of it opened on the parvis of
the Cathedral ; the other and quieter end appeared to abut
on the west gate of the town. Feeling the importance of
avoiding notice in the neighbourhood of the house I sought,
I strolled into the open space in front of the Cathedral, and
accosting two men who stood talking there, learned that the
Euelle d'Arcy was the third lane on the right of the Rue
de Valois, and some little distance along it. Armed with
this information I left them, and with my head bent down,
and my cloak drawn about the lowor part of my face, as if
I felt the east wind, I proceeded down the street until I
reached the opening of the lane. Without looking up I
turned briskly into it.
When I had gone ten paces past the turning, however, I
stopped and, gazing about me, began to take in my sur-
roundings as fast as I could. The lane, which seemed little
frequented, was eight or nine feet wide, unpaved, and full
of ruts. The high blank wall of a garden rose on one side
of it, on the other the still higher wall of a house ; and
both were completely devoid of windows, a feature which I
recognised with the utmost dismay. For it completely
upset all my calculations. In vain '.[ measured with my eye
the ten paces I had come ; in vain I looked up, looked this
way and that. I was nonplussed. No window opened on
the lane at that point, nor, indeed, throughout its length.
For it was bounded to the end, as far as I could see, by
dead-walls as of gardens.
Recognising, with a sinking heart, what this meant, I saw
in a moment that all the hopes I had raised on Simon Fleix's
discovery were baseless. Mademoiselle had dropped the
velvet bow, no doubt, but not from a window. It was still
a clue, but one so slight and vague as to be virtually useless,
proving only that she was in trouble and in need of help ;
perhaps that she had passed through this lane on her way
from one place of confinement to another.
Thoroughly baffled and dispirited, I leant for awhile
against the wall, brooding over the ill-luck which seemed
THE HOUSE IN THE RUELLE D^ARCY 99
to attend me in this, as in so many previous adventures.
Nor was the low voice of conscience, suggesting that such
failures arose from mismanagement rather than from ill-
luck, slow to make itself heard. I reflected that if I had
not allowed myself to be robbed of the gold token, made-
moiselle would have trusted me ; that if I had not brought
her to so poor an abode as my mother's, she would not have
been cajoled into following a stranger; finally, that if I
had remained with her, and sent Simon to attend to the
horses in my place, no stranger would have gained access
to her.
But it has never been my way to accept defeat at the
first offer, and though I felt these self-reproaches to be well
deserved, a moment's reflection persuaded me that in the
singular and especial providence which had brought the
velvet knot safe to my hands I ought to find encour-
agement. Had Madame de Bruhl not picked it up it would
have continued to lie in this by-path, through which neither
I nor Simon Fleix would have been likely to pass. Again,
had madame not dropped it in her turn, we should have
sought in vain for any, even the slightest, clue to Made-
moiselle de la Vire's fate or position.
Cheered afresh by this thought, I determined to walk to
the end of the lane ; and forthwith did so, looking sharply
about me as I went, but meeting no one. The bare upper
branches of a tree rose here and there above the walls,
which were pierced at intervals by low, strong doors. These
doors I carefully examined, but without making any dis-
covery ; all were securely fastened, and many seemed to
have been rarely opened. Emerging at last and without
result on the inner side of the city ramparts, I turned, and
moodily retraced my steps through the lane, proceeding more
slowly as I drew near to the Rue de Valois. This time,
being a little farther from the street, I made a discovery.
The corner house, which had its front on the Rue Valois,
presented, as I have said, a dead, windowless wall to the
lane ; but from my present standpoint I could see the upper
H 2
ioo A GENTLEMAN' OF FRANCE
part of the back of this house that part of the back, I mean,
which rose above the lower garden-wall that abutted on it
and in this there were several windows. The whole of
two and a part of a third were within the range of my eyes ;
and suddenly in one of these I discovered something which
made iny heart beat high with hope and expectation. The
window in question was heavily grated ; that which I saw
was tied to one of the bars. It was a small knot of some
white stuff linen apparently and it seemed a trifle to the
eye ; but it was looped, as far as I could see from a dis-
tance, after the same fashion as the scrap of velvet I had in
my pouch.
The conclusion was obvious, at the same time that it in-
spired me with the liveliest admiration of mademoiselle's
wit and resources. She was confined in that room; the
odds were that she was behind those bars. A bow dropped
thence would fall, the wind being favourable, into the lane,
not ten, but twenty paces from the street. I ought to have
been prepared for a slight inaccuracy in a woman's estimate
of distance.
It may be imagined with what eagerness I now scanned
the house, with what minuteness I sought for a weak place.
The longer I looked, however, the less comfort I derived
from my inspection. I saw before me a gloomy stronghold
of brick, four-square, and built in the old Italian manner,
with battlements at the top, and a small machicolation,
little more than a string-course, above each story ; this
serving at once to lessen the monotony of the dead-walls,
and to add to the frowning weight of the upper part. The
windows were few and small, and the house looked damp
and mouldy ; lichens clotted the bricks, and moss filled the
string-courses. A low door opening from the lane into the
garden naturally attracted my attention - ; but it proved to be
of abnormal strength, and bolted both at the top and bottom.
Assured that nothing could be done on that side, and
being unwilling to remain longer in the neighbourhood, lest
I should attract attention, I returned to the street, and
THE HOUSE IN THE RUELLE D^ARCY 101
twice walked past the front of the house, seeing all I could
with as little appearance of seeing anything as I could
compass. The front retreated, somewhat from the line of
the street, and was flanked on the farther side by stables.
Only one chimney smoked, and that sparely. Three steps
led up to imposing double doors, which stood half open, and
afforded a glimpse of a spacious hall and a state staircase.
Two men, apparently servants, lounged on the steps, eating
chestnuts, and jesting with one another; and above the
door were three shields blazoned in colours. I saw with
satisfaction, as I passed the second time, that the middle
coat was that of Turenne impaling one which I could not
read which thoroughly satisfied me that the bow of velvet
had not lied; so that, without more ado, I turned home-
wards, formulating my plans as I went.
I found all as I had left it ; and my mother still lying in
a half-conscious state, I was spared the pain of making
excuses for past absence, or explaining that which I de-
signed. I communicated the plan I had formed to Simon
Fleix, who saw no difficulty in procuring a respectable
person to stay with Madame de Bonne. But for some
time he would come no farther into the business. He
listened, his mouth open and his eyes glittering, to my plan
until I came to his share in it ; and then he fell into a
violent fit of trembling.
< You want me to fight, monsieur,' he cried reproachfully,
shaking all over like one in the palsy. 'You said so the
other night. You want to get me killed ! That's it.'
' Nonsense ! ' I answered sharply. ' I want you to hold
the horses 1 '
He looked at me wildly, with a kind of resentment in his
face, and yet as if he were fascinated.
* You will drag me into it ! ' he persisted. ' You will ! '
' I won't,' I said.
'You will! You will! And the end I know. I shall
have no chance. I am a clerk, and not bred to fighting.
You want to be the death of me ! ' he cried excitedly.
102 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE
'I don't want you to fight,' I answered with some con-
tempt. 'I would rather that you kept out of it for my
mother's sake. I only want you to stay in the lane and
hold the horses. You will run little more risk than you do
sitting by the hearth here.'
And in the end I persuaded him to do what I wished ;
though still, whenever he thought of what was in front of
him, he fell a-trembling again, and many times during the
afternoon got up and walked to and fro between the window
and the hearth, his face working and his hands clenched
like those of a man in a fever. 1 put this down at first to
sheer chicken-heartedness, and thought it augured ill for
my enterprise ; but presently remarking that he made no
attempt to draw back, and that though the sweat stood on
his brow he set about such preparations as were necessary
remembering also how long and kindly, and without pay
or guerdon, he had served my mother, I began to see that
here was something phenomenal ; a man strange and beyond
the ordinary, of whom it was impossible to predicate what
he would do when he came to be tried.
For myself, I passed the afternoon in a state almost of
apathy. I thought it my duty to make this attempt to free
mademoiselle, and to make it at once, since it was impossi-
ble to say what harm might come of delay, were she in such
hands as Fresnoy's ; but I had so little hope of success that
I regarded the enterprise as desperate. The certain loss of
my mother, however, and the low ebb of my fortunes, with
the ever-present sense of failure, contributed to render me
indifferent to r-sks ; and even when we were on our way,
through by-streets known to Simon, to the farther end of
the Kuelle d'Arcy, and the red and frosty sunset shone in
our faces, and gilded for a moment the dull eaves and grey
towers above us, I felt no softening. Whatever the end,
there was but one in the world whom I should regret, or
who would regret me ; and she hung, herself, on the verge
of eternity.
So that I was able to give Simon Fleix his last directions
THE HOUSE. IN THE RUELLE D^ARCY 103
with as much coolness as I ever felt in my life. I stationed
him with the three horses in the lane which seemed as
quiet and little frequented as in the morning near the end
of it, and about a hundred paces or more from the house.
' Turn their heads towards the ramparts/ I said, wheeling
them round myself, ' and then they will be ready to start.
They are all quiet enough. You can let the Cid loose. And
now listen to me, Simon,' I continued. ' Wait here until you
see me return, or until you see you are going to be attacked.
In the first case, stay for me, of course ; in the second, save
yourself as you please. Lastly, if neither event occurs be-
fore half-past five you will hear the convent-bell yonder
ring at ,the half-hour begone, and take the horses ; they
are yours. And one word more,' I added hurriedly. 'If
you can only get away with one horse, Simon, take the Cid.
It is worth more than most men, and will not fail you at a
pinch.'
As I turned away, I gave him one look to see if he under-
stood. It was not without hesitation that after that look I
left him. The lad's face was flushed, he was breathing hard,
his eyes seemed to be almost starting from his head. He
sat his horse shaking in every limb, and had all the air of a
man in a fit. I expected him to call me back ; but he did
not, and reflecting that I must trust him, or give up the at-
tempt, I went up the lane with my sword under my arm,
and my cloak loose on my shoulders. I met a man driving
a donkey laden with faggots. I saw no one else. It was
already dusk between the walls, though light enough in the
open country ; but that was in my favour, my only regret
being that as the town gates closed shortly after half-past
five, I could not defer my attempt until a still later hour.
Pausing in the shadow of the house while a man might
count ten, I impressed on my memory the position of the
particular window which bore the knot ; then I passed
quickly into the street, which was still full of movement,
and for a second, feeling myself safe from observation in
the crowd, I stood looking at the front of the house. The
104 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
door was shut. My heart sank when I saw this, for I had
looked to find it still open.
The feeling, however, that I could not wait, though time
might present more than one opportunity, spurred me on.
What I could do I must do now, at once. The sense that
this was so being heavy upon me, I saw nothing for it but
to use the knocker and gain admission, by fraud if I could,
and if not, by force. Accordingly I stepped briskly across
the kennel, and made for the entrance.
When I was within two paces of the steps, however,
someone abruptly threw the door open and stepped out.
The man did not notice me, and I stood quickly aside, hoping
that at the last minute my chance had come. Two men,
who had apparently attended this first person downstairs,
stood respectfully behind him, holding lights. He paused
a moment on the steps to adjust his cioak, and with more
than a little surprise I recognised my acquaintance of the
morning, M. de Bruhl.
I had scarcely time to identify him before he walked
down the steps swinging his cane, brushed carelessly past
me, and was gone. The two men looked after him. awhile,
shading their lights from the wind, and one saying some-
thing, the other laughed coarsely. The next moment they
threw the door to and went, as I saw by the passage of
their light, into the room on the left of the hall.
Now was my time. I could have hoped for, prayed for,,
expected no better fortune than this. The door had re-
bounded slightly from the jamb, and stood open an inch or
more. In a second I pushed it from me gently, slid into the
hall, and closed it behind me.
The door of the room on the left was wide open, and the
light which shone through the doorway otherwise the hall
was dark as well as the voices of the two men I had seen,
warned me to be careful. I stood, scarcely daring to breathe,
and looked about me. There was no matting on the floor,
no fire on the hearth. The hall felt cold, damp, and unin-
habited. The state staircase rose in front of me, and pres-
THE HOUSE IN THE RUELLE D^ARCY 105
ently bifurcating, formed a gallery round the place. I
looked up, and up, and far above me, in the dim heights of the
second floor, I espied a faint light perhaps, the reflection
of a light.
A movement in the room on my left warned me that I
had no time to lose, if I meant to act. At any minute one
of the men might come out and discover me. With the
utmost care I started on my journey. I stole across the
stone floor of the hall easily and quietly enough, but I
found the real difficulty begin when I came to the stairs.
They were of wood, and creaked and groaned under me to
such an extent that, with each step I trod, I expected the
men to take the alarm. Fortunately all went well until I
passed the first corner I chose, of course, the left-hand
flight then a board jumped under my foot with a crack
which sounded in the empty hall, and to my excited ears,
as loud as a pistol-shot. I was in two minds whether I
should not on the instant make a rush for it, but happily
I stood still. One of the men came out and listened, and I
heard the other ask, with an oath, what it was. I leant
against the wall, holding my breath.
< Only that wench in one of her tantrums ! ' the man who
had come out answered, applying an epithet to her which
I will not set down, but which I carried to his account in
the event of our coming face to face presently. ' She is
quiet now. She may hammer and hammer, but '
The rest I lost, as he passed through the doorway and
went back to his place by the fire. But in one way his
words were of advantage to me. I concluded that I need
not be so very cautious now, seeing that they would set
down anything they heard to the same cause ; and I sped
on more quickly. I had just gained the second floor land-
ing when a loud noise below the opening of the street
door and the heavy tread of feet in the hall brought me
to a temporary standstill. I looked cautiously over the
balustrade, and saw two men go across to the room on the
left. One of them spoke as he entered, chiding the other
io6 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
knaves, I fancied, for leaving the door unbarred ; and the
tone, though not the words, echoing sullenly up the stair-
case, struck a familiar chord in my memory. The voice was
Fresnoy's 1
CHAPTER X.
THE FIGHT ON THE STAIKS.
THE certainty, which this sound gave me, that I was in
the right house, and that it held also the villain to whom
I owed all my misfortunes for who but Fresnoy could
have furnished the broken coin which had deceived made-
moiselle ? had a singularly inspiriting effect upon me.
I felt every muscle in my body grow on the instant hard as
steel, my eyes more keen, my ears sharper all my senses
more apt and vigorous. I stole off like a cat from the
balustrade, over which I had been looking, and without a
second's delay began the search for mademoiselle's room ;
reflecting that though the garrison now amounted to four,
I had no need to despair. If I could release the prisoners
without noise which would be easy were the key in the
lock we might hope to pass through the hall by a tour de
force of one kind or another. And a church-clock at this
moment striking Five, and reminding me that we had only
half an hour in which to do all and reach the horses, I was
the more inclined to risk something.
The light which I had seen from below hung in a flat-
bottomed lantern just beyond the head of the stairs, and
outside the entrance to one of two passages which appeared
to lead to the back part of the house. Suspecting that
M. de Bruhl's business had lain with mademoiselle, I
guessed that the light had been placed for his convenience.
With this clue and the position of the window to guide me,
I fixed on a door on the right of this passage, and scarcely
four paces from the head of the stairs. Before I made any
THE FIGHT ON THE STAIRS 107
sign, however, I knelt down and ascertained that there was
a light in the room, and also that the key was not in the
lock.
So far satisfied, I scratched 011 the door with my finger-
nails, at first softly, then with greater force, and presently
I heard someone in the room rise. I felt sure that the per-
son, whoever it was, had taken the alarm and was listening,
and putting my lips to the keyhole I whispered made-
moiselle's name.
A footstep crossed the room sharply, and I heard mut-
tering just within the door. I thought I detected two
voices. But I was impatient, and, getting no answer, whis-
pered in the same manner as before, < Mademoiselle de la
Vire, are you there ? '
Still no answer. The muttering, too, had stopped, and
all was still in the room, and in the silent house. I tried
again. ' It is I, Gaston de Marsac,' I said. ' Do you hear ?
I am come to release you.' I spoke as loudly as I dared,
but most of the sound seemed to come back on me and
wander in suspicious murmurings down the staircase.
This time, however, an exclamation of surprise rewarded
me, and a voice, which I recognised at once as made-
moiselle's, answered softly:
' What is it ? Who is there ? '
' Gaston de Marsac/ I answered. * Do you need my
help ? '
The very brevity of her reply ; the joyful sob which
accompanied it, and which I detected even through the
door: the wild cry of thankfulness almost an oath of
her companion all these assured me at once that I was
welcome welcome as I had never been before and, so
assuring me, braced me to the height of any occasion which
might befall.
' Can you open the door ? ' I muttered. All the time I
was on my knees, my attention divided between the inside
of the room and the stray sounds which now and then came
up to me from the hall below. ' Have you the key ? '
jo8 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
' No ; we are locked in,' mademoiselle answered.
I expected this. ' If the door is bolted inside,' I whis-
pered, ' unfasten it, if you please.'
They answered that it was not, so bidding them stand
back a little from it, I rose and set my shoulder against it.
I hoped to be able to burst it in with only one crash, which
by itself, a single sound, might not alarm the men down-
stairs. But my weight made no impression upon the lock,
and the opposite wall being too far distant to allow me to
get any purchase for my feet, I presently desisted. The
closeness of the door to the jambs warned me that an
attempt to prise it open would be equally futile ; and for
a moment I stood gazing in perplexity at the solid planks,
which bid fair to baffle me to the end.
The position was, indeed, one of great difficulty, nor can
I now think of any way out of it better or other than that
which I adopted. Against the wall near the head of the
stairs I had noticed, as I came up, a stout wooden stool.
I stole out and fetched this, and setting it against the
opposite wall, endeavoured in this way to get sufficient
purchase for my feet. The lock still held ; but, as I threw
my whole weight on the door, the panel against which
I leaned gave way and broke inwards Avith a loud, crashing
sound, which echoed through the empty house, and might
almost have been heard in the street outside.
It reached the ears, at any rate, of the men sitting below,
and I heard them troop noisily out and stand in the hall,
now talking loudly, and now listening. A minute of breath-
less suspense followed it seemed a long minute ; and then,
to my relief, they tramped back again, and I was free to
return to my task. Another thrust, directed a little lower,
would, I hoped, do the business ; but to make this the more
certain I knelt down and secured the stool firmly against
the wall. As I rose after settling it, something else, with-
out sound or warning, rose also, taking me completely by
surprise a man's head above the top stair, which, as it
happened, faced me. His eyes met mine, and I knew I was
discovered.
THE FIGHT ON THE STAIRS 109
He turned and bundled downstairs again with a scared
face, going so quickly that I could not have caught him if
I would, or had had the wit to try. Of silence there was
no longer need. In a few seconds the alarm would be
raised. I had small time for thought. Laying myself
bodily against the door, I heaved and pressed with all my
strength ; but whether I was careless in my haste, or the
cause was other, the lock did not give. Instead the stool
slipped, and I fell with a crash on the floor at the very
moment the alarm reached the men below.
I remember that the crash of my unlucky fall seemed to
release all the prisoned noises of the house. A faint scream
within the room was but a prelude, lost the next moment
in the roar of dismay, the clatter of weapons, and volley of
oaths and cries and curses which, rolling up from below,
echoed hollowly about me, as the startled knaves rushed to
their weapons, and charged across the flags and up the stair-
case. I had space for one desperate effort. Picking my-
self up, I seized the stool by two of its legs and dashed it
twice against the door, driving in the panel I had before
splintered. But that was all. The lock held, and I had
no time for a third blow. The men were already halfway
up the stairs. In a breath almost they would be upon me.
I flung down the useless stool and snatched up my sword,
which lay unsheathed beside me. So far the matter had
gone against us, but it was time for a change of weapons
now, and the end was not yet. I sprang to the head of the
stairs and stood there, my arm by my side and my point
resting on the floor, in such an attitude of preparedness as
I could compass at the moment.
For I had not been in the house all this time, as may
well be supposed, without deciding what I would do in
ease of surprise, and exactly where I could best stand on
the defensive. The flat bottom of the lamp which hung
outside the passage threw a deep shadow on the spot im-
mediately below it, while the light fell brightly on the steps
beyond. Standing in the shadow I could reach the edge of
1 10 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
the stairs with my point, and swing the blade freely, with-
out fear of the balustrade ; and here I posted myself with a
certain grim satisfaction as Fresnoy, with his three com-
rades behind him, came bounding up the last flight.
They were four to one, but I laughed to see how, not
abruptly, but shamefacedly and by degrees, they came to a
stand halfway up the flight, and looked at me, measuring
the steps and the advantage which the light shining in
their eyes gave me. Fresnoy's ugly face was rendered
uglier by a great strip of plaister which marked the place
where the hilt of my sword had struck him in our last en-
counter at Chize ; and this and the hatred he bore to me
gave a peculiar malevolence to his look. The deaf man,
Matthew, whose savage stolidity had more than once ex-
cited my anger on our journey, came next to him. the two
strangers whom I had seen in the hall bringing up the
rear. Of the four, these last seemed the most anxious to
come to blows, and had Fresnoy not barred the way with
his hand we should have crossed swords without parley.
' Halt, will you ! ' iie cried, with an oath, thrusting one of
them back. And then to me he said, ' So, so, my friend !
It is you, is it ? '
I looked at him in silence, with a scorn which knew no
bounds, and did not so much as honour him by raising my
sword, though I watched him needfully.
' What are you doing here ? ' he continued, with an
attempt at bluster.
Still I would not answer him, or move, but stood looking
down at him. After a moment of this, he grew restive, his
temper being churlish and impatient at the best. Besides,
I think he retained just so much of a gentleman's feelings
as enabled him to understand my contempt and smart under
it. He moved a step upward, his brow dark with passion.
'You beggarly son of a scarecrow!' he broke out on a
sudden, adding a string of foul imprecations, 'will you
speak, or are you going to wait to be spitted where you
stand ? If we once begin, my bantam, we shall not stop
THE FIGHT ON THE STAIRS ill
until we have done your business ! If you have anything
to say, say it, and ' But I omit the rest of his speech,
which was foul beyond the ordinary.
Still I did not move or speak, but looked at him unwaver-
ing, though it pained me to think the women heard. He
made a last attempt. ' Come, old friend,' he said, swallowing
his anger again, or pretending to do so, and speaking with
a vile bonhomie which I knew to be treacherous, 'if we
come to blows we shall give you no quarter. But one
chance you shall have, for the sake of old days when we
followed Conde. Go ! Take the chance, and go. We will
let you pass, and that broken door shall be the worst of it.
That is more,' he added with a curse, ' than I would do for
any other man in your place, M. de Marsac.'
A sudden movement and a low exclamation in the room
behind me showed that his words were heard there; and
these sounds being followed immediately by a noise as of
riving wood, mingled with the quick breathing of someone
hard at work, I judged that the women were striving with
the door enlarging the opening it might be. I dared not
look round, however, to see what progress they made, nor
did I answer Fresnoy, save by the same silent contempt,
but stood watching the men before me with the eye of a
fencer about to engage. And I know nothing more keen,
more vigilant, more steadfast than that.
It was well I did, for without signal or warning the
group wavered a moment, as though retreating, and the
next instant precipitated itself upon me. Fortunately,
only two could engage me at once, and Fresnoy, I noticed,
was not of the two who dashed forward up the steps. . One
of the strangers forced himself to the front, and, taking the
lead, pressed me briskly, Matthew seconding him. in
appearance, while really watching for an opportunity ot
running in and stabbing me at close quarters, a manoeuvre
I was not slow to detect.
That first bout lasted half a minute only. A fierce exult-
ant joy ran through me as the steel rang and grated, and I
112 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
found that I had not mistaken the strength of wrist or
position. The men were mine. They hampered one
another on the stairs, and fought in fetters, being unable
to advance or retreat, to lunge with freedom, or give back
without fear. I apprehended greater danger from Matthew
than from my actual opponent, and presently, watching my
opportunity, disarmed the latter by a strong parade, and
sweeping Matthew's sword aside by the same movement,
slashed him across the forehead ; then, drawing back a step,
gave my first opponent the point. He fell in a heap on the
floor, as good as dead, and Matthew, dropping his sword,
staggered backwards and downwards into Fresnoy's arms.
' Bonne Foi ! France et Bonne Foi ! ' It seemed to me
that I had not spoken, that I had plied steel in grimmest
silence ; and yet the cry still rang and echoed in the roof
as I lowered my point, and stood looking grimly down at
them. Fresnoy's face was disfigured with rage and
chagrin. They were now but two to one, for Matthew,
though his wound was slight, was disabled by the blood
which ran down into his eyes and blinded him. ' France et
Bonne Foi ! '
' Bonne Foi and good sword ! ' cried a voice behind me.
And looking swiftly round, I saw mademoiselle's face thrust
through the hole in the door. Her eyes sparkled with a
fierce light, her lips were red beyond the ordinary, and her
hair, loosened and thrown into disorder by her exertions,
fell in thick masses about her white cheeks, and gave her
the aspect of a war-witch, such as they tell of in my country
of Brittany. ' Good sword ! ' she cried again, and clapped
her hands.
' But better board, mademoiselle ! ' I answered gaily.
Like most of the men of my province, I am commonly melan-
cholic, but I have the habit of growing witty at such times as
these. ' Now, M. Fresnoy,' I continued, ' I am waiting your
convenience. Must I put on my cloak to keep myself warm ? '
He answered by a curse, and stood looking at me irreso-
lutely. ' If you will come down,' he said.
THE FIGHT ON THE STAIRS 113
'Send your man away and I will come/ I answered
briskly. ' There is space on the landing, and a moderate
light. But I must be quick. Mademoiselle and I are due
elsewhere, and we are late already.'
Still he hesitated. Still he looked at the man lying at
his feet who had stretched himself out and passed, quietly
enough, a minute before and stood dubious, the most pitia-
ble picture of cowardice and malice he being ordinarily a
stout man I ever saw. I called him poltroon and white-
feather, and was considering whether I had not better go
down to him, seeing that our time must be up, and Simon
would be quitting his post, when a cry behind me caused
me to turn, and I saw that mademoiselle was no longer
looking through the opening in the door.
Alarmed on her behalf, as I reflected thai tKert might be
other doors to the room, and the men have other accom-
plices in the house, I sprang to the door to see, but had
barely time to send a single glance round the interior
which showed me only that the room was still occupied
before Fresnoy, taking advantage of my movement and of
my back being turned, dashed up the stairs, with his com-
rade at his heels, and succeeded in penning me into the
narrow passage where I stood.
I had scarcely time, indeed, to turn and put myself on
guard before he thrust at me. Nor was that all. The supe-
riority in position no longer lay with me. I found myself
fighting between walls close to the opening in. the door,
through which the light fell athwart my eyes, baffling and
perplexing me. Fresnoy was not slow to see the aid this
gave him, and pressed me hard and desperately ; so that
we played for a full minute at close quarters, thrusting and
parrying, neither of us having room to use the edge, or time
to utter word or prayer.
At this game we were so evenly matched that for a time
the end was hard to tell. Presently, however, there came
a change. My opponent's habit of wild living suited ill
with a prolonged bout, and as his strength and breath failed
114 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
and he began to give ground I discerned I had only to wear
him out to have him at my mercy. He felt this himself,
and even by that light I saw the sweat spring in great drops
to his forehead, saw the terror grow in his eyes. Already
I was counting him a dead man and the victory mine, when
something flashed behind his blade, and his comrade's pon-
iard, whizzing past his shoulder, struck me fairly on the
chin, staggering me and hurling me back dizzy and half-
stunned, uncertain what had happened to me.
Sped an inch lower it would have done its work and fin-
ished mine. Even as it was, my hand going up as I reeled
back gave Fresnoy an opening, of which he was not slow to
avail himself. He sprang forward, lunging at me furiously,
and would have run me through there and then, and ended
the matter, had not his foot, as he advanced, caught in the
stool, which still lay against the wall. He stumbled, his
point missed my hip by a hair's breadth, and he himself
fell all his length on the floor, his rapier breaking off short
at the hilt.
His one remaining backer stayed to cast a look at him,
and that was all. The man fled, and I chased him as far as
the head of the stairs ; where I left him, assured by the
speed and agility he displayed in clearing flight after flight
that I had nothing to fear from him. Fresnoy lay, ap-
parently stunned, and completely at my mercy. I stood
an instant looking down at him, in two minds whether I
should not run him through. But the memory of old days,
when he had played his part in more honourable fashion and
shown a coarse good-fellowship in the field, held my hand;
and flinging a curse at him, I turned in anxious haste to the
door, the centre of all this bloodshed and commotion. The
light still shone through the breach in the panel, but for
some minutes since Fresnoy' s rush up the stairs, indeed
I had heard no sound from this quarter. Now, looking in
with apprehensions which grew with the continuing silence,
I learned the reason. The room was empty!
Such a disappointment in the moment of triumph was
THE FIGHT ON THE STAIRS 115
hard to bear. I saw myself, after all done and won, on the
point of being again outwitted, distanced, it might be fooled.
In frantic haste and excitement I snatched up the stool be-
side me, and, dashing it twice against the lock, forced it at
last to yield. The door swung open, and I rushed into the
room, which, abandoned by those who had so lately occupied
it, presented nothing to detain me. I cast a single glance
round, saw that it was squalid, low-roofed, unfurnished, a
mere prison; then swiftly crossing the floor, I made for
a door at the farther end, which my eye had marked from
the first. A candle stood flaring and guttering on a stool,
and as I passed I took it up.
Somewhat to my surprise the door yielded to my touch.
In trembling haste for what might not befall the women
while I fumbled with doors or wandered in passages? I
flung it wide, and passing through it, found myself at the
head of a narrow, mean staircase, leading, doubtless, to the
servants' offices. At this, and seeing no hindrance before
me, I took heart of grace, reflecting that mademoiselle might
have escaped from the house this way. Though it would
now be too late to quit the city, I might still overtake her,
and all end well. Accordingly I hurried down the stairs,
shading my candle as I went from a cold draught of air
which met me, and grew stronger as I descended; until
reaching the bottom at last, I came abruptly upon an open
door, and an old, wrinkled, shrivelled woman.
The hag screamed at sight of me, and crouched down on
the floor ; and doubtless, with my drawn sword, and the
blood dripping from my chin and staining all the front of
my doublet, I looked tierce and uncanny enough. But I
felt it was no time for sensibility I was panting to be
away and I demanded of her sternly where they were.
She seemed to have lost her voice through fear, perhaps
and for answer only stared at me stupidly ; but on my
handling my weapon with some readiness she so far
recovered her senses as to utter two loud screams, one after
the other, and point to the door beside her. I doubted her ;
T2
n6 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
and yet I thought in her terror she must be telling the
truth, the more as I saw no other door. In any case I must
risk it, so, setting the candle down on the step beside her,
I passed out.
For a moment the darkness was so intense that I felt my
way with my sword before me, in absolute ignorance where
I was or on what my foot might next rest. I was at the
mercy of anyone who chanced to be lying in wait for me ;
and I shivered as the cold damp wind struck my cheek and
stirred my hair. But by-and-by, when I had taken two or
three steps, my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, and I
made out the naked boughs of trees between myself and
the sky, and guessed that I was in a garden. My left hand,
touching a shrub, confirmed me in this belief, and in an-
other moment I distinguished something like the outline of
a path stretching away before me. Following it rapidly
as rapidly as I dared I came to a corner, as it seemed to
me, turned it blindly, and stopped short, peering into a
curtain of solid blackness which barred my path, and
overhead mingled confusedly with the dark shapes of trees.
But this, too, after a brief hesitation, I made out to be a
wall. Advancing to it with outstretched hands, I felt the
woodwork of a door, and, groping about, lit presently on a
loop of cord. I pulled at this, the door yielded, and I went
out.
I found myself in a narrow, dark lane, and looking up
and down discovered, what I might have guessed before,
that it was the Ruelle d'Arcy. But mademoiselle ?
Fanchette ? Simon ? Where were they ? Xo one was to
be seen. Tormented by doubts, I lifted up my voice and
called on them in turn ; first on mademoiselle, then on
Simon Fleix. In vain ; I got no answer. High up above
me I saw, as I stood back a little, lights moving in the
house I had left; and the suspicion that, after all, the
enemy had foiled me grew upon me. Somehow they had
decoyed mademoiselle to another part of the house, and
then the old woman had misled me !
THE MAN AT THE DOOR 117
I turned fiercely to the door, which I had left ajar,
resolved to re-enter by the way I had come, and have an
explanation whether or no. To my surprise for I had
not moved six paces from the door nor heard the slightest
sound I found it not only closed but bolted bolted both
at top and bottom, as I discovered on trying it.
I fell on that to kicking it furiously, desperately ; partly
in a tempest of rage and chagrin, partly in the hope that I
might frighten the old woman, if it was she who had closed
it, into opening it again. In vain, of course ; and presently
I saw this and desisted, and, still in a whirl of haste and
excitement, set off running towards the place where I had
left Simon Fleix and the horses. It was fully six o'clock
as I judged ; but some faint hope that I might find him
there with mademoiselle and her woman still lingered in
my mind. I reached the end of the lane, I ran to the very
foot of the ramparts, I looked right and left. In vain.
The place was dark, silent, deserted.
I called ' Simon ! Simon ! Simon Fleix ! ' but my only
answer was the soughing of the wind in the eaves, and the
slow tones of the convent-bell striking Six.
CHAPTER XL
THE MAN AT THE DOOB.
THERE are some things, not shameful in themselves,
which it shames one to remember, and among these I count
the succeeding hurry and perturbation of that night : the
vain search, without hope or clue, to which passion im-
pelled me, and the stubborn persistence with which I rushed
frantically from place to place long after the soberness of
reason would have had me desist. There was not, it
seems to me, looking back now, one street or alley, lane or
court, in Blois which I did not visit again and again in my
u8 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
frantic wanderings ; not a beggar skulking on foot that
night whom I did not hunt down and question ; not a
wretched woman sleeping in arch or doorway whom I did
not see and scrutinise. I returned to my mother's lodging
again and again, always fruitlessly. I rushed to the stables
and rushed away again, or stood and listened in the dark,
empty stalls, wondering what had happened, and torturing
myself with suggestions of this or that. And everywhere,
not only at the North-gate, where I interrogated the porters
and found that no party resembling that which I sought
had passed out, but on the parvis of the Cathedral, where
a guard was drawn up, and in the common streets, where I
burst in on one group and another with my queries, I ran
the risk of suspicion and arrest, and all that might follow
thereon.
It was strange indeed that I escaped arrest. The wound
in my chin still bled at intervals, staining my doublet ; and
as I was without my cloak, which I had left in the house in
the Rue Valois, I had nothing to cover my disordered dress.
I was keenly, fiercely anxious. Stray passers meeting me
in the glare of a torch, or seeing me hurry by the great
braziers which burned where four streets met, looked
askance at me and gave me the wall ; while men in authority
cried to me to stay and answer their questions. I ran from
the one and the other with the same savage impatience, dis-
regarding everything in the feverish anxiety which spurred
me on and impelled me to a hundred imprudences, such as
at my age I should have blushed to commit. Much of this
feeling was due, no doubt, to the glimpse I had had of
mademoiselle, and the fiery words she had spoken ; more, I
fancy, to chagrin and anger at the manner in which the
cup of success had been dashed at the last moment from
my lips.
For four hours I wandered through the streets, now hot
with purpose, now seeking aimlessly. It was ten o'clock
when at length I gave up the search, and, worn out both in
body ' *id mind, climbed the stairs at my mother's lodgings
THE MAN AT THE DOOR 119
and entered her room. An old woman sat by the fire,
crooning softly to herself, while she stirred something in a
black pot. My mother lay in the same heavy, deep sleep
in which I had left her. I sat down opposite the nurse
(who cried out at my appearance) and asked her dully for
some food. When I had eaten it, sitting in a kind of
stupor the while, the result partly of my late exertions,
and partly of the silence which prevailed round me, I
bade the woman call me if any change took place; and then
going heavily across to the garret Simon had occupied, I
lay down on his pallet, and fell into a sound, dreamless sleep.
The next day and the next night I spent beside my
mother, watching the life ebb fast away, and thinking with
grave sorrow of her past and my future. It pained me
beyond measure to see her die thus, in a garret, without
proper attendance or any but bare comforts ; the existence
which had once been bright and prosperous ending in pen-
ury and gloom, such as my mother's love and hope and
self-sacrifice little deserved. Her state grieved me sharply
on my own account too, seeing that I had formed none of
those familiar relations which men of my age have com-
monly formed, and which console them for the loss of
parents and forbears ; Nature so ordering it, as I have taken
note, that men look forward rather than backward, and
find in the ties they form with the future full compensation
for the parting strands behind them. I was alone, poverty-
stricken, and in middle life, seeing nothing before me ex-
cept danger and hardship, and these unrelieved by hope or
affection. This last adventure, too, despite all my efforts,
had sunk me deeper in the mire ; by increasing my enemies
and alienating from me some to whom I might have turned
at the worst. In one other respect also it had added to my
troubles not a little ; for the image of mademoiselle wan-
dering alone and unguarded through the streets, or vainly
calling on me for help, persisted in thrusting itself on my
imagination when I least wanted it, and came even between
my mother's patient face and me.
120 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
I was sitting beside Madame de Bonne a little after
sunset on the second day, the woman who attended her
oeing absent 011 an errand, when I remarked that the lamp,
which had been recently lit, and stood on a stool in the
middle of the room, was burning low and needed snuffing.
I went to it softly, and while stooping over it, trying to
improve the light, heard a slow, heavy step ascending the
stairs. The house was quiet, and the sound attracted my
full attention. I raised myself and stood listening, hoping
that this might be the doctor, who had not been that day.
The footsteps passed the landing below, but at the first
stair of the next flight the person, whoever it was, stumbled,
and made a considerable noise. At that, or it might be a
moment later, the step still ascending, I heard a sudden
rustling behind me, and, turning quickly with a start, saw
my mother sitting up in bed. Her eyes were open, and she
seemed fully conscious ; which she had not been for days,
nor indeed since the last conversation I have recorded.
But her face, though it was now sensible, was pinched and
white, and so drawn with mortal fear that I believed her
dying, and sprang to her, unable to construe otherwise the
pitiful look in her straining eyes.
' Madame,' I said, hastily passing my arm round her, and
speaking with as much encouragement as I could infuse
into my voice, ' take comfort. I am here. Your son.'
' Hush ! ' she muttered in answer, laying her feeble hand
on my wrist and continuing to look, not at me, but at the
door. 'Listen, Gaston ! Don't you hear? There it is
again. Again ! '
For a moment I thought her mind still wandered, and I
shivered, having no fondness for hearing such things.
Then 1 saw she was listening intently to the sound which
had attracted my notice. The step had reached the land-
ing by this time. The visitor, whoever it was, paused
there a moment, being in darkness, and uncertain, perhaps,
of the position of the door ; but in a little while I heard
him move forward again, my mother's fragile form, clasped
THE MAN AT THE DOOR 121
as it was in my embrace, quivering with each step he took,
as though his weight stirred the house. He tapped at the
door.
I had thought, while I listened and wondered, of more
than one whom this might be : the leech, Simon Fleix,
Madame Bruhl, Fresnoy even. But as the tap came, and I
felt my mother tremble in my arms, enlightenment came
with it, and I pondered no more. I knew as well as if she
had spoken and told me. There could be only one man
whose presence had such power to terrify her, only one
whose mere step, sounding through the veil, could drag her
back to consciousness and fear ! And that was the man
who had beggared her, who had traded so long on her terrors.
I moved a little, intending to cross the floor softly, that
when he opened the door he might find rne face to face with
him; but she detected the movement, and, love giving her
strength, she clung to my wrist so fiercely that I had not
the heart, knowing how slender was her hold on life and
how near the brink she stood, to break from her. I con-
strained myself to stand still, though every muscle grew
tense as a drawn bowstring, and I felt the strong rage rising
in my throat and choking me as I waited for him to enter.
A log on the hearth gave way with a dull sound startling
in the silence. The man tapped again, and getting no
answer, for neither of us spoke, pushed the door slowly
open, uttering before he showed himself the words, 'Dieu
vous benisse ! ' in a voice so low and smooth I shuddered at
the sound. The next moment he came in and saw me, and,
starting, stood at gaze, his head thrust slightly forward,
his shoulders bent, his hand still on the latch, amazement
and frowning spite in turn distorting his lean face. He
had looked to find a weak, defenceless woman, whom he
could torture and rob at his will ; he saw instead a strong
man armed, whose righteous anger he must have been blind
indeed had he failed to read.
Strangest thing of all, we had met before ! I knew him
a* once he me. He was the same Jacobin monk whom I
122 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
had seen at the inn on the Claine, and who had told me the
news of Guise's death !
I uttered an exclamation of surprise on making this dis-
covery, and my mother, freed suddenly, as it seemed, from
the spell of fear, which had given her unnatural strength,
sank back on the bed. Her grasp relaxed, and her breath
came and went with so loud a rattle that I removed my
gaze from him, and bent over her, full of concern and
solicitude. Our eyes met. She tried to speak, and at last
gasped, ' Not now, G-aston ! Let him let him '
Her lips framed the word ' go,' but she could not give it
sound. I understood, however, and in impotent wrath I
waved my hand to him to begone. When I looked up he
had already obeyed me. He had seized the first oppor-
tunity to escape. The door was closed, the lamp burned
steadily, and we were alone.
I gave her a little Armagnac, which stood beside the bed
for such an occasion, and she revived, and presently opened
her eyes. But I saw at once a great change in her. The
look of fear had passed altogether from her face, and one of
sorrow, yet content, had taken its place. She laid her hand
in mine, and looked up at me, being too weak, as I thought,
to speak. But by-and-by, when the strong spirit had done
its work, she signed to me to lower my head to her mouth.
'The King of Navarre/ she murmured 'you are sure,
Gaston he will retain you in your employments ? '
Her pleading eyes were so close to mine, I felt no scru-
ples such as some might have felt, seeing her so near death ;
but I answered firmly and cheerfully, 'Madame, I am
assured of it. There is no prince in Europe so trustworthy
or so good to his servants.'
She sighed with infinite content, and blessed him in a
feeble whisper. ' And if you live,' she went on, ' you will
rebuild the old house, Gaston. The walls are sound yet.
And the oak in the hall was not burned. There is a chest
of linen at Gil's, and a chest with your father's gold lace
but that is pledged,' she added dreamily. ' I forgot.'
THE MAN AT THE DOOR 123
'Madame/ I answered solemnly, 'it shall be done it
shall be done as you wish, if the power lie with me.'
She lay for some time after that murmuring prayers, her
head supported on my shoulder. I longed impatiently for
the nurse to return, that I might despatch her for the
leech ; not that I thought anything could be done, but for
my own comfort and greater satisfaction afterwards, and
that my mother might not die without some fitting attend-
ance. The house remained quiet, however, with that im-
pressive quietness which sobers the heart at such times,
and I could not do this. And about six o'clock my mother
opened her eyes again.
' This is not Marsac,' she murmured abruptly, her eyes
roving from the ceiling to the wall at the foot of the bed.
' No, Madame,' I answered, leaning over her, ' you are in
Blois. But I am here Gaston, your son.'
She looked at me, a faint smile of pleasure stealing over
her pinched face. 'Twelve thousand livres a year,' she
whispered, rather to herself than to me, ' and an establish-
ment, reduced a little, yet creditable, very creditable.' For
a moment she seemed to be dying in my arms, but again
opened her eyes quickly and looked me in the face. ' Gas-
ton ?' she said, suddenly and strangely. 'Who said Gaston?
He is with the King I have blessed him; and his days
shall be long in the land ! ' Then, raising herself in my arms
with a last effort of strength, she cried loudly, ' Way there !
Way for my son, the Sieur de Marsac ! '
They were her last words. When I laid her down on the
bed a moment later, she was dead, and I was alone.
Madame de Bonne, my mother, was seventy at the time
of her death, having survived my father eighteen years.
She was Marie de Roche de Loheac, third daughter of
Raoul, Sieur de Loheac, on the Vilaine, and by her great-
grandmother, a daughter of Jean de Laval, was descended
from the ducal family of Rohan, a relationship which in
after-times, and under greatly altered circumstances, Henry
Duke of Rohan condescended to acknowledge, honouring
124 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
me with his friendship on more occasions than one. Her
death, which I have here recorded, took place on the fourth
of January, the Queen-Mother of France, Catherine de
Medicis, dying a little after noon on the following day.
In Blois, as in every other town, even Paris itself, the
Huguenots possessed at this time a powerful organisation ;
and with the aid of the surgeon, who showed me much re-
spect in my bereavement, and exercised in my behalf all the
influence which skilful and honest men of his craft invaria-
bly possess, I was able to arrange for my mother's burial in
a private ground about a league beyond the walls and near
the village of Chaverny. At the time of her death I had
only thirty crowns in gold remaining, Simon Fleix, to whose
fate I could obtain no clue, having carried off thirty-five
with the horses. The whole of this residue, however, with
the exception of a handsome gratuity to the nurse and a
trifle spent on my clothes, I expended on the funeral, desiring
that no stain should rest on my mother's birth or my affection.
Accordingly, though the ceremony was of necessity private,
and indeed secret, and the mourners were few, it lacked
nothing, I think, of the decency and propriety which my
mother loved ; and which she preferred, I have often heard
her say, to the vulgar show that is equally at the command
of the noble and the farmer of taxes.
Until she was laid in her quiet resting-place I stood in
constant fear of some interruption on the part either of
Bruhl, whose connection with Fresnoy and the abduction I
did not doubt, or of the Jacobin monk. But none came ;
and nothing happening to enlighten me as to the fate of
Mademoiselle de la Vire, I saw my duty clear before me. I
disposed of the furniture of my mother's room, and indeed
of everything which was saleable, and raised in this way
enough money to buy myself a new cloak without which
I could not travel in che wintry weather and to hire a
horse. Sorry as the animal was, the dealer required secur-
ity, and I had none to offer. It was only at the last moment
I bethought me of the fragment of gold chain which made*
MAXIMILIAN DE BETHUNE, BARON DE ROSNY 125
moiselle had left behind her, and which, as well as my moth-
er's rings and vinaigrette, I had kept back from the sale.
This I was forced to lodge with him. Having thus, with
some pain and more humiliation, provided means for the
journey, I lost not an hour in beginning it. On the eighth
of January I set out for Rosny, to carry the news of my ill-
success and of mademoiselle's position whither I had looked
a week before to carry herself.
CHAPTEK XII.
MAXIMILIAN DE BETHUNE, BAEON DE KOSNT.
I LOOKED to make the journey to Rosny in two days.
But the heaviness of the roads and the sorry condition of
my hackney hindered me so greatly that I lay the second
night at Dreux, and, hearing the way was still worse be-
tween that place and my destination, began to think that I
should be fortunate if I reached Rosny by the following
noon. The country in this part seemed devoted to the
League, the feeling increasing in violence as I approached
the Seine. I heard nothing save abuse of the King of
France and praise of the Guise princes, and had much ado.
keeping a still tongue and riding modestly, to pass without
molestation or inquiry.
Drawing near to Rosny, on the third morning, through a
low marshy country covered with woods and alive with
game of all kinds, I began to occupy myself with thoughts
of the reception I was likely to encounter; which, I con-
jectured, would be none of the most pleasant. The daring
and vigour of the Baron de Rosny, who had at this time
the reputation of being in all parts of France at once, and
the familiar terms on which he was known to live with the
King of Navarre, gave me small reason to hope that he
would listen with indulgence to such a tale as I had to tell
126 A GENTLEMAN' OF FRANCE
The nearer I came to the hour of telling it, indeed, the
more improbable seemed some of its parts, and the more
glaring my own carelessness in losing the token, and in
letting mademoiselle out of my sight in such a place as
Blois. I saw this so clearly now, and more clearly as the
morning advanced, that I do not know that I ever antici-
pated anything with more fear than this explanation ; which
it yet seemed my duty to offer with all reasonable speed.
The morning was warm, I remember; cloudy, yet not dark;
the air near at hand full of moisture and very clear, with a
circle of mist rising some way off, and filling the woods
with blue distances. The road was deep and foundrous,
and as I was obliged to leave it from time to time in order-
to pass the worst places, I presently began to fear that I
had strayed into a by-road. After advancing some distance,
in doubt whethev I should persevere or turn back, I was
glad to see before me a small house placed at the junction
of se\eral woodland paths. From the bush which hung
over the door, and a water-trough which stood beside it, I
judged the place to be an inn ; and determining to get my
horse fed before I went farther, I rode up to the door and
rapped on it with my riding-switch.
The position of the house was so remote that I was sur-
prised to see three or four heads thrust immediately out of
a window. For a moment I thought I should have done
better to have passed by ; but the landlord coming out very
civilly, and leading the way to a shed beside the house, I
reflected that I had little to lose, and followed him. I
found, as I expected, four horses tied up in the shed, the
bits hanging round their necks and their girths loosed;
while my surprise was not lessened by the arrival, before I
had fastened up my own horse, of a sixth rider, who, seeing
us by the shed, rode up to us, and saluted me as he dis-
mounted.
He was a tall, strong man in the prime of youth, wearing
a plain, almost mean suit of dust-coloured leather, and
carrying no weapons except a hunting-knife, which hung in
MAXIMILIAN DE BETHUNE, BARON DE ROSNY 127
a sheath at his girdle. He rode a powerful silver-roan
horse, and was splashed to the top of his high untanned
boots, as if he had come by the worst of paths, if by any.
He cast a shrewd glance at the landlord as he led his
horse into the shed; and I judged from his brown complex-
ion and quick eyes that he had seen much weather and
lived an out-of-door life.
He watched me somewhat curiously while I mixed the
fodder for my horse ; and when I went into the house and
sat down in the first room I came to, to eat a little bread-
and-cheese which I had in my pouch, he joined me almost
immediately. Apparently he could not stomach my poor
fare, however, for after watching me for a time in silence,
switching his boot with his Avhip the while, he called the
landlord, and asked him, in a masterful way, what fresh
meat he had, and particularly if he had any lean collops, or
a fowl.
The fellow answered that there was nothing. His honour
could have some Lisieux cheese, he added, or some stewed
lentils.
'His honour does not want cheese,' the stranger answered
peevishly, 'nor lentil porridge. And what is this I smell,
my friend ?' he continued, beginning suddenly to sniff with
vigour. 'I swear I smell cooking.'
' It is the hind-quarter of a buck, which is cooking for
the four gentlemen of the Robe ; with a collop or two to
follow,' the landlord explained ; and humbly excused him-
self on the ground that the gentlemen had strictly engaged
it for their own eating.
' What ? A whole quarter ! and a collop or two to follow ! '
the stranger retorted, smacking his lips. ' Who are they ? '
' Two advocates and their clerks from the Parliament of
Paris. They have been viewing a boundary near here, and
are returning this afternoon,' the landlord answered.
'No reason why they should cause a famine ! ' ejaculated
the stranger with energy. ' Go to them and say a gentle-
man, who has ridden far, and fasted since seven this morn-
128 A GENTLEMAN" OF FRANCE
ing, requests permission to sit at their table. A quarter of
venison and a collop or two among four ! ' he continued, in
atone of extreme disgust. 'It is intolerable! And advo-
cates ! Why, at that rate, the King of France should eat a
whole buck, and rise hungry ! Don't you agree with me,
sir ?' he continued, turning on me and putting the question
abruptly.
He was so comically and yet so seriously angry, and
looked so closely at me as he spoke, that I hastened to
say I agreed with him perfectly.
' Yet you eat cheese, sir ! ' he retorted irritably.
I saw that, not withstanding the simplicity of his dress,
he was a gentleman, and so, forbearing to take offence, I
told him plainly that my purse being light I travelled
rather as I could than as I would.
' Is it so ? ' he answered hastily. ' Had I known that, I
would have joined you in the cheese ! After all, I would
rather fast with a gentleman, than feast with a churl. But
it is too late now. Seeing you mix the fodder, I thought
your pockets were full.'
' The nag is tired, and has done its best,' I answered.
He looked at me curiously, and as though he would say
more. But the landlord returning at that moment, he
turned to him instead.
< Well ! ' he said briskly. ' Is it all right ? '
'I am sorry, your honour,' the man answered, reluctantly,
and with a very downcast air, ' but the gentlemen beg to
be excused.'
' Zounds ! ' cried my companion roundly. ' They do, do
they ? '
' They say they have no more, sir,' the landlord continued,
faltering, ' than enough for themselves and a little dog they
have with them.'
A shout of laughter which issued at that moment from
the other room seemed to show that the quartette were
making merry over my companion's request. I saw his
cheek redden, and looked for an explosion of anger on his
MAXIMILIAN DE BETHUNE, BARON DE ROSNY 129
part; but instead he stood a moment in thought in the
middle of the floor, and then, much to the innkeeper's
relief, pushed a stool towards me, and called for a bottle of
the best wine. He pleasantly begged leave to eat a little
of my cheese, which he said looked better than the Lisieux,
and, filling my glass with wine, fell to as merrily as if he
had never heard of the party in the other room.
I was more than a little surprised, I remember; for I
had taken him to be a passionate man, and not one to sit
down under an affront. Still I said nothing, and we con-
versed very well together. I noticed, however, that he
stopped speaking more than once, as though to listen ; but
conceiving that he was merely reverting to the party in the
other room, who grew each moment more uproarious, I said
nothing, and was completely taken by surprise when he
rose on a sudden, and, going to the open window, leaned
out, shading his eyes with his hand.
' What is it ? ' I said, preparing to follow him.
He answered by a quiet chuckle. 'You shall see/ he
added the next instant.
I rose, and going to the window looked out over his shoul-
der. Three men were approaching the inn on horseback.
The first, a great burly, dark-complexioned man with fierce
black eyes and a feathered cap, had pistols in his holsters
and a short sword by his side. The other two, with the
air of servants, were stout fellows, wearing green doublets
and leather breeches. All three rode good horses, while a
footman led two hounds after them in a leash. On seeing
us they cantered forward, the leader waving his bonnet.
' Halt, there ! ' cried my companion, lifting up his voice
when they were within a stone's throw of us. * Maignan ! '
' My lord ? ' answered he of the feather, pulling up on
the instant.
' You will find six horses in the shed there,' the stranger
cried in a voice of command. ' Turn out the four to the
left as you go in. Give each a cut, and send it about its
business ! '
j
130 A GENTLEMAAT OF FRANCE
The man wheeled his horse before the words were well
uttered, and crying obsequiously ' that it was done/ flung his
reins to one of the other riders and disappeared in the shed,
as if the order given him were the most commonplace one
in the world.
The party in the other room, however, by whom, all
could be heard, were not slow to take the alarm. They
broke into a shout of remonstrance, and one of their num-
ber, leaping from the window, asked with a very fierce air
what the devil we meant. The others thrust out their
faces, swollen and flushed with the wine they had drunk,
and with many oaths backed up his question. Not feeling
myself called upon to interfere, I prepared to see something
diverting.
My companion, whose coolness surprised me, had all the
air of being as little concerned as myself. He even per-
sisted for a time in ignoring the angry lawyer, and, turning
a deaf ear to all the threats and abuse with which the others
assailed him, continued to look calmly at the prospect.
Seeing this, and that nothing could move him, the man
who had jumped through the window, and who seemed the
most enterprising of the party, left us at last and ran
towards the stalls. The aspect of the two serving-men,
however, who rode up grinning, and made as if they would
ride him down, determined him to return ; which he did,
pale with fury, as the last of the four horses clattered out,
and after a puzzled look round trotted off at its leisure into
the forest.
On this, the man grew more violent, as I have remarked
frightened men do; so that at last the stranger conde-
scended to notice him. ' My good sir/ he said coolly, look-
ing at him through the window as if he had not seen him
before, ' you annoy me. What is the matter ? '
The fellow retorted with a vast amount of bluster, asking
what the devil we meant by turning out his horses.
'Only to give you and the gentlemen with you a little exer-
cise/ my companion answered, with grim humour, and in a
MAXIMILIAN DE BETHUNE, BARON DE ROSNY 131
severe tone strange in one so young 'than which, nothing is
more wholesome after a full meal. That, and a lesson in
good manners. Maignan,' he continued, raising his voice, 'if
this person has anything more to say, answer him. He is
nearer your degree than mine.'
And leaving the man to slink away like a whipped dog
for the mean are ever the first to cringe my friend turned
from the window. Meeting my eyes as he went back to his
seat, he laughed. 'Well,' he said, 'what do you think?'
' That the ass in the lion's skin is very well till it meets
the lion,' I answered.
He laughed again, and seemed pleased, as I doubt not he
was. ' Pooh, pooh ! ' he said. ' It passed the time, and I
think I am quits with my gentlemen now. But I must be
riding. Possibly our roads may lie for a while in the same
direction, sir ? ' And he looked at me irresolutely.
I answered cautiously that I was going to the town of
Kosny.
'You are not from Paris ? ' he continued, still looking at
me.
' No,' I answered. ' I am from the south.'
'From Blois, perhaps ?'
I nodded.
' Ah ! ' he said, making no comment, which somewhat sur-
prised me, all men at this time desiring news, and looking
to Blois for it. ' I am riding towards Kosny also. Let us
be going.'
But I noticed that as we got to horse, the man he called
Maignan holding his stirrup with much formality, he turned
and looked at me more than once with an expression in his
eye which I could not interpret ; so that, being in an ene-
my's country, where curiosity was a thing to be deprecated,
I began to feel somewhat uneasy. However, as he presently
gave way to a fit of laughter, and seemed to be digesting
his late diversion at the inn, I thought no more of it,
finding him excellent company and a man of surprising
information.
132 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE
Notwithstanding this my spirits began to flag as I ap-
proached Rosny ; and as on such occasions nothing is more
trying than the well-meant rallying of a companion igno-
rant of our trouble, I felt rather relief than regret when he
drew rein at four cross-roads a mile or so short of the town,
and, announcing that here our paths separated, took a civil
leave of me, and went his way with his servants.
I dismounted at an inn at the extremity of the town, and,
stopping only to arrange my dress and drink a cup of wine,
asked the way to the Chateau, which was situate, I learned,
no more than a third of a mile away. I went thither on
foot by way of an avenue of trees leading up to a draw-
bridge and gateway. The former was down, but the gates
were closed, and all the formalities of a fortress in time of
war were observed on my admission, though the garrison
appeared to consist only of two or three serving-men and
as many foresters. I had leisure after sending in my name
to observe that the house was old and partly ruinous, but of
great strength, covered in places with ivy, and closely sur-
rounded by woods. A staid-looking page came presently
to me, and led me up a narrow staircase to a parlour lighted
by two windows, looking, one into the courtyard, the other
towards the town. Here a tall man was waiting to re-
ceive me, who rose on my entrance and came forward.
Judge of my surprise when I recognised my acquaintance of
the afternoon ! * M. de Rosny ? ' I exclaimed, standing still
and looking at him in confusion.
'The same, sir,' he answered, with a quiet smile. 'You
come from the King of Navarre, I believe, and on an errand
to me. You may speak openly. The king has no secrets
from me.'
There was something in the gravity of his demeanour as
he waited for me to speak which strongly impressed me;
notwithstanding that he was ten years younger than my-
self, arid I had seen him so lately in a lighter mood. I felt
that his reputation had not belied him that here was a
great man ; and reflecting with despair on the inadequacy
MAXIMILIAN DE BETHUNE, BARON DE ROSNY 133
of the tale I had to tell him, I paused to consider in what
terms I should begin. He soon put an end to this, however.
' Come, sir/ he said with impatience. ' I have told you that
you may speak out. You should have been here four days
ago, as I take it. Now you are here, where is the lady ? '
' Mademoiselle de la Vire ? ' I stammered, rather to gain
time than with any other object.
' Tut, tut ! ' he rejoined, frowning. ( Is there any other
lady in the question ? Come, sir, speak out. Where have
you left her ? This is no affair of gallantry,' he continued,
the harshness of his demeanour disagreeably surprising me,
1 that you need beat about the bush. The king entrusted
to you a lady, who, I have no hesitation in telling you now,
was in possession of certain State secrets. It is known
that she escaped safely from Chize and arrived safely at
Blois. Where is she ? '
' I would to Heaven I knew, sir ! ' I exclaimed in despair,
feeling the painfulness of my position increased a hundred-
fold by his manner. ' I wish to God I did.'
' What is this ? ' he cried in a raised voice. ' You do not
know where she is ? You jest, M. de Marsac.'
' It were a sorry jest,' I answered, summoning up a rueful
smile. And on that, plunging desperately into the story
which I have here set down, I narrated the difficulties
under which I had raised my escort, the manner in which I
came to be robbed of the gold token, how mademoiselle was
trepanned, the lucky chance by which I found her again,
and the final disappointment. He listened, but listened
throughout with no word of sympathy rather with im-
patience, which grew at last into derisive^ incredulity.
When I had done he asked me bluntly what I called
myself.
Scarcely understanding what he meant, I repeated my name.
He answered, rudely and flatly, that it was impossible.
' I do not believe it, sir ! ' he repeated, his brow dark. ' You
are not the man. You bring neither the lady nor the token,
nor anything else by which I can test your story. Nay.
134 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
sir, do not scowl at ine,' he continued sharply. ' I am the
mouthpiece of the King of Navarre, to whom this matter is
of the highest importance. I cannot believe that the man
whom he would choose would act so. This house you prate
of in Blois, for instance, and the room with the two doors ?
What were you doing while mademoiselle was being re-
moved ? '
' I was engaged with the men of the house,' I answered,
striving to swallow the anger which all but choked me. ' I
did what I could. Had the door given way, all would have
been well.'
He looked at me darkly. ' That is fine talking ! ' he said
with a sneer. Then he dropped his eyes and seemed for a
time to fall into a brown study, while I stood before him,
confounded by this new view of the case, furious, yet not
knowing how to vent my fury, cut to the heart by his
insults, yet without hope or prospect of redress.
1 Come ! ' he said harshly, after two or three minutes of
gloomy reflection on his part and burning humiliation on
mine, 'is there anyone here who can identify you, or in
any other way confirm your story, sir ? Until I know how
the matter stands I can do nothing.'
I shook my head in sullen shame. I might protest
against his brutality and this judgment of me, but to what
purpose while he sheltered himself behind his master ?
' Stay ! ' he said presently, with an abrupt gesture of
remembrance. ' I had nearly forgotten. I have some here
who have been lately at the King of Navarre's Court at St.
Jean d'Angely. If you still maintain that you are the
M. de Marsac to whom this commission was entrusted, you
will doubtless have no objection to seeing them ? '
On this I felt myself placed in a most cruel dilemma. If
I refused to submit my case to the proposed ordeal, I stood
an impostor confessed. If I consented to see these strangers,
it was probable they would not recognise me, and possible
that they might deny me in terms calculated to make my
position even worse, if that might be. I hesitated ; but,
MAXIMILIAN DE BETHUNE, BARON DE ROSNY 135
Kosny standing inexorable before me awaiting an answer, I
finally consented.
' Good ! ' he said curtly. ' This way, if you please. They
are here. The latch is tricky. Nay, sir, it is my house.'
Obeying the stern motion of his hand, I passed before
him into the next room, feeling myself more humiliated
than I can tell by this reference to strangers. For a mo-
ment I could see no one. The day was waning, the room I
entered was long and narrow, and illuminated only by a
glowing fire. Besides I was myself, perhaps, in some
embarrassment. I believed that my conductor had made a
mistake, or that his guests had departed, and I turned
towards him to ask for an explanation. He merely pointed
onwards, however, and I advanced ; whereupon a young and
handsome lady, who had been seated in the shadow of the
great fireplace, rose suddenly, as if startled, and stood
looking at me, the glow of the burning wood falling on one
side of her face and turning her hair to gold.
' Well ! ' M. de Rosny said, in a voice which sounded a
little odd in my ears. ' You do not know madame, I
think ? '
I saw that she was a complete stranger to me, and bowed
to her without speaking. The lady saluted me in turn
ceremoniously and in silence.
* Is there no one else here who should know you ? ' M.
de Kosny continued, in a tone almost of persiflage, and
with the same change in his voice which had struck me
before; but now it was more marked. 'If not, M. de Mar-
sac, I am afraid But first look round, look round, sir ;
I would not judge any man hastily.'
He laid his hand on my shoulder as he finished in a
manner so familiar and so utterly at variance with his
former bearing that I doubted if I heard or felt aright.
Yet I looked mechanically at the lady, and seeing that her
eyes glistened in the firelight, and that she gazed at me
very kindly, I wondered still more ; falling, indeed, into a
very confusion of amazement. This was not lessened but
136 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
augmented a hundredfold when, turning in obedience to the
pressure of de Rosny's hand, I saw beside me, as if she had
risen from the floor, another lady no other than Mademoi-
selle de la Vire herself ! She had that moment stepped out
of the shadow of the great fireplace, which had hitherto
hidden her, and stood before me curtseying prettily, with
the same look on her face and in her eyes which madame's
wore.
'Mademoiselle ! ' I muttered, unable to take my eyes from
her.
'Mais oui, monsieur, mademoiselle,' she answered, curt-
seying lower, with the air of a child rather than a woman.
'Here?' I stammered, my mouth open, my eyes staring.
'Here, sir thanks to the valour of a brave man,' she
answered, speaking in a voice so low I scarcely heard her.
And then, dropping her eyes, she stepped back into the
shadow, as if either she had said too much already, or
doubted her composure were she to say more. She was so
radiantly dressed, she looked in the firelight more like a
fairy than a woman, being of small and delicate propor-
tions ; and she seemed in my eyes so different a person,
particularly in respect of the softened expression of her
features, from the Mademoiselle de la Vire whom I had
known and seen plunged in sloughs and bent to the saddle
with fatigue, that I doubted still if I had seen aright, and
was as far from enlightenment as before.
It was M. de Rosny himself who relieved me from the
embarrassment I was suffering. He embraced me in the
most kind and obliging manner, and this more than once ;
begging me to pardon the deception he had practised upon
me, and to which he had been impelled partly by the odd
nature of our introduction at the inn, and partly by his
desire to enhance the joyful surprise he had in store for
me. ' Come,' he said presently, drawing me to the window,
'let me show you some more of your old friends.'
I looked out, and saw below me in the courtyard my
three horses drawn up in a row, the Cid being bestridden by
MAXIMILIAN DE BETHUNE, BARON DE ROSNY 137
Simon Fleix, who, seeing me, waved a triumphant greeting.
A groom stood at the head of each horse, and on either side
was a man with a torch. My companion laughed gleefully.
<Jt was Maignan's arrangement/ he said. 'He has a quaint
taste in such things.'
After greeting Simon Fleix a hundred times, I turned
back into the room, and, my heart overflowing with grati-
tude and wonder, I begged M. de Rosny to acquaint me
with the details of mademoiselle's escape.
'It was the most simple thing in the world,' he said,
taking me by the hand and leading me back to the hearth.
'While you were engaged with the rascals, the old woman
who daily brought mademoiselle's food grew alarmed at the
uproar, and came into the room to learn what it was.
Mademoiselle, unable to help you, and uncertain of your
success, thought the opportunity too good to be lost. She
forced the old woman to show her and her maid the way out
through the garden. This done, they ran down a lane, as
I understand, and came immediately upon the lad with the
horses, who recognised them and helped them to mount.
They waited some minutes for you, and then rode off. '
'But I inquired at the gate,' I said.
'At which gate?' inquired M. de Rosny, smiling.
'The North-gate, of course,' I answered.
'Just so,' he rejoined with a nod. 'But they went out
through the West-gate and made a circuit. He is a strange
lad, that of yours below there. He has a head on his
shoulder, M. de Marsac. Well, two leagues outside the
town they halted, scarcely knowing how to proceed. By
good fortune, hoAvever, a horse-dealer of my acquaintance
was at the inn. He knew Mademoiselle de la Vire, and,
hearing whither she was bound, brought her hither with-
out let or hindrance.'
'Was he a Norman? ' I asked.
M. de Rosny nodded, smiling at me shrewdly. 'Yes,'
he said, 'he told me much about you. And now let me
introduce you to my wife, Madame de Rosny. '
138 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
He led me up to the lady who had risen at my entrance,
and who now welcomed me as kindly as she had before
looked on me, paying me many pleasant compliments. I
gazed at her with interest, having heard much of her beauty
and of the strange manner in which M. de Eosny, being
enamoured of two young ladies, and chancing upon both
while lodging in different apartments at an inn, had decided
which he should visit and make his wife. He appeared to
read what was in my mind, for as I bowed before her,
thanking her for the obliging things which she had uttered,
and which for ever bound me to her service, he gaily
pinched her ear, and said, 'When you want a good wife, M.
de Marsac, be sure you turn to the right. '
He spoke in jest, and having his own case only in his
mind. But I, looking mechanically in the direction he
indicated, saw mademoiselle standing a pace or two to my
right in the shadow of the great chimney-piece. I know
not whether she frowned more or blushed more; but this
for certain, that she answered my look with one of sharp
displeasure, and, turning her back on me, swept quickly
from the room, with no trace in her bearing of that late
tenderness and gratitude which I had remarked.
CHAPTER XIII.
AT BOSNY.
THE morning brought only fresh proofs of the kindness
which M. de Rosny had conceived for me. Awaking early I
found on a stool beside my clothes, a purse of gold contain-
ing a hundred crowns ; and a youth presently entering to
ask me if I lacked anything, I had at first some difficulty
in recognising Simon Fleix, so sprucely was the lad dressed,
in a mode resembling Maignan's. I looked at the student
more than once before I addressed him by his name;
AT ROSNY 139
was as much surprised by the strange change I observed in
him for it was not confined to his clothes as by anything
which had happened since I entered the house. I rubbed
my eyes, and asked him what he had done with his soutane.
'Burned it, M. de Marsac,' he answered briefly.
I saw that he had burned much, metaphorically speaking,
besides his soutane. He was less pale, less lank, less wo-
begone than formerly, and went more briskly. He had lost
the air of crack-brained disorder which had distinguished
him, and was smart, sedate, and stooped less. Only the
odd sparkle remained in his eyes, and bore witness to the
same nervous, eager spirit within.
'"What are you going to do, then, Simon?' I asked, not-
ing these changes curiously.
'I am a soldier,' he answered, 'and follow M. de Marsac.'
I laughed. 'You have chosen a poor service, I am afraid, '
I said, beginning to rise; 'and one, too, Simon, in which it
is possible you may be killed. I thought that would not
suit you, ' I continued, to see what he would say. But he
answered nothing, and 1 looked at him in great surprise.
'You have made up your mind, then, at last? ' I said.
* Perfectly,' he answered.
'And solved all your doubts? '
'I have no doubts.'
'You are a Huguenot? '
'That is the only true and pure religion,' he replied
gravely. And with apparent sincerity and devotion he
repeated Beza's Confession of Faith.
This filled me with profound astonishment, but I said no
more at the time, though I had my doubts. I waited until
I was alone with M. de Rosny, and then I unbosomed my-
self on the matter ; expressing my surprise at the sudden-
ness of the conversion, and at such a man, as I had found
the student to be, stating his views so firmly and stead-
fastly, and with so little excitement. Observing that M.
de Rosny smiled but answered nothing, I explained myself
farther.
140 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
'I am surprised,' I said, 'because I have always heard it
maintained that clerkly men, becoming lost in the mazes
of theology, seldom find any sure footing; that not one in
a hundred returns to his old faith, or finds grace to accept
a new one. I am speaking only of such, of course, as I be-
lieve this lad to be eager, excitable brains, learning much,
and without judgment to digest what they learn.'
'Of such I also believe it to be true,' M. de Eosny an-
swered, still smiling. 'But even on them a little influence,
applied at the right moment, has much effect, M. de
Marsac.'
'I allow that,' I said. 'But my mother, of whom I have
spoken to you, saw much of this youth. His fidelity to
her was beyond praise. Yet her faith, though grounded
on a rock, had no weight with him.'
M. de Rosny shook his head, still smiling.
'It is not our mothers who convert us,' he said.
'What!' I cried, my eyes opened. 'Do you mean do
you mean that Mademoiselle has done this?'
'I fancy so,' he answered, nodding. 'I think my lady
cast her spell over him by the way. The lad left Blois with
her, if what you say be true, Avithout faith in the world.
He came to my hands two days later the stoutest of Hugue-
nots. It is not hard to read this riddle.'
'Such conversions are seldom lasting,' I said.
He looked at me queerly; and, the smile still hovering
about his lips, answered 'Tush, man! Why so serious?
Theodore Beza himself could not look dryer. The lad is
in earnest, and there is no harm done.'
And, Heaven knows, I was in no mood to suspect harm ;
nor inclined just then to look at the dark side of things. It
may be conceived how delightful it was to me to be re-
ceived as an equal and honoured guest by a man, even then
famous, and now so grown in reputation as to overshadow
all Frenchmen save his master; how pleasant to enjoy the
comforts and amiabilities of home, from which I had been
long estranged; to pour my mother's story into Madame's
AT ROSNY 141
ears and find comfort in her sympathy ; to feel myself, in fine,
once more a gentleman with an acknowledged place in the
world. Our days we spent in hunting, or excursions of some
kind, our evenings in long conversations, which impressed
me with an ever-growing respect for my lord's powers.
For there seemed to be no end either to his knowledge of
France, or to the plans for its development, which even
then filled his brain, and have since turned wildernesses
into fruitful lands, and squalid towns into great cities.
Grave and formal, he could yet unbend; the most sagacious
of counsellors, he was a soldier also, and loved the seclusion
in which we lived the more that it was not devoid of dan-
ger; the neighbouring towns being devoted to the League,
and the general disorder alone making it possible for him
to lie unsuspected in his own house.
One thing only rendered my ease and comfort imperfect,
and that was the attitude which Mademoiselle de la Vire
assumed towards rne. Of her gratitude in the first blush
of the thing I felt no doubt, for not only had she thanked
me very prettily, though with reserve, on the evening of
my arrival, but the warmth of M. de Rosny's kindness left
me no choice, save to believe that she had given him an
exaggerated idea of my merits and services. I asked no
more than this. Such good offices left me nothing to expect
or desire ; my age and ill-fortune placing me at so great a
disadvantage that, far from dreaming of friendship or
intimacy with her, I did not even assume the equality in
our daily intercourse to which my birth, taken by itself,
entitled me. Knowing that I must appear in her eyes old,
poor, and ill-dressed, and satisfied with having asserted my
conduct and honour, I was careful not to trespass on her
gratitude; and while forward in such courtesies as could
not weary her, I avoided with equal care every appearance
of pursuing her, or inflicting my company upon her. I
addressed her formally and upon formal topics only, such,
I mean, as we shared with the rest of our company; and
reminded myself often that though we now met in the same
142 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
house and at the same table, she was still the Mademoi-
selle de la Vire who had borne herself so loftily in the
King of Navarre's ante-chamber. This I did, not oat of
pique or wounded pride, which I no more, God knows, har-
boured against her than against a bird; but that I might
not in my new prosperity forget the light in which such a
woman, young, spoiled, and beautiful, must still regard me.
Keeping to this inoffensive posture, I was the more hurt
when I found her gratitude fade with the hour. After the
first two days, during which I remarked that she was very
silent, seldom speaking to me or looking at me, she resumed
much of her old air of disdain. For that I cared little;
but she presently went farther, and began to rake up the
incidents which had happened at St. Jean d'Angely, and in
which I had taken part. She continually adverted to my
poverty while there, to the odd figure I had cut, and the
many jests her friends had made at my expense. She
seemed to take a pleasure positively savage in these, gibing
at me sometimes so bitterly as to shame and pain me, and
bring the colour to Madame de Kosny's cheeks.
To the time we had spent together, on the other hand,
she never or rarely referred. One afternoon, however, a
week after my arrival at Rosny, I found her sitting alone
in the parlour. I had not known she was there, and I wa&
for withdrawing at once with a bow and a muttered apol-
ogy. But she stopped me with an angry gesture. 'I do
not bite, ' she said, rising from her stool and meeting my
eyes, a red spot in each cheek. 'Why do you look at me
like that? Do you know, M. de Marsac, that I have no
patience with you.' And she stamped her foot on the
floor.
'But, mademoiselle,' I stammered humbly, wondering
what in the world she meant, 'what have I done? '
'Done?' she repeated angrily. 'Done? It is not what
you have done, it is what you are. I have no patience
with you. Why are you so dull, sir ? Why are you
so dowdy? Why do you go about with your doublet awry,
AT ROSNY 143
and your hair lank? Why do you speak to Maignan as if
he were a gentleman? Why do you look always solemn
and polite, and as if all the world were a preche? Why?
Why? Why, I say?'
She stopped from sheer lack of breath, leaving me as
much astonished as ever in my life. She looked so beau-
tiful in her fury and fierceness too, that I could only stare
at her and wonder dumbly what it all meant.
'Well! ' she cried impatiently, after bearing this as long
as she could, 'have you not a word to say for yourself?
Have you no tongue? Have you no will of your own at all,
M. de Marsac?'
'But, mademoiselle,' I began, trying to explain.
'Chut!' she exclaimed, cutting me short before I could
get farther, as the way of women is. And then she added,
in a changed tone, and very abruptly, 'You have a velvet
knot of mine, sir. Give it me. '
'It is in my room,' I answered, astonished beyond meas-
ure at this sudden change of subject, and equally sudden
demand.
'Then fetch it, sir, if you please,' she replied, her eyes
flashing afresh. 'Fetch it. Fetch it, I say! It has served
its turn, and I prefer to have it. Who knows but that
some day you may be showing it for a love-knot? '
'Mademoiselle!' I cried, hotly. And I think that for
the moment I was as angry as she was.
'Still, I prefer to have it,' she answered sullenly, casting
down her eyes.
I was so much enraged, I went without a word and
fetched it, and, bringing it to her where she stood, in the
same place, put it into her hands. When she saw it some
recollection, I fancy, of the day when she had traced the
cry for help on it, came to her in her anger; for she took
it from me with all her bearing altered. She trembled,
and held it for a moment in her hands, as if she did not
know what to do with it. She was thinking, doubtless, of
the house in Blois and the peril she had run there ; and,
144 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
being for my part quite willing that she should think and
feel how badly she had acted, I stood looking at her, spar-
ing her no whit of my glance.
'The gold chain you left on my mother's pillow,' I saicl
coldly, seeing she continued silent, ' I cannot return to you at
once, for I have pledged it. But I will do so as soon as I can. '
'You have pledged it?' she muttered, with her eyes
averted.
'Yes, mademoiselle, to procure a horse to bring me here,'
I replied drily. 'However, it shall be redeemed. In re-
turn, there is something I too would ask.'
'What?' she murmured, recovering herself with an
effort, and looking at me with something of her old pride
and defiance.
'The broken coin you have,' I said. 'The token, I mean.
It is of no use to you, for your enemies hold the other half.
It might be of service to me.'
'How?' she asked curtly.
'Because some day I may find its fellow, mademoiselle.'
'And then?' she cried. She looked at me, her lips
parted, her eyes flashing. 'What then, when you have
found its fellow, M. de Marsac? '
I shrugged my shoulders.
'Bah!' she exclaimed, clenching her little hand, and
stamping her foot on the floor in a passion I could not un-
derstand. 'That is you! That is M. de Marsac all over.
You say nothing, and men think nothing of you. You go
with your hat in your hand, and they tread on you. They
speak, and you are silent ! Why, if I could use a sword as
you can, I would keep silence before no man, nor let any
man save the King of France cock his hat in my presence!
But you! There! go, leave me. Here is your coin. Take it
and go. Send me that lad of yours to keep me awake. At
any rate he has brains, he is young, he is a man, he has a
soul, he can feel if he were anything but a clerk. '
She waved me off in such a wind of passion as might
have amused me in another, but in her smacked so strongly
AT ROSWY 145
of ingratitude as to pain me not a little. I went, however,
and sent Simon to her; though I liked the errand very ill,
and no better when I saw the lad's face light up at the men-
tion of her name. But apparently she had not recovered
her temper when he reached her, for he fared no better than I
had done; coming away presently with the air of a whipped
dog, as I saw from the yew-tree walk where I was strolling.
Still, after that she made it a habit to talk to him more
and more; and, Monsieur and Madame de Rosny being
much taken up with one another, there was no one to check
her fancy or speak a word of advice. Knowing her pride,
I had no fears for her; but it grieved me to think that the
lad's head should be turned. A dozen times I made up my
mind to speak to her on his behalf; but for one thing it
was not my business, and for another I soon discovered that
she was aware of my displeasure, and valued it not a jot.
For venturing one morning, when she was in a pleasant
humour, to hint that she treated those beneath her too in-
humanly, and with an unkindness as little becoming noble
blood as familiarity, she asked me scornfully if I did not
think she treated Simon Fleix well enough. To which I
had nothing to answer.
I might here remark on the system of secret intelligence
by means of which M. de Rosny, even in this remote place,
received news of all that was passing in France. But it is
common fame. There was no coming or going of messen-
gers, which would quickly have aroused suspicion in the
neighbouring town, nor was it possible even for me to say
exactly by what channels news came. But come it did,
and at all hours of the day. In this way we heard of the
danger of La Ganache and of the effort contemplated by
the King of Navarre for its relief. M. de Eosny not only
communicated these matters to me without reserve, but
engaged my affections by farther proofs of confidence such
as might well have flattered a man of greater importance.
I have said that, as a rule, there was no coming or going
of messengers. But one evening:, returning from the chase
146 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
with one of the keepers, who had prayed my assistance in
hunting down a crippled doe, I was surprised to find a
strange horse, which had evidently been ridden hard and
far, standing smoking in the yard. Inquiring whose it was,
I learned that a man believed by the grooms to be from
Blois had just arrived and was closeted with the baron.
An event so far out of the ordinary course of things natu-
rally aroused my wonder ; but desiring to avoid any appear-
ance of curiosity, which, if indulged, is apt to become the
most vulgar of vices, I refrained from entering the house,
and repaired instead to the yew- walk. I had scarcely,
however, heated my blood, a little chilled with riding, be-
fore the page came to me to fetch me to his master.
I found M. de Rosny striding up and down his room, his
manner so disordered and his face disfigured by so much
grief and horror that I started on seeing him. My heart
sinking in a moment, I did not need to look at Madame,
who sat weeping silently in a chair, to assure myself that
something dreadful had happened. The light was failing,
and a lamp had been brought into the room. M. de Rosny
pointed abruptly to a small piece of paper which lay on the
table beside it, and, obeying his gesture, I took this up and
read its contents, which consisted of less than a score of
words.
'He is ill and like to die/ the message ran, 'twenty
leagues south of La Ganache. Come at all costs. P. M.'
'Who?' I said stupidly stupidly, for already I began
to understand. 'Who is ill and like to die? '
M. de Rosny turned to me, and I saw that the tears were
trickling unbidden down his cheeks. 'There is but one he
for me,' he cried. 'May God spare that one! May He
spare him to France, which needs him, to the Church,
which hangs on him, and to me, who love him! Let him
not fall in the hour of fruition. Lord, let him not fall ! '
And he sank on to a stool, and remained in that posture
with his face in his hands, his broad shoulders shaken with
grief
AT ROSNY 14?
'Come, sir,' I said, after a pause sacred to sorrow and
dismay; 'let me remind you that while there is life there
is hope.'
'Hope?'
'Yes, M. de Rosny, hope,' I replied more cheerfully.
He has work to do. He is elected, called, and chosen;
the Joshua of his people, as M. d' Amours rightly called
him. God will not take him yet. You shall see him and
be embraced by him, as has happened a hundred times.
Remember, sir. the King of Navarre is strong, hardy, and
young, and no doubt in good hands.'
'Mornay's,' M. de Rosny cried, looking up with contempt
in his eye.
Yet from that moment he rallied, spurred, I think, by
the thought that the King of Navarre's recovery depended
under God on M. de Mornay; whom he was ever inclined
to regard as his rival. He began to make instant prepara-
tions for departure from Rosny, and bade me do so also,
telling me, somewhat curtly and without explanation, that
he had need of me. The danger of so speedy a return to
the South, where the full weight of the Vicomte de Tu-
renne's vengeance awaited me, occurred to me strongly; and
I ventured, though with a little shame, to mention it. But
M. de Rosny, after gazing at me a moment in apparent
doubt, put the objection aside with a degree of peevishness
unusual in him, and continued to press on his arrangements
as earnestly as though they did not include separation from
a wife equally loving and beloved.
Having few things to look to myself, I was at leisure,
when the hour of departure came, to observe both the cour-
age with which Madame de Rosny supported her sorrow,
'for the sake of France,' and the unwonted tenderness which
Mademoiselle de la Vire, lifted for once above herself, lav-
ished on her. I seemed to stand happily in one light,
and yet the feeling was fraught with pain outside their
familiar relations; yet, having made my adieux as short
and formal as possible, that I might not encroach on other
si
148 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
and more sacred ones, I found at the last moment some-
thing in waiting for me. I was surprised as I rode under
the gateway a little ahead of the others, by something small
and light falling on the saddle-bow before me. Catching
it before it could slide to the ground, I saw, with infinite
astonishment, that I held in my hand a tiny velvet bow.
To look up at the window of the parlour, which I have
said was over the archway, was my first impulse. I did so,
and met mademoiselle's eyes for a second, and a second
only. The next moment she was gone. M. de Rosny clat-
tered through the gate at my heels, the servants behind
him. And we were on the road.
CHAPTER XIV.
M. DE KAMBOUILLET.
FOB a while we were but a melancholy party. The inci-
dent I have last related which seemed to admit of more
explanations than one left me in a state of the greatest
perplexity; and this prevailed with me for a time, and was
only dissipated at length by my seeing my own face, as it
were, in a glass. For, chancing presently to look behind
me, I observed that Simon Fleix was riding, notwithstand-
ing his fine hat and feather and his new sword, in a pos-
ture and with an air of dejection difficult to exaggerate;
whereon the reflection that master and man had the same
object in their minds nay, the thought that possibly he
bore in his bosom a like token to that which lay warm in
mine occurring to me, I roused myself as from some de-
grading dream, and, shaking up the Cid, cantered forward
to join Rosny, who, in no cheerful mood himself, was rid-
ing steadily forward, wrapped to his eyes in his cloak.
The news of the King of Navarre's illness had fallen on
him, indeed, in the midst of his sanguine scheming with
M. DE RAMBOUILLET 14$
the force of a thunderbolt. He saw himself in danger of
losing at once the master he loved and the brilliant future
to which he looked forward; and amid the imminent crash
of his hopes and the destruction of the system in which he
lived, he had scarcely time to regret the wife he was leav-
ing at Rosny or the quiet from which he was so suddenly
called. His heart was in the South, at La Ganache, by
Henry's couch. His main idea was to get there quickly at
all risks. The name of the King of Navarre's physician
was constantly on his lips. 'Dortoman is a good man. If
anyone can save him, Dortoman will,' was his perpetual
cry. And whenever he met anyone who had the least ap-
pearance of bearing news, he would have me stop and
interrogate him, and by no means let the traveller go until
he had given us the last rumour from Blois the channel
through which all the news from the South reached us.
An incident which occurred at the inn that evening
cheered him somewhat; the most powerful minds being
prone, I have observed, to snatch at omens in times of
uncertainty. An elderly man, of strange appearance, and
dressed in an affected and bizarre fashion, was seated at
table when we arrived. Though I entered first in my
assumed capacity of leader of the party, he let me pass be-
fore him without comment, but rose and solemnly saluted
M. de Bosny, albeit the latter walked behind me and was
much more plainly dressed. Rosny returned his greeting
and would have passed on; but the stranger, interposing
with a still lower bow, invited him to take his seat, which
was near the fire and sheltered from the draught, at the
same time making as if he would himself remove to another
place.
'Nay,' said my companion, surprised by such an excess
of courtesy, 'I do not see why I should take your place,
sir. '
'Not mine only,' the old man rejoined, looking at him
with a particularity and speaking with an emphasis which
attracted our attention, 'but those of many others, who I
150 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
can assure you will very shortly yield them up to you,
whether they will or not. '
M. de Kosny shrugged his shoulders and passed on, affect-
ing to suppose the old man wandered. But privately he
thought much of his words, and more when he learned that
he was an astrologer from Paris, who had the name, at any
rate in this country, of having studied under Nostradamus.
And whether he drew fresh hopes from this, or turned his
attention more particularly as we approached Blois to pres-
ent matters, certainly he grew more cheerful, and began
again to discuss the future, as though assured of his master's
recovery.
'You have never been to the King's Court? ' he said
presently, following up, as I judged, a train of thought in
his own mind. 'At Blois, I mean.'
'No; nor do I feel anxious to visit it,' I answered. 'To
tell you the truth, M. le Baron,' I continued with some
warmth, 'the sooner we are beyond Blois, the better I shall
be pleased. I think we run some risk there, and, besides,
I do not fancy a shambles. I do not think I could see the
king without thinking of the Bartholomew, nor his cham-
ber without thinking of Guise.'
'Tut, tut! ' he said, 'you have killed a man before now.'
'Many,' I answered.
'Do they trouble you? '
'No, but they were killed in fair fight,' I replied. 'That
makes a difference.'
'To you,' he said drily. 'But you are not the King of
France, you see. Should you ever come acros him, he
continued, flicking his horse's ears, a faint smile on his
lips, 'I will give you a hint. Talk to him of the battles
at Jarnac and Moncontour, and praise your Conde's father!
As Conde lost the fight and he won it, the compliment
comes home to him. The more hopelessly a man has lost his
powers, my friend, the more fondly he regards them, and
the more highly he prizes the victories he can no longer gain.'
'Ugh!' I muttered.
M. DE RAMBOUILLET 15?
'Of the two parties at Court,' Rosny continued, calmly
overlooking my ill-humour, 'trust D'Aumont and Biron
and the French clique. They are true to France at any
rate. But whomsoever you see consort with the two Retzs
the King of Spain's jackals as men name them avoid
him for a Spaniard and a traitor. '
'But the Retzs are Italians, ' I objected peevishly.
'The same thing,' he answered curtly. 'They cry, "Vive
le Roi!" but privately they are for the League, or for
Spain, or for whatever may most hurt us ; who are better
Frenchmen than themselves, and whose leader will some
day, if God spare his life, be King of France.'
'Well, the less I have to do with the one or the other
of them, save at the sword's point, the better I shall be
pleased,' I rejoined.
On that he looked at me with a queer smile; as was his
way when he had more in his mind than appeared. And
this, and something special in the tone of his conversation,
as well, perhaps, as my own doubts about my future and
his intentions regarding me, gave me an uneasy feeling;
which lasted through the day, and left me only when more
immediate peril presently rose to threaten us.
It happened in this way. We had reached the outskirts
of Blois, and were just approaching the gate, hoping to pass
through it without attracting attention, when two travellers
rode slowly out of a lane, the mouth of which we were
passing. They eyed us closely as they reined in to let us
go by; and M. de Rosny, who was riding with his horse's
head at my stirrup, whispered me to press on. Before I
could comply, however, the strangers cantered by us, and
turning in the saddle when abreast of us looked us in the
face. A moment later one of them cried loudly, 'It is he! ;
and both pulled their horses across the road, and waited
for us to come up.
Aware that if M. de Rosny were discovered he would be
happy if he escaped with imprisonment, the king being too
jealous of his Catholic ^*eputation to venture to protect a
152 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
Huguenot, however illustrious, I saw that the situation was
desperate; for, though we were five to two, the neighbour-
hood of the city the gate being scarcely a bow-shot off
rendered flight or resistance equally hopeless. I could
think of nothing for it save to put a bold face on the mat-
ter, and, M. de Rosny doing the same, we advanced in the
most innocent way possible.
'Halt, there! ' cried one of the strangers sharply. 'And
let me tell you, sir, you are known.'
'What if lam?' I answered impatiently, still pressing
on. 'Are you highwaymen, that you stop the way? '
The speaker on the other side looked at me keenly, but
in a moment retorted, 'Enough trifling, sir! Who you are
I do not know. But the person riding at your rein is M. de
Kosny. Him I do know, and I warn him to stop.'
I thought the game was lost, but to my surprise my com-
panion answered at once and almost in the same words I
had used. 'Well, sir, and what of that?' he said.
'What of that?' the stranger exclaimed, spurring his
horse so as still to bar the way. 'Why, only this, that you
must be a madman to show yourself on this side of the
Loire.'
'It is long since I have seen the other,' was my compan-
ion's unmoved answer.
'You are M. de Rosny? You do not deny it?' the man
cried in astonishment.
'Certainly I do not deny it,' M. de Eosny answered
bluntly. 'And more, the day has been, sir,' he continued
with sudden fire, 'when few at his Majesty's Court would
have dared to chop words with Solomon de Bethune, much
less to stop him on the highway within a mile of the pal-
ace. But times are changed with me, sir, and it would
seem with others also, if true men rallying to his Majesty
in his need are to be challenged by every passer on the road. '
'What! Are you Solomon de Bethune?' the man cried
incredulously. Incredulously, but his countenance fell,
and his voice was full of chagrin and disappointment.
M. DE RAMBOUILLET 153
'Who else, sir?' M. de Eosny replied haughtily. 'I am,
and, as far as I know, I have as much right on this side of
the Loire as any other man. '
'A thousand pardons.'
'If you are not satisfied '
'Nay, M. de Rosny, I am perfectly satisfied.'
The stranger repeated this with a very crestfallen air,
adding, 'A thousand pardons'; and fell to making other
apologies, doffing his hat with great respect. 'I took you,
if you will pardon me saying so, for your Huguenot brother,
M. Maximilian,' he explained. 'The saying goes that he is
at Rosny.'
'I can answer for that being false,' M. de Rosny answered
peremptorily, 'for I have just come from there, and I will
answer for it he is not within ten leagues of the place.
And now, sir, as we desire to enter before the gates shut,
perhaps you will excuse us.' With which he bowed, and
I bowed, and they bowed, and we separated. They gave
us the road, which M. de Rosny took with a great air, and
we trotted to the gate, and passed through it without mis-
adventure.
The first street we entered was a wide one, and my com-
panion took advantage of this to ride up abreast of me.
'That is the kind of adventure our little prince is fond of,'
he muttered. 'But for my part, M. de Marsac, the sweat
is running down my forehead. I have played the trick
more than once before, for my brother and I are as like as
two peas. And yet it would have gone ill with us if the
fool had been one of his friends.'
'All's well that ends well,' I answered in a low voice,
thinking it an ill time for compliments. As it was, the
remark was unfortunate, for M. de Rosny was still in the
act of reining back when Maignan called out to us to say
we were being followed.
I looked behind, but could see nothing except gloom and
rain and overhanging eaves and a few figures cowering in
doorways. The servant?, however, continued to maintain
154 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
that it was so, and we held, without actually stopping, a
council of war. If detected, we were caught in a trap,
without hope of escape; and for the moment I am sure M.
de Rosny regretted that he had chosen this route by Blois
that he had thrust himself, in his haste and his desire to
take with him the latest news, into a snare so patent. The
castle huge, dark, and grim loomed before us at the end
of the street in which we were, and, chilled as I was my-
self by the sight, I cculd imagine how much more appalling
it must appear to him, the chosen counsellor of his master,
and the steadfast opponent of all which it represented.
Our consultation came to nothing, for no better course
suggested itself than to go as we had intended to the lodg-
ing commonly used by my companion. We did so, looking
behind us often, and saying more than once that Maignan
must be mistaken. As soon as we had dismounted, how-
ever, and gone in, he showed us from the window a man
loitering near; and this confirmation of our alarm sending
as to our expedients again, while Maignan remained watch-
ing in a room without a light, I suggested that I might
pass myself off, though ten years older, for, my companion.
'Alas! ' he said, drumming with his fingers on the table,
'there are too many here who know me to make that possi-
ble. I thank you all the same.'
'Could you escape on foot? Or pass the wall anywhere,
or slip through the gates early? ' I suggested.
'They might tell us at the Bleeding Heart,' he answered.
'But I doubt it. I was a fool, sir, to put my neck into
Mendoza's halter, and that is a fact. But here is Maignan.
What is it, man? ' he continued eagerly.
'The watcher is gone, my lord,' the equerry answered.
'And has left no one? '
'No one that I can see.'
We both went into the next room and looked from the
windows. The man was certainly not where we had seen
him before. But the rain was falling heavily, the eaves
were dripping, the street was a dark cavern with only here
M. DE RAMBOUILLET 155
and there a spark of light, and the fellow might be lurking
elsewhere. Maignan, being questioned, however, believed
he had gone off of set purpose.
'Which may be read half a dozen ways,'- 1 remarked.
'At any rate, we are fasting,' M. de Rosny answered.
'Give me a full man in a fight. Let us sit down and eat.
It is no good jumping in the dark, or meeting troubles half
way.'
We were not through our meal, however, Simon Fleix
waiting on us with a pale face, when Maignan came in again
from the dark room. 'My lord,' he said quietly, 'three
men have appeared. Two of them remain twenty paces
away. The third has come to the door.'
As he spoke we heard a cautious summons below. Mai-
gnan was for going down, but his master bade him stand.
'Let the woman of the house go,' he said.
I remarked and long remembered M. de Kosny's sangfroid
on this occasion. His pistols he had already laid on a
chair beside him, throwing his cloak over them; and now,
while we waited, listening in breathless silence, I saw him
hand a large slice of bread-and-meat to his equerry, who,
standing behind his chair, began eating it with the same
coolness. Simon Fleix, on the other hand, stood gazing at
the door, trembling in every limb, and with so much of
excitement and surprise in his attitude that I took the pre-
caution of bidding him, in a low voice, do nothing without
orders. At the same moment it occurred to me to extin-
guish two of the four candles which had been lighted; and
I did so, M. de Rosny nodding assent, just as the muttered
conversation which was being carried on below ceased, and
a man's tread sounded on the stairs.
It was followed immediately by a knock on the outside of
our door. Obeying my companion's look, I cried, 'Enter! '
A slender man of middle height, booted and wrapped up,
with his face almost entirely hidden by a fold of his cloak,
came in quickly, and, closing the door behind him, advanced
towards the table. 'Which is M. de Rosny? ' he said.
156 A GENTLEMAN' OF FRANCE
Eosny had carefully turned his face from the light, but
at the sound of the other's voice he sprang up with a cry of
relief. He was about to speak, when the new-comer, rais-
ing his hand peremptorily, 'continued, 'No names, I beg.
Yours, I suppose, is known here. Mine is not, nor do I
desire it should be. I want speech of you, that is all.'
'I am greatly honoured/ M. de Rosny replied, gazing at
him eagerly. 'Yet, who told you I was here? '
'I saw you pass under a lamp in the street,' the stranger
answered. 'I knew your horse first, and you afterwards,
and bade a groom follow you. Believe me,' he added, with
a gesture of the hand, 'you have nothing to fear from me.'
'I accept the assurance in the spirit in which it is
offered,' my companion answered with a graceful bow, 'and
think myself fortunate in being recognised ' he paused
a moment and then continued 'by a Frenchman and a man
of honour. '
The stranger shrugged his shoulders. 'Your pardon,
then,' he said, 'if I seem abrupt. My time is short. I
want to do the best with it I can. Will you favour me? '
I was for withdrawing, but M. de Rosny ordered Mai-
gnan to place lights in the next room, and, apologising to
me very graciously, retired thither with the stranger; leav-
ing me relieved indeed by these peaceful appearances, but
full of wonder and conjectures who this might be, and what
the visit portended. At one moment I was inclined to
identify the stranger with M. de Rosny 's brother; at an-
other with the English ambassador ; and then, again, a wild
idea that he might be M. de Bruhl occurred to me. The
two remained together about a quarter of an hour and then
came out, the stranger leading the way, and saluting me
politely as he passed through the room. At the door he
turned to say, 'At nine o'clock, then?'
'At nine o'clock,' M. de Rosny replied, holding the door
open. 'You will excuse me if I do not descend, Marquis?'
'Yes, go back, my friend,' the stranger answered. And,
lighted by Maignan, whose face on such occasions could
M. DE RAMBOUILLEJ 157
assume the most stolid air in the world, he disappeared
down the stairs, and I heard him go out.
M. de Rosny turned to me, his eyes sparkling with joy,
his face and mien full of animation. 'The King of
Navarre is better,' he said. 'He is said to be out of
danger. What do you think of that, my friend? '
'That is the best news I have heard for many a day,' I
answered. And I hastened to add, that France and the
Religion had reason to thank God for His mercy.
'Amen to that,' my patron replied reverently. 'But that
is not all that is not all.' And he began to walk up and
down the room humming the 118th Psalm a little above his
breath
La voici 1'heureuse join-ne'e
Que Dieu a faite a pleiu dtisir ;
Par nous soit joie dfimenee,
Et preuons en elle plaisir.
He continued, indeed, to walk up and down the floor so
long, and with so joyful a countenance and demeanour,
that I ventured at last to remind him of my presence,
which he had clearly forgotten. 'Ha! to be sure,' he said,
stopping short and looking at me with the utmost good-
humour. 'What time is it? Seven. Then until nine
o'clock, my friend, I crave your indulgence. In fine, until
that time I must keep counsel. Come, I am hungry still.
Let us sit down, and this time I hope we may not be inter-
rupted. Simon, set us on a fresh bottle. Ha! ha! Vivent
le Roi et le Roi de Navarre ! ' And again he fell to hum
ming the same psalm
O Dier 6ternel, je te prie,
Je te prie, ton roi maintiens:
O Dieu, je te prie et reprie,
Sauve ton roi et 1'entretiens !
doing so with a light in his eyes and a joyous emphasis,
which impressed me the more in a man ordinarily so calm
and self-contained. I saw that something had occurred to
158 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
gratify him beyond measure, and, believing his statement
that this was not the good news from La Ganache only, I
waited with the utmost interest and anxiety for the hour of
nine, which had no sooner struck than oar former visitor
appeared with the same air of mystery and disguise which
had attended him before.
M. de Rosny, who had risen on hearing his step and had
taken up his cloak, paused with it half on and half off, to
cry anxiously, 'All is well, is it not?'
'Perfectly,' the stranger replied, with a nod.
'And my friend?'
'Yes, on condition that you answer for his discretion and
fidelity.' And the stranger glanced involuntarily at me,
who stood uncertain, whether to hold my ground or retire.
'Good,' M. de Rosny cried. Then he turned to me with
a mingled air of dignity and kindness, and continued : ' This
is the gentleman. M. de Marsac, I am honoured with per-
mission to present you to the Marquis de Rambouillet,
whose interest and protection I beg you to deserve, for he
is a true Frenchman and a patriot whom I respect.'
M. de Rambouillet saluted me politely. ' Of a Brittany
family, I think? > he said.
I assented; and he replied with something compliment-
ary. But afterwards he continued to look at me in silence
with a keenness and curiosity I did not understand. At
last, when M. de Rosny's impatience had reached a high
pitch, the marquis seemed impelled to add something.
'You quite understand, M. de Rosny?' he said. 'Without
saying anything disparaging of M. de Marsac, who is, no
doubt, a man of honour ' and he bowed to me very low
'this is a delicate matter, and you will introduce no one
into it, I am sure, whom you cannot trust as yourself.'
'Precisely,' M. de Rosny replied, speaking drily, yet with
a grand air which fully matched his companion's. 'I am
prepared to trust this gentleman not only with my life but
with my honour.'
'Nothing more remains to be said then,' the marquis re 4
M. DE RAMBOUILLET 159
joined, bowing to me again. 'I am glad to have been the
occasion of a declaration so nattering to you, sir. '
I returned his salute in silence, and obeying M. de
Rosny's muttered direction put on my cloak and sword.
M. de Rosny took up his pistols.
'You will have no need of those,' the marquis said with
a high glance.
'Where we are going, no,' my companion answered,
calmly continuing to dispose them about him. 'But the
streets are dark and not too safe.'
M. de Rambouillet laughed. 'That is the worst of yon
Huguenots,' he said. 'You never know when to lay sus-
picion aside.'
A hundred retorts sprang to my lips. I thought of the
Bartholomew, of the French fury of Antwerp, of half a
dozen things which make my blood boil to this day. But
M. de Rosny's answer was the finest of all. 'That is true,
I am afraid,' he said quietly. 'On the other hand, you
Catholics take the late M. de Guise for instance have
the habit of erring on the other side, I think, and some-
times trust too far.'
The marquis, without making any answer to this home-
thrust, led the way out, and we followed, being joined at
the door of the house by a couple of armed lackeys, who
fell in behind us. We went on foot. The night was dark,
and the prospect out of doors was not cheering. The
streets were wet and dirty, and notwithstanding all our care
we fell continually into pitfalls or over unseen obstacles.
Crossing the parvis of the cathedral, which I remembered,
we plunged in silence into an obscure street near the river,
and so narrow that the decrepit houses shut out almost all
view of the sky. The gloom of our surroundings, no less
than my ignorance of the errand on which we were bound,
filled me with anxiety and foreboding. My companions
keeping strict silence, however, and taking every precau-
tion to avoid being recognised, I had no choice but to do
likewise.
160 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
I could think, and no more. I felt myself borne along
by an irresistible current, whither and for what purpose I
could not tell ; an experience to an extent strange at my age
the influence of the night and the weather. Twice we
stood aside to let a party of roisterers go by, and the exces-
sive care M. de Eambouillet evinced on these occasions to
avoid recognition did not tend to reassure me or make me
think more lightly of the unknown business on which I was
bound.
Reaching at last an open space, our leader bade us in a
low voice be careful and follow him closely. We did so,
and crossed in this way and in single file a narrow plank or
wooden bridge; but whether water ran below or a dry
ditch only, I could not determine. My mind was taken up
at the moment with the discovery which I had just made,
that the dark building, looming huge and black before us
with a single light twinkling here and there at great
heights, was the Castle of Blois.
CHAPTEE XV.
VILAIN HERODES.
ALL the distaste and misliking I had expressed earlier
in the day for the Court of Blois recurred with fresh force
in the darkness and gloom ; and though, booted and travel-
stained as we were, I did not conceive it likely that we
should be obtruded on the circle about the king, I felt none
the less an oppressive desire to be through with our adven-
ture, and away from the ill-omened precincts in which I
found myself. The darkness prevented me seeing the faces
of my companions ; but on M. de Eosny, who was not quite
free himself, I think, from the influences of the time and
place, twitching my sleeve to enforce vigilance, I noted
that the lackeys had ceased to follow us, and that we three
Vi 'LAIN" HERODES 161
were beginning to ascend a rough staircase cut in the rock.
I gathered, though the darkness limited my view behind as
well as in front to a few twinkling lights, that we were
mounting the scarp from the moat to the side wall of the
castle; and I was not surprised when the marquis muttered
to us to stop, and knocked softly on the wood of a door.
M. de Rosny might have spared the touch he had laid on
my sleeve, for by this time I was fully and painfully sen-
sible of the critical position in which we stood, and was
very little likely to commit an indiscretion. I trusted he
had not done so already ! No doubt it flashed across me
while we waited he had taken care to safeguard himself.
But how often, I reflected, had all safeguards been set aside
and all precautions eluded by those to whom he was com-
mitting himself! Guise had thought himself secure in this
very building, which we were about to enter. Coligny had
received the most absolute of safe-conducts from those to
whom we were apparently bound. The end in either case
had been the same the confidence of the one proving of no
more avail than the wisdom of the other. What if the
King of France thought to make his peace with his Catho-
lic subjects offended by the murder of Guise by a second
murder of one as obnoxious to them as he was precious to
their arch-enemy in the South? Eosny was sagacious in-
deed ; but then I reflected with sudden misgiving that he
was young, ambitious, and bold.
The opening of the door interrupted without putting an
end to this train of apprehension. A faint light shone out ;
so feebly as to illumine little more than the stairs at our
feet. The marquis entered at once, M. de Eosny followed,
I brought up the rear; and the door was closed by a man
who stood behind it. We found ourselves crowded together
at the foot of a very narrow staircase, which the doorkeeper
a stolid pikeman in a grey uniform, with a small lanthorn
swinging from the crosspiece of his halberd signed to us
to ascend. I said a word to him, but he only stared in
answer, and M. de Eambouillet, looking back and seeing
ii
162 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE
what I was about, called to me that it was useless, as the
man was a Swiss and spoke no French.
' This did not tend to reassure me ; any more than did the
chill roughness of the wall which my hand touched as I
groped upwards, or the smell of bats which invaded my
nostrils and suggested that the staircase was little used and
belonged to a part of the castle fitted for dark and secret
doings.
We stumbled in the blackness up the steps, passing one
door and then a second before M. de Rambouillet whispered
to us to stand, and knocked gently at a third.
The secrecy, the darkness, and above all the strange ar-
rangements made to receive us, filled me with the wildest
conjectures. But when the door opened and we passed one
by one into a bare, unfurnished, draughty gallery, immedi-
ately, as I judged, under the tiles, the reality agreed with
no one of my anticipations. The place was a mere garret,
without a hearth, without a single stool. Three windows,
of which one was roughly glazed, while the others were
filled with oiled paper, were set in one wall; the others
displaying the stones and mortar without disguise or orna-
ment. Beside the door through which we had entered
stood a silent figure in the grey uniform I had seen below,
his lanthorn on the floor at his feet. A second door at the
farther end of the gallery, which was full twenty paces
long, was guarded in like manner. A couple of lanthorns
stood in the middle of the floor, and that was all.
Inside the door, M. de Rambouillet with his finger on hit
lip stopped us, and we stood a little group of three a pace
in front of the sentry, and with the empty room before us.
I looked at M. de Rosny, but he was looking at Rambouil-
let. The marquis had his back towards me, the sentry was
gazing into vacancy; so that baffled in my attempt to learn
anything from the looks of the other actors in the scene, I
fell back on my ears. The rain dripped outside and the
moaning wind rattled the casements; but mingled with
these melancholy sounds which gained force, as such
VILAfN HERODES 163
things always do, from the circumstances in which we were
placed and our own silence I fancied I caught the distant
hum of voices and music and laughter. And that, I know
not why, brought M. de Guise again to my mind.
The story of his death, as I had heard it from that
accursed monk in the inn on the Claine, rose up in all its
freshness, with all its details. I started when M. de Ram-
bouillet coughed. I shivered when Rosny shifted- his feet.
The silence grew oppressive. Only the stolid men in grey
seemed unmoved, unexpectant; so that I remember won-
dering whether it was their nightly duty to keep guard over
an empty garret, the floor strewn with scraps of mortar and
ends of tiles.
The interruption, when it came at last, came suddenly.
The sentry at the farther end of the gallery started and fell
back a pace. Instantly the door beside him opened and a
man came in, and closing it quickly behind him, advanced
up the room with an air of dignity, which even his strange
appearance and attire could not wholly destroy.
He was of good stature and bearing, about forty years
old as I judged, his wear a dress of violet velvet with black
points cut in the extreme of the fashion. He carried a sword
but no ruff, and had a cup and ball of ivory a strange toy
much in vogue among the idle suspended from his wrist
by a ribbon. He was lean and somewhat narrow, but so
far I found little fault with him. It was only when my
eye reached his face, and saw it rouged like a woman's and
surmounted by a little turban, that a feeling of scarcely
understood disgust seized me, and I said to myself, 'This
is the stuff of which kings' minions are made ! '
To my surprise, however, M. de Rambouillet went to
meet him with the utmost respect, sweeping the dirty floor
with his bonnet, and bowing to the very ground. The new-
comer acknowledged his salute with negligent kindness.
Remarking pleasantly 'You have brought a friend, I think? '
he looked towards us with a smile.
'Yes, sire, he is here,' the marquis answered, stepping
164 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE
aside a little. And with the word I understood that this
was no minion, but the king himself: Henry, the Third of
the name, and the last of the great House of Valois, which
had ruled France by the grace of God for two centuries and
a half! I stared at him, and stared at him, scarcely believ-
ing what I saw. For the first time in my life I was in the
presence of the king!
Meanwhile M. de Eosny, to whom he was, of course, no
marvel, had gone forward and knelt on one knee. The
king raised him graciously, and with an action which,
viewed apart from his woman's face and silly turban,
seemed royal and fitting. 'This is good of you, Eosny,'
he said. 'But it is only what I expected of ye;i.'
'Sire,' my companion answered, 'your Majesty has no
more devoted servant than myself, unless it be the king my
master. '
'By my faith,' Henry answered with energy 'and if I
am not a good churchman, whatever those rascally Paris-
ians say, I am nothing by my faith, I think I believe-
you!' '
' If your Majesty would believe me in that and in some
other things also,' M. de Eosny answered, 'it would be
very well for France.' Though he spoke courteously, he
threw so much weight and independence into his words
that I thought of the old proverb, 'A good master, a bold
servant. '
'Well, that is what we are here to see,' the king replied.
'But one tells me one thing,' he went on fretfully, 'and
one another, and which am I to believe?'
'I know nothing of others, sire,' Eosny answered with
the same spirit. 'But my master has every claim to be
believed. His interest in the royalty of France is second
only to your Majesty's. He is also a king and a kinsman,
and it irks him to see rebels beard you, as has happened
of late.'
'Ay, but the chief of them?' Henry exclaimed, giving
way to sudden excitement and stamping furiously on the
VILAIN H ERODES 165
floor. 'He will trouble me no more. Has my brother
heard of that? Tell me, sir, has that news reached him? '
'He has heard it, sire.'
'And he approved? He approved, of course?'
'Beyond doubt the man was a traitor,' M. de Rosny
answered delicately. 'His life was forfeit, sire. Who
can question it? '
'And he has paid the forfeit,' the king rejoined, looking
down at the floor and immediately falling into a moodiness
as sudden as his excitement. His lips moved. He mut-
tered something inaudible, and began to play absently with
his cup and ball, his mind occupied apparently with a
gloomy retrospect. 'M. de Guise, M. de Guise,' he mur-
mured at last, with a sneer and an accent of hate which
told of old humiliations long remembered. 'Well, damn
him, he is dead now. He is dead. But being dead he yet
troubles us. Is not that the verse, father? Ha!' with a
start, 'I was forgetting. But that is the worst wrong he
has done me, ' he continued, looking up and growing excited
again. 'He has cut me off from Mother Church. There
is hardly a priest comes near me now, and presently they
will excommunicate me. And, as I hope for salvation, the
Church has no more faithful son than me.'
I believe he was on the point, forgetting M. de Rosny 's
presence there and his errand, of giving way to unmanly
tears, when M. de Rambouillet, as if by accident, let the
heel of his scabbard fall heavily on the floor. The king
started, and passing his hand once or twice across his brow,
seemed to recover himself. 'Well,' he said, 'no doubt we
shall find a way out of our difficulties.'
'If your Majesty,' Eosny answered respectfully, 'would
accept the aid my master proffers, I venture to think that
they would vanish the quicker.'
' You think so,' Henry rejoined. ' Well, give me your
shoulder. Let us walk a little.' And, signing to E.am-
bouillet to leave him, he began to walk up and down with
M. de Rosny, talking familiarly with him in an undertone.
1 66 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE
Only such scraps of the conversation as fell from them when
they turned at my end of the gallery now reached me.
Patching these together, however, I managed to understand
somewhat. At one turn I heard the king say, 'But then
Turenne offers ' At the next, 'Trust him? Well, I
do not know why I should not. He promises ' Then
'A Eepublic, Rosny? That his plan? Pooh! he dare not.
He could not. France is a kingdom by the ordinance of
God in my family.'
I gathered from these and other chance words, which I
have since forgotten, that M. de Rosny was pressing the
king to accept the help of the King of Navarre, and warn-
ing him against the insidious offers of the Vicomte de Tu-
renne. The mention of a Eepublic, however, seemed to
excite his Majesty's wrath rather against Kosny for pre-
suming to refer to such a thing than against Turenne, to
whom he refused to credit it. He paused near my end of
the promenade.
'Prove it!' he said angrily. 'But can you prove it?
Can you prove it? Mind you, I will take no hearsay evi-
dence, sir. Now, there is Turenne's agent here you did
not know, I dare say, that he had an agent here? '
'You refer, sire, to M. de Bruhl,' Rosny answered, with-
out hesitation. 'I know him, sire.'
'I think you are the devil,' Henry answered, looking
curiously at him. 'You seem to know most things. But
mind you, my friend, he speaks me fairly, and I will not
take this on hearsay even from your master. Though, ' he
added after pausing a moment, 'I love him.'
'And he, your Majesty. He desires only to prove it.'
'Yes, I know, I know,' the king answered fretfully. 'I
believe he does. I believe he does wish me well. But
there will be a devil of an outcry among my people. And
Turenne gives fair words too. And I do not know,' he
continued, fidgeting with his cup and ball, 'that it might
not suit me better to agree with him, you see. '
I saw M. de Kosny draw himself up. 'Dare I speak
VILAIN HERODES 167
openly to you, sire,' he said, with less respect and more
energy than he had hitherto used. 'As I should to my
master? '
'Ay, say what you like,' Henry answered. But he spoke
sullenly, and it seemed to me that he looked less pleasantly
at his companion.
'Then I will venture to utter what is in your Majesty's
mind,' my patron answered steadfastly. 'You fear, sire,
lest, having accepted my master's offer and conquered your
enemies, you should not be easily rid of him.'
Henry looked relieved! 'Do you call that diplomacy?'
he said with a smile. 'However, what if it be so? What
do you say to it? Methinks I have heard an idle tale about
a horse which would hunt a stag; and for the purpose set
a man upon its back.'
'This I say, sire, first,' Rosny answered very earnestly.
'That the King of Navarre is popular only with one-third
of the kingdom, and is only powerful when united with
you. Secondly, sire, it is his interest to support the royal
power, to which he is heir. And, thirdly, it must be more
to your Majesty's honour to accept help from a near kins-
man than from an ordinary subject, and one who, I still
maintain, sire, has no good designs in his mind.'
'The proof? ' Henry said sharply. 'Give me that! '
'I can give it in a week from this day.'
'It must be no idle tale, mind you,' the king continued
suspiciously.
'You shall have Turenne's designs, sire, from one who
had them from his own mouth. '
The king looked startled, but after a pause turned and
resumed his walk. 'Well,' he said, 'if you do that, I on
my part '
The rest I lost, for the two passing to the farther end of
the gallery, came to a standstill there, balking my curiosity
and Rambouillet's also. The marquis, indeed, began to
betray his impatience, and the great clock immediately
over our heads presently striking the half -hour after ten
1 68 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
he started and made as if he would have approached the
king. He checked the impulse, however, but still contin-
ued to fidget uneasily, losing his reserve by-and-by so far as
to whisper to me that his Majesty would be missed.
I had been, up to this point, a silent and inactive specta-
tor of a scene which appealed to my keenest interests and
aroused my most ardent curiosity. Surprise following
surprise, I had begun to doubt my own identity; so little
had I expected to find myself first in the presence of the
Most Christian King and that under circumstances as
strange and bizarre as could well be imagined and then an
authorised witness at a negotiation upon which the future
of all the great land of France stretching for so many hun-
dred leagues on every side of us, depended. I say I could
scarcely believe in my own identity; or that I was the same
Gaston de Marsac who had slunk, shabby and out-at-elbows,
about St. Jean d'Angely. I tasted the first sweetness of
secret power, which men say is the sweetest of all and the
last relinquished; and, the hum of distant voices and
laughter still reaching me at intervals, I began to under-
stand why we had been admitted with so much precaution,
and to comprehend the gratification of M. de Kosny when
the promise of this interview first presented to him the
hope of effecting so much for his master and for France.
Now I was to be drawn into the whirlpool itself. I was
still travelling back over the different stages of the adven-
ture which had brought me to this point, when I was rudely
awakened by M. de K-osny calling my name in a raised
voice. Seeing, somewhat late, that he was beckoning to
me to approach, I went forward in a confused and hasty
fashion ; kneeling before the king as I had seen him kneel,
and then rising to give ear to his Majesty's commands.
Albeit, having expected nothing less than to be called
upon, I was not in the clearest mood to receive them. Nor
was my bearing such as I could have wished it to be.
'M. de Eosny tells me that you desire a commission at
Court, sir, ' the king said quickly.
VILAIN HERODES 169
'I, sire?' I stammered, scarcely able to believe my ears.
I was so completely taken aback that I could say no more,
and I stopped there with my mouth open.
'There are few things I can deny M. de Bosny,' Henry
continued, speaking very rapidly, 'and I am told that you
are a gentleman of birth and ability. Out of kindness to
him, therefore, I grant you a commission to raise twenty
men for my service. Rambouillet, ' he continued, raising his
voice slightly, 'you will introduce this gentleman to me pub-
licly to-morrow, that I may carry into effect my intention
on his behalf. You may go now, sir. No thanks. And
M. de Rosny,' he added, turning to my companion and
speaking with energy, 'have a care for my sake that you
are not recognised as you go. Kambouillet must contrive
something to enable you to leave without peril. I should
be desolated if anything happened to you, my friend, for I
could not protect you. I give you my word if Mendoza or
Retz found you in Blois I could not save you from them
unless you recanted. '
'I will not trouble either your Majesty or my conscience,'
M. de Rosiiy replied, bowing low, 'if my wits can help me.'
'Well, the saints keep you,' the king answered piously,
going towards the door by which he had entered; 'for your
master and I have both need of you. Rambouillet, take
care of him as you love me. And come early in the morn-
ing to my closet and tell me how it has fared with him. '
We all stood bowing while he withdrew, and only turned
to retire when the door closed behind him. Burning with
indignation and chagrin as I was at finding myself disposed
of in the way I have described, and pitchforked, whether I
would or no, into a service I neither fancied nor desired, I
still managed for the present to restrain myself; and, per-
mitting my companions to precede me, followed in silence,
listening sullenly to their jubilations. The marquis seemed
scarcely less pleased than M. de Rosny; and as the latter
evinced a strong desire to lessen any jealousy the former
might feel, and a generous inclination to attribute to him a
i;o A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
full share of the credit gained, I remained the only person
dissatisfied with the evening's events. We retired from
the chateau with the same precautions which had marked
our entrance, and parting with M. de Eambouillet at the
door of our lodging not without many protestations of
esteem on his part and of gratitude on that of M. de Kosny
mounted to the first-floor in single file and in silence,
which I was determined not to be the first to break.
Doubtless M. de Rosny knew my thoughts, for, speedily
dismissing Maignan and Simon, who were in waiting, he
turned to me without preface. 'Come, my friend,' he said,
laying his hand on my shoulder and looking me in the face
in a way which all but disarmed me at once, 'do not let us
misunderstand one another. You think you have cause to be
angry with me. I cannot suffer that, for the King of Navarre
had never greater need of your services than now.'
'You have played me an unworthy trick, sir,' I answered,
thinking he would cozen me with fair speeches.
'Tut, tut! ' he replied. 'You do not understand.'
'I understand well enough,' I answered, with bitterness,
'that, having done the King of Navarre's work, he would
now be rid of me.'
'Have I not told you,' M. de Rosny replied, betraying
for the first time some irritation, 'that he has greater need
of your services than ever? Come, man, be reasonable, or,
better still, listen to me.' And turning from me, he began
to walk up and down the room, his hands behind him.
'The King of France I want to make it as clear to you as
possible ' he said, 'cannot make head against the League
without help, and, willy-nilly, must look for it to the
Huguenots whom he has so long persecuted. The King of
Navarre, their acknowledged leader, has offered that help;
and so, to spite my master, and prevent a combination so
happy for France, has M. de Turenne, who would fain raise
the faction he commands to eminence, and knows well how
to make his profit out of the dissensions of his country.
Are you clear so far, sirt '
VILAIN HERODES 171
I assented. I was becoming absorbed in spite of myself.
'Very well,' lie resumed. 'This evening never did any-
thing fall out more happily than Rambouillet's meeting
with me he is a good man! I have brought the king to
this : that if proof of the selfish nature of Turenne's designs
be laid before him he will hesitate no longer. That proof
exists. A fortnight ago it was here; but it is not here
now.'
'That is unlucky!' I exclaimed. I was so much inter-
ested in his story, as well as flattered by the confidence he
was placing in me, that my ill-humour vanished. I went
and stood with my shoulder against the mantelpiece, and
ne, passing to and fro between me and the light, continued
his tale.
'A word about this proof,' he said. 'It came into the
King of Navarre's hands before its full value was known
to us, for that only accrued to it on M. de Guise's death.
A month ago it this piece of evidence I mean was at
Chize. A fortnight or so ago it was here in Blois. It is
now, M. de Marsac,' he continued, facing me suddenly as
he came opposite me, 'in my house at Eosny.'
I started. 'You mean Mademoiselle de la Vire? ' I cried.
'I mean Mademoiselle de la Vire!' he answered, 'who,
some month or two ago, overheard M. de Turenne's plans,
and contrived to communicate with the King of Navarre.
Before the latter could arrange a private interview, how-
ever, M. de Turenne got wind of her dangerous knowledge,
and swept her off to Chize. The rest you know, M. de
Marsac, if any man knows it.'
'But what will you do ? ' I asked. 'She is at Rosny.'
'Maignan, whom 1 trust implicitly, as far as his lights
go, will start to fetch her to-morrow. At the same hour I
start southwards. You, M. de Marsac, will remain here as
my agent, to watch over my interests, to receive Mademoi-
selle on her arrival, to secure for her a secret interview with
the king, to guard her while she remains here. Do you
anderstand? '
172 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
Did I understand? I could not find words in which to
thank him. My remorse and gratitude, my sense of the
wrong I had done him, and of the honour he was doing me,
were such that I stood mute before him as I had stood
before the king. 'You accept, then?' he said, smiling.
'You do not deem the adventure beneath you, my friend? '
'I deserve your confidence so little, sir,' I answered,
stricken to the ground, 'that I beg you to speak, while I
listen. By attending exactly to your instructions I may
prove worthy of th.3 trust reposed in me. And only so.'
He embraced me again and again, with a kindness which
moved me almost to tears. 'You are a man after my own
heart,' he said, 'and if God wills I will make your fortune.
Now listen, my friend. To-inorrow at Court, as a stranger
and a man introduced by Eambouillet, you will be the
cynosure of all eyes. Bear yourself bravely. Pay court
to the women, but attach yourself to no one in particular.
Keep aloof from Retz and the Spanish faction, but beware
especially of Bruhl. He alone will have your secret, and
may suspect your design. Mademoiselle should be here
in a week; while she is with you, and until she has seen
the king, trust no one, suspect everyone, fear all things.
Consider the battle won only when the king says, "1 am
satisfied." '
Much more he told me, which served its purpose and has
been forgotten. Finally he honoured me by bidding me
share his pallet with him, that we might talk without re-
straint, and that if anything occurred to him in the night
he might communicate it to me.
'But will not Bruhl denounce me as a Huguenot?' I
asked him.
'He will not dare to do so,' M. de Kosny answered, 'both
as a Huguenot himself, and as his master's representa-
tive; and, further, because it would displease the king.
No, but whatever secret harm one man can do another, that
you have to fear. Maignan, when he returns with made-
moiselle, will leave two men. with you; until they come I
IN THE KING^S CHAMBER 173
should borrow a couple of stout fellows from Rambouillet,
Do not go out alone after dark, and beware of doorways,
especially your own.'
A little later, when I thought him asleep, I heard him
chuckle; and rising on my elbow I asked him what it was.
'Oh, it is your affair,' he answered, still laughing silently,
so that I felt the mattress shake under him. 'I don't envy
you one part of your task, my friend. '
'What is that?' I said suspiciously.
'Mademoiselle,' he answered, stilling with difficulty a
burst of laughter. And after that he would not say an-
other word, bad, good, or indifferent, though I felt the
bed shake more than once, and knew that he was digesting
his pleasantry.
CHAPTER XVI.
IN THE KING'S CHAMBER.
M. DE ROSNY had risen from my side and started on hi&
journey when I opened my eyes in the morning, and awoke
to the memory of the task which had been so strangely
imposed upon me ; and which might, according as the events
of the next fortnight shaped themselves, raise me to high
position or put an end to my career. He had not forgotten
to leave a souvenir behind him, for I found beside my
pillow a handsome silver-mounted pistol, bearing the letter
' R.' and a coronet ; nor had I more than discovered this
instance of his kindness before Simon Fleix came in to
tell me that M. de Rosny had left two hundred crowns in
his hands for me.
1 Any message with it ? ' I asked the lad.
' Only that he had taken a keepsake in exchange,' Simon
answered, opening the window as he spoke.
In some wonder I began to search, but I could not dis-
cover that anything was missing until I came to put on my
174 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
doublet, when I found that the knot of ribbon which
mademoiselle had flung to me at my departure from Rosny
was gone from the inside of the breast, where I had pinned
it for safety with a long thorn. The discovery that M. de
Rosny had taken this was displeasing to me on more than
one account. In the first place, whether mademoiselle had
merely wished to plague me (as was most probable) or not,
I was loth to lose it, my day for ladies' favours being past
and gone ; in the second, I misdoubted the motive which
had led him to purloin it, and tormented myself with think-
ing of the different constructions he might put upon it, and
the disparaging view of my trustworthiness which it might
lead him to take. I blamed myself much for my carelessness
in leaving it where a chance eye might rest upon it ; and
more when, questioning Simon further, I learned that M. de
Rosny had added, while mounting at the door, ' Tell your
master, safe bind, safe find ; and a careless lover makes a
loose mistress.'
I felt my cheek burn in a manner unbecoming my years
while Simon with some touch of malice repeated this ; and
I made a vow on the spot, which I kept until I was tempted
to break it, to have no more to do with such trifles. Mean-
while, I had to make the best of it ; and brisking up, and bid-
ding Simon, who seemed depressed by the baron's departure,
brisk up also, I set about my preparations for making such
a figure at Court as became me : procuring a black velvet
suit, and a cap and feather to match ; item, a jewelled clasp
to secure the feather ; with a yard or two of lace and two
changes of fine linen.
Simon had grown sleek at Kosny, and losing something
of the wildness which had marked him, presented in the
dress M. de Rosny had given him a very creditable appear-
ance ; being also, I fancy, the only equerry in Blois who
could write. A groom I engaged on the recommendation of
M. de Rambouillet's master of the horse ; and 1 gave out
also that I required a couple of valets. It needed only an
hour under the barber's hands and a set of new trappings
IN THE KING^S CHAMBER 175
for the Cid to enable me to make a fair show, such as
might be taken to indicate a man of ten or twelve thousand
livres a year.
In this way I expended a hundred and fifteen crowns.
Reflecting that this was a large sum, and that I must
keep some money for play, I was glad to learn that in the
crowded state of the city even men with high rank were
putting up with poor lodging; I determined, therefore, to
combine economy with a scheme which I had in my head
by taking the rooms in which my mother died, with one
room below them. This I did, hiring such furniture as I
needed, which was not a great deal. To Simon Fleix,
whose assistance in these matters was invaluable, I passed
on much of M. de Rosny's advice, bidding him ruffle it
with the best in his station, and inciting him to labour for
my advancement by promising to make his fortune when-
ever my own should be assured. I hoped, indeed, to derive
no little advantage from the quickness oi wit which had
attracted M. de Rosny's attention ; although I did not fail
to take into account at the same time that the lad was
wayward and fitful, prone at one time to depression, and
at another to giddiness, and equally uncertain in either
mood.
M. de Rambouillet being unable to attend the levte, had
appointed me to wait upon him at six in the evening; at
which hour I presented myself at his lodgings, attended by
Simon Fleix. I found him in the midst of half a dozen
gentlemen whose habit it was to attend him upon all public
occasions ; and these gallants, greeting me with the same
curious and suspicious glances which I have seen hounds
bestow on a strange dog introduced into their kennel, I was
speedily made to feel that it is one thing to have business
at Court, and another to be well received there.
M. de Rambouillet, somewhat to my surprise, did nothing
to remove this impression. On all ordinary occasions a
man oi' stiff and haughty bearing, and thoroughly disliking,
though he could not prevent, the intrusion of a third party
I ;6 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
into a transaction which promised an infinity of credit, he
received me so coldly and with so much reserve as for the
moment to dash my spirits and throw me back on myself.
During the journey to the castle, however, which we per-
formed on foot, attended by half a dozen armed servants
bearing torches, I had time to recall M. de Rosny's advice,
and to bethink me of the intimacy which that great man
had permitted me ; with so much effect in the way of heart-
ening me, that as we crossed the courtyard of the castle I
advanced myself, not without some murmuring on the part
of others, to Rambouillet's elbow, considering that as I was
attached to him by the king's command, this was my proper
place. I had no desire to quarrel, however, and persisted
for some time in disregarding the nudges and muttered
words which were exchanged round me, and even the efforts
which were made as we mounted the stairs to oust me from
my position. But a young gentleman, who showed himself
very forward in these attempts, presently stumbling against
me, I found it necessary to look at him.
' Sir,' he said, in a small and lisping voice, ' you trod on
my toe.'
Though I had not done so, I begged his parddn very
politely. But as his only acknowledgment of this courtesy
consisted in an attempt to get his knee in front of mine
we were mounting very slowly, the stairs being cumbered
with a multitude of servants, who stood on either hand I
did tread on his toe, with a force and directness which
made him cry out.
1 What is the matter ? ' Eambouillet asked, looking back
hastily.
'Nothing, M. le Marquis,' I answered, pressing on stead-
fastly.
' Sir,' my young friend said again, in the same lisping
voice, ' you trod on my toe.'
' I believe I did, sir,' I answered.
'You have not yet apologised,' he murmured gently in
my ear.
IN THE KING^S CHAMBER 177
, there you are wrong,' I rejoined bluntly, 'for it is
always my habit to apologise first and tread afterwards.'
He smiled as at a pleasant joke ; and I am bound to say
that his bearing was so admirable that if he had been my
son I could have hugged him. 'Good!' he answered. 'No
doubt your sword is as sharp as your wits, sir. I see,' he
continued, glancing naively at my old scabbard he was
himself the very gem of a courtier, a slender youth with a
pink-and- white complexion, a dark line for a moustache,
and a pearl-drop in his ear ' it is longing to be out. Per-
haps you will take a turn in the tennis-court to-morrow ? '
' With pleasure, sir,' I answered, ' if you have a father,
or your elder brother is grown up.'
What answer he would have made to this gibe I do not
know, for at that moment we reached the door of the ante-
chamber ; and this being narrow, and a sentry in the grey
uniform of the Swiss Guard compelling all to enter in
single file, my young friend was forced to fall back, leaving
me free to enter alone, and admire at my leisure a scene at
once brilliant and sombre.
The Court being in mourning for the Queen-mother, black
predominated in the dresses of those present, and set off
very finely the gleaming jewels and gemmed sword-hilts
which were worn by the more important personages. The
room was spacious and lofty, hung with arras, and lit by
candles burning in silver sconces ; it rang as we entered
with the shrill screaming of a parrot, which was being
teased by a group occupying the farther of the two hearths.
Near them play was going on at one table, and primero at
a second. In a corner were three or four ladies, in a circle
about a red-faced, plebeian-looking man, who was playing
at forfeits with one of their number ; while the middle of
the room seemed dominated by a middle-sized man with a
peculiarly inflamed and passionate countenance, who, seated
on a table, was inveighing against someone or something in
the most violent terms, his language being interlarded with
all kinds of strange and forcible oaths. Two or three gen-
178 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE
tlemen, who had the air of being his followers, stood about
him, listening between submission and embarrassment ;
while beside the nearer fireplace, but at some distance from
him, lounged a nobleman, very richly dressed, and wearing
on his breast the Cross of the Holy Ghost ; who seemed to
be the object of his invective, but affecting to ignore it was
engaged in conversation with a companion. A bystander
muttering that Crillon had been drinking, I discovered with
immense surprise that the declaimer on the table was that
famous soldier; and I was still looking at him in wonder
for I had been accustomed all my life to associate courage
with modesty -when, the door of the chamber suddenly
opening, a general movement in that direction took place.
Crillon, disregarding all precedency, sprang from his table
and hurried first to the threshold. The Baron de Biron, on
the other hand for the gentleman by the fire was no other
waited, in apparent ignorance of the slight which was
being put upon him, until M. de Rambouillet came up ;
then he went forward with him. Keeping close to my
patron's elbow, I entered the chamber immediately behind
him.
Crillon had already seized upon the king, and, when we
entered, was stating his grievance in a voice not much
lower than that which he had used outside. M. de Biron,
seeing this, parted from the marquis, and, going aside
with his former companion, sat down on a trunk against
the wall; while Rambouillet, followed by myself and
three or four gentlemen of his train, advanced to the king,
who was standing near the alcove. His Majesty see-
ing him, and thankful, I think, for the excuse, waved
Crillon off. ' Tut, tut ! . You told me all that this morning/
he said good-naturedly. 'And here is Rambouillet, who
has, I hope, something fresh to tell. Let him speak to me.
Sanctus ! Don't look at me as if you would run me through,
man. Go and quarrel with someone of your own size.'
Crillon at this retired grumbling, and Henry, who had
just risen from primero with the Duke of Nevers, nodded
IN THE KIKG^S CHAMBER 179
to Rambouillet. ' Well, my friend, anything fresh ? ' he
cried. He was more at his ease and looked more cheerful
than at our former interview ; yet still care and suspicion
lurked about his peevish mouth, and in the hollows under
his gloomy eyes. 'A new guest, a new face, or a new game
which have you brought ? '
'In a sense, sire, a new face,' the marquis answered,
bowing, and standing somewhat aside that I might have
place.
' Well, I cannot say much for the pretty baggage,' quoth
the king quickly. And amid a general titter he extended
his hand to me. ' I'll be sworn, though,' he continued, as
I rose from my knee, 'that you want something, my
friend ? '
'Nay, sire,' I answered, holding up my head boldly
for Oillon's behaviour had been a further lesson to me
' I have, by your leave, the advantage. For your Majesty
has supplied me with a new jest. I see many new faces
round me, and I have need only of a new game. If your
Majesty would be pleased to grant me '
1 There ! Said I not so ? ' cried the king, raising his
hand with a laugh. 'He does want something. But he
seems not undeserving. What does he pray, Rambouillet ?'
' A small command,' M. de Rambouillet answered, readily
playing his part. 'And your Majesty would oblige me if
you could grant the Sieur de Marsac's petition. I will
answer for it he is a man of experience. 5
' Chut ! A small command ? ' Henry ejaculated, sitting
down suddenly in apparent ill-humour. ' It is what every-
one wants when they do not want big ones. Still, I
suppose,' he continued, taking up a comfit-box, which lay
beside him, and opening it, 'if you do not get what you
want for him you will sulk like the rest, my friend.'
' Your Majesty has never had cause to complain of me,'
quoth the marquis, forgetting his rdle, or too proud to
play it.
' Tut, tut, tut, tut ! Take it, and trouble me no more/
M?
the king rejoined. ' Will pay for twenty men do for him ?
Very well then. There, M. de Marsac,' he continued,
nodding at me and yawning, 'your request is granted. You
will find some other pretty baggages over there. Go to
them. And now, Rambouillet,' he went on, resuming his
spirits as he turned to matters of more importance, ' here is
a new sweetmeat Zamet has sent me. I have made Zizi
sick with it. Will you try it ? It is flavoured with white
mulberries.'
Thus dismissed, I fell back ; and stood for a moment, at
a loss whither to turn, in the absence of either friends or
acquaintances. His Majesty, it is true, had bidden me go
to certain pretty baggages, meaning, apparently, five ladies
who were seated at the farther end of the room, diverting
themselves with as many cavaliers ; but the compactness
of this party, the beauty of the ladies, and the merry peals
of laughter which proceeded from them, telling of a wit
and vivacity beyond the ordinary, sapped the resolution
which had borne me well hitherto. I felt that to attack
such a phalanx, even with a king's good will, was bey on \
the daring of a Crillon, and I looked round to see whether
I could not amuse myself in some more modest fashion.
The material was not lacking. Crillon, still mouthing
out his anger, strode up and down in front of the trunk on
which M. de Biron was seated; but the latter was, or
affected to be, asleep. 'Crillon is for ever going into rages
now,' a courtier beside me whispered.
'Yes,' his fellow answered, with a shrug of the shoulder;
'it is a pity there is no one to tame him. But he has such
a long reach, morbleu ! '
'It is not that so much as the fellow's fury,' the first
speaker rejoined under his breath. ' He fights like a mad
thing; fencing is no use against him.'
The other nodded. For a moment the wild idea of win-
ning renown by taming M. de Crillon occurred to me as I
stood alone in the middle of the floor ; but it had not more
than passed through my brain when I felt my elbow
IN THE KING'S CHAMBER 181
touched, and turned to find the young gentleman whom I
had encountered on the stairs standing by my side.
'Sir,' he lisped, in the same small voice, 'I think you
trod on my toe a while ago ? '
I stared at him, wondering what he meant by this ab-
surd repetition. 'Well, sir,' I answered drily, 'and if I
did?'
'Perhaps,' he said, stroking his chin with his jewelled
fingers, 'pending our meeting to-morrow, you would allow
me to consider it as a kind of introduction ? '
'If it please you,' I answered, bowing stiffly, and wonder-
ing what he would be at.
'Thank you/ he answered. 'It does please me, under
the circumstances ; for there is a lady here who desires a
word with you. I took up her challenge. Will you follow
me?'
He bowed, and turned in his languid fashion. I, turning
too, saw, with secret dismay, that the five ladies, referred to
above, were all now gazing at me, as expecting my ap-
proach; and this with such sportive glances as told only
too certainly of some plot already in progress or some trick
to be presently played me. Yet I could not see that I had
any choice save to obey, and, following my leader with as
much dignity as I could compass, I presently found myself
bowing before the lady who sat nearest, and who seemed to
be the leader of these nymphs.
'Kay, sir,' she said, eyeing me curiously, yet with a
merry face, ' I do not need you ; I do not look so high ! '
Turning in confusion to the next, I was surprised to see
before me the lady whose lodging I had invaded in my
search for Mademoiselle de la Vire she, I mean, who,
having picked up the velvet knot, had dropped it so provi-
dentially where Simon Fleix found it. She looked at me,
blushing and laughing, and the young gentleman, who had
done her errand, presenting me by name, she asked me,
while the others listened, whether I had found my mistress.
Before I could answer, the lady to whom I had first ad-
1 82 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
dressed myself interposed. 'Stop, sir!' she cried. <What
is this a tale, a jest, a game, or a forfeit ? '
v An adventure, madam/ I answered, bowing low.
'Of gallantry, I'll be bound/ she exclaimed. 'Fie,
Madame de Bruhl, and you but six months married ! '
Madame de Bruhl protested, laughing, that she had no
more to do with it than Mercury. 'At the worst/ she said,
'I carried the poulets! But I can assure you, duchess, this
gentleman should be able to tell us a very fine stovy, if he
would.'
The duchess and all the other ladies clapping their
hands at this, and crying out that the story must and
should be told, I found myself in a prodigious quandary;
and one wherein my wits derived as little assistance as
possible from the bright eyes and saucy looks which en-
vironed me. Moreover, the commotion attracting other
listeners, I found my position, while I tried to extricate
myself, growing each moment worse, so that I began to
fear that as I had little imagination I should perforce have
to tell the truth. The mere thought of this threw me into
a cold perspiration, lest I should let slip something of conse-
quence, and prove myself unworthy of the trust which M.
de Rosny had reposed in me.
At the moment when, despairing of extricating myself, I
was stooping over Madame de Bruhl begging her to assist
me, I heard, amid the babel of laughter and raillery which
surrounded me certain of the courtiers having already
formed hands in a circle and sworn I should not depart
without satisfying the ladies a voice which struck a chord
in my memory. I turned to see who the speaker was, and
encountered no other than M. de Bruhl himself ; who, with
a flushed and angry face, was listening to the explanation
which a friend was pouring into his ear. Standing at the
moment with my knee on Madame de Bruhl's stool, and
remembering very well the meeting on the stairs, I coii-
ceived in a flash that the man was jealous ; but whether
he had yet heard my name, or had any clew to link me with
IN THE KING^S CHAMBER 183
the person who had rescued Mademoiselle de la Vire from
his clutches, I could not tell. Nevertheless his presence
led my thoughts into a new channel. The determination
to punish him began to take form in my mind, and very
quickly I regained my composure. Still I was for giving him
one chance. Accordingly I stooped once more to Madame
de Bruhl's ear, and begged her to spare me the embarrass-
ment of telling my tale. But then, finding her pitiless, as
I expected, and the rest of the company growing more and
more insistent, I hardened my heart to go through with t>he
fantastic notion which had occurred to me.
Indicating by a gesture that I was prepared to obey, and
the duchess crying for a hearing, this was presently ob-
tained, the sudden silence adding the king himself to my
audience. 'What is it?' he asked, coming up effusively,
with a lap-dog in his arms. ' A new scandal, eh ? '
' No, sire, a new tale-teller, 3 the duchess answered pertly.
' If your Majesty will sit, we shall hear him the sooner.'
He pinched her ear and sat down in the chair which a
page presented. 'What? is it Eambouillet's grison again?'
he said with some surprise. 'Well, fire away, man. But
who brought you forward as a Rabelais ? '
There was a general cry of ' Madame de Bruhl ! ' whereat
that lady shook her fair hair about her face, and cried out
for someone to bring her a mask.
' Ha, I see ! ' said the king drily, looking pointedly at M.
de Bruhl, who was as black as thunder. ' But go on, man.'
The king's advent, by affording me a brief respite, had
enabled me to collect my thoughts, and, disregarding the
ribald interruptions, which at first were frequent, I began as
follows: 'I am no Rabelais, sire,' I said, 'but droll things
happen to the most unlikely. Once upon a time it was the
fortune of a certain swain, whom I will call Dromio, to
arrive in a town not a hundred miles from Blois, having in
his company a nymph of great beauty, who had been en-
trusted to his care by her parents. He had not more than
lodged her in his apartments, however, before she was
1 84 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
decoyed away by a trick, and borne off against her will by
a young gallant, who had seen her and been smitten by her
charms. Dromio, returning, and finding his mistress gone,
gave way to the most poignant grief. He ran up and down
the city, seeking her in every place, and filling all places
with his lamentations ; but for a time in vain, until chance
led him to a certain street, where, in an almost incredible
manner, he found a clew to her by discovering underfoot a
knot of velvet, bearing Phyllida's name wrought 011 it in
deMcate needlework, with the words, "A moi!" :
' Sanctus ! ' cried the king, amid a general murmur of sur-
prise, ' that is well devised ! Proceed, sir. Go on like that,
and we will make your twenty men twenty-five.'
'Dromio,' I continued, -'at sight of this trifle experienced
the most diverse emotions, for while he possessed in it a
clew to his mistress's fate, he had still to use it so as to dis-
cover the place whither she had been hurried. It occurred
to him at last to begin his search with the house before
which the knot had lain. Ascending accordingly to the
second-floor, he found there a fair lady reclining on a couch,
who started up in affright at his appearance. He hastened
to reassure her, and to explain the purpose of his coming,
and learned after a conversation with which I will not
trouble your Majesty, though it was sufficiently diverting,
that the lady had found the velvet knot in another part of
the town, and had herself dropped it again in front of her
own house.'
' Pourquoi ? ' the king asked, interrupting me.
' The swain, sire,' I answered, ' was too much taken up
with his own troubles to bear that in mind, even if he
learned it. But this delicacy did not save him from mis-
conception, for as he descended from the lady's apartment
he met her husband on the stairs.'
'Good!' the king exclaimed, rubbing his hands in glee.
1 The husband ! ' And under cover of the gibe and the
courtly laugh which followed it M. de Bruhl's start of sur-
prise passed unnoticed save by me.
IN THE KING^S CHAMBER 185
' The husband,' I resumed, ' seeing a stranger descending
his staircase, was for stopping him .and learning the reason
of his presence; but Dromio, whose mind was with Phyllida,
refused to stop, and, evading his questions, hurried to the
part of the town where the lady had told him she found the
velvet knot. Here, sire, at the corner of a lane running
between garden-walls, he found a great house, barred and
gloomy, and well adapted to the abductor's purpose. More-
over, scanning it on every side, he presently discovered, tied
about the bars of an upper window, a knot of white linen,
the very counterpart of that velvet one which he bore in
his breast. Thus he knew that the nymph was imprisoned
in that room ! '
' I will make, it twenty-five, as I am a good Churchman ! '
his Majesty exclaimed, dropping the little dog he was
nursing into the duchess's lap, and taking out his comfit-
box. ' Rambouillet,' he added languidly, ' your friend is a
treasure ! '
I bowed my acknowledgments, and took occasion as I did
so to step a pace aside, so as to command a view of
Madame de Bruhl, as well as her husband. Hitherto
madame, willing to be accounted a part in so pretty a
romance, and ready enough also, unless I was mistaken, to
cause her husband a little mild jealousy, had listened to the
story with a certain sly demureness. But this I foresaw
would not last long ; and I felt something like compunction
as the moment for striking the blow approached. But I
had now no choice. ' The best is yet to come, sire,' I went
on, 'as I think you will acknowledge in a moment.
Dromio, though he had discovered his mistress, was still in
the depths of despair. He wandered round and round the
house, seeking ingress and finding none, until at length,
sunset approaching, and darkness redoubling his fears for
the nymph, fortune took pity on him. As he stood in
front of the house he saw the abductor come out, lighted
by two servants. Judge of his surprise, sire,' I continued,
looking round and speaking slowly, to give full effect to my
1 86 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
words, ' when he recognised in him no other than the
husband of the lady who, by picking up and again
dropping the velvet knot, had contributed so much to the
success of his search ! '
' Ha ! these husbands ! ' cried the king. And slapping his
knee in an ecstasy at his own acuteness, he laughed in his seat
till he rolled again. ' These husbands ! Did I not say so ? '
The whole Court gave way to like applause, and clapped
their hands as well, so that few save those who stood
nearest took notice of Madame de Bruhl's faint cry, and
still fewer understood why she rose up suddenly from her
stool and stood gazing at her husband with burning cheeks
and clenched hands. She took no heed of me, much less of
the laughing crowd round her, but looked only at him with
her soul in her eyes. He, after uttering one hoarse curse,
seemed to have no thought for any but me. To have the
knowledge that his own wife had baulked him brought
home to him in this mocking fashion, to find how little a
thing had tripped him that day, to learn how blindly he
had played into the hands of fate, above all to be exposed
at once to his wife's resentment and the ridicule of the
Court for he could not be sure that I should not the next
moment disclose his name all so wrought on him that fcr
a moment I thought he would strike me in the presence.
His rage, indeed, did what I had not meant to do. For
the king, catching sight of his face, and remembering that
Madame de Bruhl had elicited the story, screamed suddenly,
* Haro ! 5 and pointed ruthlessly at him with his tinger.
After that I had no need to speak, the story leaping from
eye to eye, and every eye settling on Bruhl, who sought in
vain to compose his features. Madame, who surpassed him,
as women commonly do surpass men, in self-control, was the
first to recover herself, and sitting down as quickly as she
had risen, confronted alike her husband and her rivals with
a pale smile.
For a moment curiosity and excitement kept all breath'
less, the eye alone busy. Then the king laughed mia-
IN THE KING^S CHAMBER 187
chievously. ' Come, M. de Bruhl/ he cried, ' perhaps you
will finish the tale for us ? : And he threw himself back
in his chair, a sneer on his lips.
1 Or why not Madame de Bruhl ? ' said the duchess, with
her head on one side and her eyes glittering over her fan.
' Madame would, I am sure, tell it so well.'
But madame only shook her head, smiling always that
forced smile. For Bruhl himself, glaring from face to face
like a bull about to charge, I have never seen a man more
out of countenance, or more completely brought to bay.
His discomposure, exposed as he was to the ridicule of all
present, was such that the presence in which he stood
scarcely hindered him from some violent attack; and his
eyes, which had wandered from me at the king's word,
presently returning to me again, he so far forgot himself as
to raise his hand furiously, uttering at the same time a
savage oath.
The king cried out angrily, ' Have a care, sir ! ' But
Bruhl only heeded this so far as to thrust aside those who
stood round him and push his way hurriedly through the
eii jle.
' Arnidieu ! ' cried the king, when he was gone. ' This is
fine conduct ! I have half a mind to send after him and
have him put where his hot blood would cool a little.
Or'
He stopped abruptly, his eyes resting on me. The
relative positions of Bruhl and myself as the agents of Rosny
and Turenne occurred to him for the first time, I think,
and suggested the idea, perhaps, that I had laid a trap for
him, and that he had fallen into it. At any rate his face
grew darker and darker, and at last, ' A nice kettle of fish
this is you have prepared for us, sir ! ' he muttered, gazing
at me gloomily.
The sudden change in his humour took even courtiers by
surprise. Faces a moment before broad with smiles grew
long again. The less important personages looked uncom-
fortably at one another, and with one accord frowned on
1 88 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
me. ' If your Majesty would please to hear the end of the
story at another time?' I suggested humbly, beginning to
wish with all my heart that I had never said a word.
( Chut ! ' he answered, rising, his face still betraying his
perturbation. ' Well, be it so. For the present you may
go, sir. Duchess, give me Zizi, and come to my closet. I
want you to see my puppies. Retz, my good friend, do you
come too. I have something to say to you. Gentlemen,
you need not wait. It is likely I shall be late.'
And, with the utmost abruptness, he broke up the circle.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE JACOBIN MONK.
HAD I needed any reminder of the uncertainty of Court
favour, or an instance whence I might learn the lesson of
modesty, and so stand in less danger of presuming on my
new and precarious prosperity, I had it in this episode, and
in the demeanour of the company round me. On the circle
breaking up in confusion, I found myself the centre of
general regard, but regard of so dubious a character, the
persons who would have been the first to compliment me
had the king retired earlier, standing farthest aloof now,
that I felt myself rather insulted than honoured by it.
One or two, indeed, of the more cautious spirits did ap-
proach me ; but it was with the air of men providing against
a danger particularly remote, their half-hearted speeches
serving only to fix them in my memory as belonging to a
class, especially abhorrent to me the class, I mean, of
those who would run at once with the hare and the hounds.
I was rejoiced to find that on one person, and that the one
whose disposition towards me was, next to the king's, of
first importance, this episode had produced a different im-
pression. Feeling, as I made for the door, a touch on my
THE JACOBIN MONK 189
arm, I turned to find M. de Eambouillet at my elbow, re-
garding me with a glance of mingled esteem and amuse-
ment; in fine, with a very different look from that which
had been my welcome earlier in the evening. I was driven
to suppose that he was too great a man, or too sure of his
favour with the king, to be swayed by the petty motives
which actuated the Court generally, for he laid his hand
familiarly on my shoulder, and walked on beside me.
'Well, my friend,' he said/ you have distinguished your-
self finely ! I do not know that I ever remember a pretty
woman making more stir in one evening. But if you are
wise you will not go home alone to-night.'
'I have my sword, M. le Marquis,' I answered, some-
what proudly.
'Which will avail you little against a knife in the back! '
he retorted drily. 'What attendance have you? '
'My equerry, Simon Fleix, is on the stairs.'
'Good, so far, but not enough,' he replied, as we reached
the head of the staircase. 'You had better come home with
me now, and two or three of my fellows shall go on to your
lodging with you. Do you know, my friend,' he continued,
looking at me keenly, 'you are either a very clever or a
very foolish man? '
I made answer modestly. 'Neither the one, I fear, nor
the other, I hope, sir,' I said.
'Well, you have done a very pertinent thing,' he replied,
'for good or evil. You have let the enemy know what he
has to expect, and he is not one, I warn you, to be despised.
But whether you have been very wise or very foolish in
declaring open war remains to be seen.'
'A week will show,' I answered.
He turned and looked at me. 'You take it coolly,' he
said.
'I have been knocking about the world for forty years,
marquis,' I rejoined.
He muttered something about Rosny having a good eye,
and then stopped to adjust his cloak. We were by this
190 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
time in the street. Making me go hand in hand with him,
he requested the other gentlemen to draw their swords;
and the servants being likewise armed and numbering half
a- score or more, with pikes and torches, we made up a very
formidable party, and caused, I think, more alarm as we
passed, through the streets to Rambouillet's lodging than
we had any reason to feel. Not that we had it all to our-
selves, for the attendance at Court that evening being large,
and the circle breaking up as I have described more abruptly
than usual, the vicinity of the castle was in a ferment, and.
the streets leading from it were alive with the lights and
laughter of parties similar to our own.
At the door of the marquis's lodging I prepared to take
leave of him with many expressions of gratitude, but he
would have me enter and sit down with him to a light
refection, which it was his habit to take before retiring.
Two of his gentlemen sat down with us, and a valet, who
was in his confidence, waiting on us, we made very merry
over the scene in the presence. I learned that M. de Bruhl
was far from popular at Court ; but being known to possess
some kind of hold over the king, and enjoying besides a
great reputation for recklessness and skill with the sword,
he had played a high part for a length of time, and attached
to himself, especially since the death of Guise, a considera-
ble number of followers.
'The truth is,' one of the marquis's gentlemen, who was
a little heated with wine, observed, 'there is nothing at this
moment which a bold and unscrupulous man may not win
in France! '
'Nor a bold and Christian gentleman for France ! ' replied
M. de Rambouillet with some asperity. 'By the way r ' he
continued, turning abruptly to the servant, 'where is M.
Francpis? '
The valet answered that he had not returned with us from
the castle. The Marquis expressed himself annoyed at this,
and I gathered, firstly, that the missing man was his near
kinsman, and, secondly, that he was also the young spark
THE JACOBIN MONK 191
who had been so forward to quarrel with me earlier in the
evening. Determining to refer the matter, should it be-
come pressing, to Eambouillet for adjustment, I took leave
of him, and attended by two of his servants, whom he
kindly transferred to my service for the present, I started
towards my lodging a little before midnight.
The moon had risen while we were at supper, and its
light, which whitened the gables on one side of the street,
diffused a glimmer below sufficient to enable us to avoid the
kennel. Seeing this, I bade the men put out our torch.
Frost had set in, and a keen wind was blowing, so that we
were glad to hurry on at a good pace ; and the streets being
quite deserted at this late hour, or haunted only by those
who had come to dread the town marshal, we -met no one
and saw no lights. I fell to thinking, for my part, of the
evening I had spent searching Blois for Mademoiselle, and
of the difference between then and now. Nor did I fail
while on this track to retrace it still farther to the evening
of our arrival at my mother's; whence, as a source, such
kindly and gentle thoughts welled up in my mind as were
natural, and the unfailing affection of that gracious woman
required. These, taking the place for the moment of the
anxious calculations and stern purposes which had of late
engrossed me, were only ousted by something which, hap-
pening under my eyes, brought me violently and abruptly
to myself.
This was the sudden appearance of three men, who
issued one by one from an alley a score of yards in front of
us, and after pausing a second to look back the way they
had conie, flitted on in single file along the street, disap-
pearing, as far as the darkness permitted me to judge, round
a second corner. I by no means liked their appearance,
and as a scream and the clash of arms rang out next
moment from the direction in which they had gone, I cried
lustily to Simon Fleix to follow, and ran on, believing from
the rascals' movements that they were after no good, but
that rather some honest man was like to be sore beset.
192 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
On reaching the lane down which they had plunged, how-
ever, I paused a moment, considering not so much its black-
ness, which was intense, the eaves nearly meeting overhead,
as the small chance I had of distinguishing between attack-
ers and attacked. But Simon and the men overtaking me,
and the sounds of a sharp tussle still continuing, I decided
to venture, and plunged into the alley, my left arm well
advanced, with the skirt of my cloak thrown over it, and
my sword drawn back. I shouted as I ran, thinking that
the knaves might desist on hearing me; and this was what
happened, for as I arrived on the scene of action the far-
ther end of the alley two men took to their heels, while
of two who remained, one lay at length in the kennel, and
another rose slowly from his knees.
'You are just in time, sir,' the latter said, breathing
hard, but speaking with a preciseness which sounded famil-
iar. 'I am obliged to you, sir, whoever you are. The
villains had got me down, and in a few minutes more
would have made my mother childless. By the way,
you have no light, have you? ' he continued, lisping like
a woman.
One of M. de Rambouillet's men, who had by this time
come up, cried out that it was Monsieur Franqois.
'Yes, blockhead! ' the young gentleman answered with
the utmost coolness. 'But I asked for a light, not for my
name. '
'I trust you are not hurt, sir? ' I said, putting up my
sword.
' Scratched only , ' he answered, betraying no surprise on
learning who it was had come up so opportunely; as he no
doubt did learn from my voice, for he continued with a
bow, 'A slight price to pay for the knowledge that M. de
Marsac is as forward on the field as on the stairs.'
I bowed my acknowledgments.
'This fellow,' I said, 'is he much hurt?'
'Tut, tut! I thought I had saved the marshal all trouble/
M. FranQois replied. 'Is he not dead, Gil? '
THE JACOBIN MONK 193
The poor wretch made answer for himself, crying out
piteously and in a choking voice, for a priest to shrive him.
At that moment Simon Fleix returned with our torch,
which he had lighted at the nearest cross-streets, where
there was a brazier, and we saw by this light that the man
wa.s coughing up blood, and might live perhaps half an
hour.
'Mordieu! That comes of thrusting too high!' M.
Francois muttered, regretfully. 'An. inch lower, and there
would have been none of this trouble! I suppose some-
body must fetch one. Gil,' he continued, 'run, man, to the
sacristy in the Rue St. Denys, and get a Father. Or stay !
Help to lift him under the lee of the wall there. The wind
cuts like a knife here. '
The street being on the slope of the hill, the lower part
of the house nearest us stood a few feet from the ground,
on wooden piles, and the space underneath it, being en-
closed at the back and sides, was used as a cart-house. The
servants moved the dying man into this rude shelter, and I.
accompanied them, being unwilling to leave the young
gentleman alone. Not wishing, however, to seem to inter-
fere, I walked to the farther end, and sat down on the shaft
of a cart, whence I idly admired the strange aspect of the
group I had left, as the glare of the torch brought now one
and now another into prominence, and sometimes shone
on M. Franqois' jewelled fingers toying with his tiny
moustache, and sometimes on the writhing features of the
man at his feet.
On a sudden, and before Gil had started on his errand, I
saw there was a priest among them. I had not seen him
enter, nor had I any idea whence he came. My first im-
pression was only that here was a priest, and that he was
looking at me not at the man craving his assistance on the
floor, or at those who stood round him, but at me, who sat
away in the shadow beyond the ring of light !
This was surprising; but a second glance explained it,
for then I saw that he was the Jacobin monk who had
194 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
haunted my mother's dying hours. And, amazed as much
at this strange rencontre, as at the man's boldness, I sprang
up and strode forwards, forgetting, in an impulse of right-
eous anger, the office he came to do. And this the more as
his face, still turned to me, seemed instinct to my eyes
with triumphant malice. As I moved towards him, how-
ever, with a fierce exclamation on my lips, he suddenly
dropped his eyes and knelt. Immediately M. Franqois
cried 'Hush! ' and the men turned to me with scandalised
faces. I fell back. Yet even then, whispering on his
knees by the dying man, the knave was thinking, I felt
sure, of me, glorying at once in his immunity and the
power it gave him to tantalise me without fear.
I determined, whatever the result, to intercept him when
all was over; and on the man dying a few minutes later,
I walked resolutely to the open side of the shed, thinking
it likely he might try to slip away as mysteriously as he
had come. He stood a moment speaking to M. Francois,
however, and then, accompanied by him, advanced boldly
to meet me, a lean smile on his face.
'Father Antoine,'M. d'Agen said politely, 'tells me that
he knows you, M. de Marsac, and desires to speak to you,
mal-d,-propos as is the occasion.'
'And I to him,' I answered, trembling with rage, and
only restraining by an effort the impulse which would have
had me dash my hand in the priest's pale, smirking face.
'I have waited 1 long for this moment,' I continued, eyeing
him steadily, as M. Frangois withdrew out of hearing, 'and
had you tried to avoid me, I would have dragged you back,
though all your tribe were here to protect you. '
His presence so maddened me that I scarcely knew what I
said. I felt my breath come quickly, I felt the blood surge
to my head, and it was with difficulty I restrained myself
when he answered with well-affected sanctity, 'Like mother,
like son, I fear, 'sir. Huguenots both.'
I choked with rage. 'What! ' I said, 'you dare t&
threaten me as you threatened my mother? Fool! know
THE JACOBIN MONK 195
that only to-day for the purpose of discovering and punish-
ing you I took the rooms in which my mother died. '
'I know it,' he answered quietly. And then in a second,
as by magic, he altered his demeanour completely, raising
his head and looking me in the face. 'That, and so much
besides, I know,' he continued, giving me, to my astonish-
ment, frown for frown, 'that if you will listen to me for a
moment, M. de Marsac, and listen quietly, 1 will convince
you that the folly is not on my side.'
Amazed at his new manner, in which there was none of
the madness that had marked him at our first meeting, but
a strange air of authority, unlike anything I had associated
with him before, I signed to him to proceed.
'You think that I am in your power? ' he said, smiling.
'I think,' I retorted swiftly, 'that, escaping me now, you
will have at your heels henceforth a worse enemy than even
your own sins.'
'Just so,' he answered, nodding. 'Well, I am going to
show you that the reverse is the case ; and that you are as
completely in my hands, to spare or to break, as this straw.
In the first place, you are here in Blois, a Huguenot ! '
'Chut! ' I exclaimed contemptuously, affecting a confi-
dence I was far from feeling. 'A little while back that
might have availed you. But we are in Blois, not Paris.
It is not far to the Loire, and you have to deal with a man
now, not with a woman. It is you who have cause to trem-
ble, not I.'
'You think to be protected,' he answered with a sour
smile, 'even on this side of the Loire, I see. But one word
to the Pope's Legate, or to the Duke of Nevers, and you
would see the inside of a dungeon, if not worse. For the
king '
'King or no king! ' I answered, interrupting him with
more assurance than I felt, seeing that I remembered only
too well Henry's remark that Rosny must not look to him
for protection, 'I fear you not a whit! And that reminds
me. I have heard you talk treason rank, black treason,
N2
196 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
priest, as ever sent man to rope, and I will give you up.
By heaven I will ! ' I cried, my rage increasing, as I dis-
cerned, more and more clearly, the dangerous hold he had
over me. 'You have threatened me! One word, and I will
send you to the gallows ! '
'Sh!' he answered, indicating M. Francois by a gesture
of the hand. 'For your own sake, not mine. This is tine
talking, but you have not yet heard all I know. Would
you like to hear how you have spent the last month? Two
days after Christmas, M. de Marsac, you left Chize with a
young lady I can give you her name, if you please. Four
days afterwards you reached Blois, and took her to your
mother's lodging. Next morning she left you for M. de
Bruhl. Two days later you tracked her to a house in the
Ruelle d'Arcy, and freed her, but lost her in the moment of
victory. Then you stayed in Blois until your mother's death,
going a day or two later to M. de Eosny's house by Mantes,
where mademoiselle still is. Yesterday you arrived in
Blois with M. de Rosny ; you went to his lodging; you '
'Proceed, sir,' I muttered, leaning forward. Under
cover of my cloak I drew my dagger half-way from its
sheath. 'Proceed, sir, I pray,' I repeated with dry lips.
'You slept there,' he continued, holding his ground, but
shuddering slightly, either from cold or because he per-
ceived my movement and read my design in my eyes.
'This morning you remained here in attendance on M. de
Eambouillet. '
For the moment I breathed freely again, perceiving that
though he knew much, the one thing on which M. de Rosny's
design turned had escaped him. The secret interview with
the king, which compromised alike Henry himself and M.
de Eambouillet, had apparently passed unnoticed and un-
suspected. With a sigh of intense relief I slid back the
dagger, which I had fully made up my mind to use had he
known all, and drew my cloak round me with a shrug of
feigned indifference. I sweated to think what he did know,
but our interview with the king having escaped him, I
breathed again.
THE JACOBIN MONK 197
'Well, sir,' I said curtly, 'I liave listened. And now,
what is the purpose of all this? '
'My purpose?' he answered, his eyes glittering. 'To
show you that you are in my power. You are the agent of
M. de Rosiiy. I, the agent, however humble, of the Holy
Catholic League. Of your movements I know all. What
do you know of mine? '
'Knowledge,' I made grim answer, f is not everything, sir
priest.'
'It is more than it was,' he said, smiling his thin-lipped
smile. 'It is going to be more than it is. And I know
much about you, M. de Marsac.'
'You know too much!' I retorted, feeling his covert
threats close round me like the folds of some great serpent.
'But you are imprudent, I think. Will you tell me what
is to prevent me striking you through where you stand,
and ridding myself at a blow of so much knowledge? '
'The presence of three men, M. de Marsac,' he answered
lightly, waving his hand towards M. Francois and the
others, 'every one of whom would give you up to justice.
You forget that you are north of the Loire, and that priests
are not to be massacred here with impunity, as in your
lawless south-country. However, enough. The night is
cold, and M. d'Agen grows suspicious as well as impatient.
We have, perhaps, spoken too long already. Permit me'
he bowed and drew back a step 'to resume this discus-
sion to-morrow.'
Despite his politeness and the hollow civility with which
he thus sought to close the interview, the light of triumph
which shone in his eyes, as the glare of the torch fell
athwart them, no less than the assured tone of his voice,
told me clearly that he knew his pow^r. He seemed, in-
deed, transformed: no longer a slinking, peaceful clerk,
preying on a woman's fears, but a bold and crafty schemer,
skilled and unscrupulous, possessed of hidden knowledge
and hidden resources; the personification of evil intellect.
For a moment, knowing all I knew, and particularly the
198 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
responsibilities which lay before me, and the interests com-
mitted to my hands, I quailed, confessing myself unequal
to him. I forgot the righteous vengeance I owed him; I
cried out helplessly against the ill-fortune which had
brought him across my path. I saw myself enmeshed and
fettered beyond hope of escape, and by an effort only con-
trolled the despair I felt.
'To-morrow? ' I muttered hoarsely. 'At what time? '
He shook his head with a cunning smile. 'A thousand
thanks, but I will settle that myself I' lie answered. 'Au
revoir! ' And muttering a word of leave-taking to M.
Francois d'Agen, he blessed the two servants, and went out
into the night.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE OFFER, OF THE LEAGUE.
WHEN the last sound of his footsteps died away, I awoke
as from an evil dream, and becoming conscious of the pres-
ence of M. Franqois and the servants, recollected mechani-
cally that I owed the former an apology for my discourtesy
in keeping him standing in the cold. I began to offer it ;
but my distress and confusion of mind were such that in
the middle of a set phrase I broke off, and stood looking
fixedly at him, my trouble so plain that he asked me civilly
if anything ailed me.
'No,' I answered, turning from him impatiently; 'noth-
ing, nothing, sir. Or tell me, ' I continued, with an abrupt
change of mind, 'who is that who has just left us?'
'Father Antoine, do you mean?'
'Ay, Father Antoine, Father Judas, call him what you
like,' I rejoined bitterly
'Then if you leave the choice to me,' M. Francois an-
swered with grave politeness, 'I would rather call him
something more pleasant, M. de Marsac James or John,
THE OFFER OF THE LEAGUE 199
let us say. For there is little said here which does not
come back to him. If walls have ears, the walls of Blois
are in his pay. But I thought you knew him/ he contin-
ued. 'He is secretary, confidant, chaplain, what you will,
to Cardinal Retz, and one of those whom in your ear
greater men court and more powerful men lean on. If I had
to choose between them, I would rather cross M. de Crillon.'
'I am obliged to you,' I muttered, checked as much by
his manner as his words.
'Not at all,' he answered more lightly. 'Any informa-
tion I have is at your disposal. '
However, I saw the imprudence of venturing farther, and
hastened to take leave of him, persuading him to allow one
of M. de Rambouillet's servants to accompany him home.
He said that he should call on me in the morning; and
forcing myself to answer him in a suitable manner, I saw
him depart one way, and myself, accompanied by Simon
Fleix, went off another. My feet were frozen with long
standing I think the corpse we left was scarce colder but
niy head was hot with feverish doubts and fears. The moon
had sunk and the streets were dark. Our torch had burned
out, and we had no light. But where my followers saw
only blackness and vacancy, I saw an evil smile and a lean
visage fraught with menace and exultation.
For the more closely I directed my mind to the position
in which I stood, the graver it seemed. Pitted against
Bruhl alone, amid strange surroundings and in an atmos-
phere of Court intrigue, I had thought my task sufficiently
difficult and the disadvantages under which I laboured suffi-
ciently serious before this interview. Conscious of a cer-
tain rustiness and a distaste for finesse, with resources so
inferior to BruhPs that even M. de Eosny's liberality had
not done much to make up the difference, I had accepted
the post offered me rather readily than sanguinely; with
joy, seeing that it held out the hope of high reward, but
with no certain expectation of success. Still, matched
with a man of violent and headstrong character, I had seen
200 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
no reason to despair; nor any why I might not arrange the
secret meeting between the king and mademoiselle with
safety, and conduct to its end an intrigue simple and unsus-
pected, and requiring for its execution rather courage and
caution than address or experience.
Now, however, I found that Bruhl was not my only or
my most dangerous antagonist. Another was in the field
or, to speak more correctly, was waiting outside the arena,
ready to snatch the prize when we should have disabled
one another. From a dream of Bruhl and myself as en-
gaged in a competition for the king's favour, wherein
neither could expose the other nor appeal even in the last
resort to the joint-enemies of his Majesty and ourselves, I
awoke to a very different state of things; I awoke to find
those enemies the masters of the situation, possessed of
the clue to our plans, and permitting them only as long as
they seemed to threaten no serious peril to themselves.
No discovery could be more mortifying or more fraught
with terror. The perspiration stood on my brow as I re-
called the warning which M. de Rosny had uttered against
Cardinal Retz, or noted down the various points of knowl-
edge which were in Father Antoine's possession. He knew
every event of the last month, with one exception, and
could tell, I verily believed, how many crowns I had in my '
pouch. Conceding this, and the secret sources of informa-
tion he must possess, what hope had I of keeping my
future movements from him? Mademoiselle's arrival would
be known to him before she had well passed the gates ; nor
was it likely, or even possible, that I should again succeed
in reaching the king's presence untraced and unsuspected.
In fine, I saw myself, equally with Bruhl, a puppet in this
man's hands, my goings out and my coinings in watched
and reported to him, his mercy the only bar between my-
self and destruction. At any moment I might be arrested
as a Huguenot, the enterprise in which I was engaged
ruined, and Mademoiselle de la Vire exposed to the violence
of Bruhl or the equally dangerous intrigues of the League.
THE OFFER OF THE LEAGUE 201
Under these circumstances I fancied sleep impossible;
but habit and weariness are strong persuaders, and when I
reached my lodging I slept long and soundly, as became a
man who had looked danger in the face more than once.
The morning light too brought an accession both of courage
and hope. I reflected on the misery of my condition at St.
Jean d'Angely, without friends or resources, and driven to
herd with such a man as Fresnoy. And telling myself that
the gold crowns which M. de Rosny had lavished upon me
were not for nothing, nor the more precious friendship with
which he had honoured me a gift that called for no return,
I rose with .new spirit and a countenance which threw
Simon Fleix who had seen me lie down the picture of
despair into the utmost astonishment.
'You have had good dreams,' he said, eyeing me jealously
and with a disturbed air.
'I had a very evil one last night,' I answered lightly,
wondering a little why he looked at me so, and why he
seemed to resent my return to hopefulness and courage. I
might have followed this train of thought farther with
advantage, since I possessed a clue to his state of mind;
but at that moment a summons at the door called him away
to it, and he presently ushered in M. d'Agen, who, salut-
ing me with punctilious politeness, had not said fifty words
before he introduced the subject of his toe no longer, how-
-ever, in a hostile spirit, but as the happy medium which
had led him to recognise the worth and sterling qualities
-so he was pleased to say of his preserver.
I was delighted to find him in this frame of mind, and
told him frankly that the friendship with which his kins-
man, M. de Eambouillet, honoured me would prevent me
giving him satisfaction save in the last resort. He replied
that the service I had done him was such as to render this
immaterial, unless I had myself cause of offence; which 1
was forward to deny.
We were paying one another compliments after this
fashion, while I regarded him with the interest which the
202 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
middle-aged bestow on the yoxxng and gallant in whom
they see their own youth and hopes mirrored, when the
door was again opened, and after a moment's pause ad-
mitted, equally, I think, to the disgust of M. Francois and
myself, the form of Father Antoine.
Seldom have two men more diverse stood, I believe, in a
room together; seldom has any greater contrast been pre-
sented to a man's eyes than that opened to mine on this
occasion. On the one side the gay young spark, with his
short cloak, his fine suit of black-and-silver, his trim limbs
and jewelled hilt and chased comfit-box; on the other, the
tall, stooping monk, lean-jawed and bright-eyed, whose
gown hung about him in coarse, ungainly folds. And M.
Franqois' sentiment on first seeing the other was certainly
dislike. In spite of this, however, he bestowed a greeting
on the new-comer which evidenced a secret awe, and in
other ways showed so plain a desire to please that I felt my
fears of the priest return in force. I reflected that the
talents which in such a garb could win the respect of M.
Franqois d'Agen a brilliant star among the younger court-
iers, and one of a class much given to thinking scorn of
their fathers' roughness must be both great and formida-
ble; and, so considering, I received the monk with a dis-
tant courtesy which I had once little thought to extend to
him. I put aside for the moment the private grudge I
bore him with so much justice, and remembered only the
burden which lay on me in my contest with him.
I conjectured without difficulty that he chose to come at
this time, when M. Francois was with me, out of a cunning
regard to his own safety; and I was not surprised when M.
Franqois, beginning to make his adieux, Father Antoine
begged him to wait below, adding that he had something of
importance to communicate. He advanced his request in
terms of politeness bordering on humility; but I could
clearly see that, in assenting to it, M. d'Agen bowed to a
will stronger than his own, and would, had he dared to
follow his own bent, have given a very different answer.
THE OFFER OF THE LEAGUE 203
As it was he retired nominally to give an order to his
lackey with a species of impatient self-restraint which it
was not difficult to construe.
Left alone with me, and assured that we had no listeners,
the monk was not slow in coming to the point.
'You have thought over what I told you last night? ' he
said brusquely, dropping in a moment the suave manner
which he had maintained in M. Francois's presence.
I replied coldly that I had.
'And you understand the position? ' he continued quickly,
looking at me from under his brows as he stood before me,
with one clenched fist on the table. 'Or shall I tell you
more? Shall I tell you how poor and despised you were
some weeks ago, M. de Marsac you who now go in velvet,
and have three men at your back? Or whose gold it is has
brought you here, and made you this? Chut! Do not let
us trifle. You are here as the secret agent of the King of
Navarre. It is my business to learn your plans and his
intentions, and I propose to do so.'
'Well? ' I said.
'I am prepared to buy them,' he answered; and his eyes
sparkled as he spoke, with a greed which set me yet more
on my guard.
Tor whom? ' I asked. Having made up my mind that
I must use the same weapons as my adversary, I reflected
that to express indignation, such as might become a you ^g
man new to the world, could help me not a whit. 'Foi
whom? ' I repeated, seeing that he hesitated.
'That is my business,' he replied slowly.
'You want to know too much and tell too little,' I re-
torted, yawning.
'And you are playing with me,' he cried, looking at me
suddenly, with so piercing a gaze and so dark a counte-
nance that I checked a shudder with difficulty. ' So much
the worse for you, so much the worse for you! ' he contin-
ued fiercely. 'I am here to buy the information you hold,
but if you will not sell, there is another way. At an hour's
204 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
notice I can ruin your plans, and send you to a dungeon!
You are like a fish caught in a net not yet drawn. It
thrusts its nose this way and that, and touches the mesh,
but is slow to take the alarm until the net is drawn and
then it is too late. So it is with you, and so it is,' he
added, falling into the ecstatic mood which marked him at
times, and left me in doubt whether he were all knave or
in part enthusiast, 'with all those who set themselves
against St. Peter and his Church ! '
'I have heard you say much the same of the King of
France,' I said derisively.
'You trust in him?' he retorted, his eyes gleaming.
'You have been up there, and seen his crowded chamber,
and counted his forty-five gentlemen and his grey-coated
Swiss? I tell you the splendour you saw was a dream,
and will vanish as a dream. The man's strength and his
glory shall go from him, and that soon. Have you no eyes
to see that he is beside the question? There are but two
powers in France the Holy Union, which still prevails,
and the accursed Huguenot ; and between them is the battle.'
'Now you are telling me more,' I said.
He grew sober in a moment, looking at me with a vicious
anger hard to describe.
'Tut tut,' he said, showing his yellow teeth, 'the dead
tell no tales. And for Henry of Valois, he so loves a monk
that you might better accuse his mistress. But for you, I
have only to cry " Ho ! a Huguenot and a sp3 T ! " and though
he loved you more than he loved Quelus or Maugiron, he
dare not stretch out a finger to save you ! '
I knew that he spoke the truth, and with difficulty main-
tained the air of indifference with which I had entered on
the interview.
'But what if I leave Blois?' I ventured, merely to see
what he would say.
He laughed. 'You cannot,' he answered. 'The net is
round you, M. de Marsac, and there are those at every gate
who know you and have their instructions. I can destroy
THE OFFER OF THE LEAGUE 205
you, but I would fain have your information, and for that
I will pay you five hundred crowns and let you go.'
'To fall into the hands of the King of Navarre? '
'He will disown you, in any case,' he answered eagerly.
'He had that in his mind, my friend, when he selected an
agent so obscure. He will disown you. Ah, mon Dieul
had I been an hour quicker I had caught Rosny Rosny
himself! '
'There is one thing lacking still,' 1. replied. 'How am I
to be sure that, when I have told you what I know, you
will pay me the money or let me go? '
'I will swear to it! ' he answered earnestly, deceived into
thinking I was about to surrender. 'I will give you my
oath, M. de Marsac! '
'I would as soon have your shoe-lace! ' I exclaimed, the
indignation I could not entirely repress finding vent in that
phrase. 'A Churchman's vow is worth a candle or a can-
dle and a half, is it? ' I continued ironically. 'I must have
some security a great deal more substantial than that,
father. '
'What?' he asked, looking at me gloomily.
Seeing an opening, I cudgelled my brains to think of any
condition which, being fulfilled, might turn the table on
him and place him in my power. But his position was so
strong, or my wits so weak, that nothing occurred to me
at the time, and I sat looking at him, my mind gradually
passing from the possibility of escape to the actual danger
in which I stood, and which encompassed also Simon Fleix,
and, in a degree, doubtless, M. de Rambouillet. In four or
five days, too, Mademoiselle de la Vire would arrive. I won-
dered if I could send any warning to her ; and then, again,
I doubted the wisdom of interfering with M. de Rosny's
plans, the more as Maignan, who had gone to fetch made-
moiselle, was of a kind to disregard any orders save his
master's.
'Well! ' said the monk, impatiently recalling me to my-
self, 'what security do you want?'
206 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
'I am not quite sure at this moment,' I made answer
slowly. 'I am in a difficult position. I must have some
time to consider.'
'And to rid yourself of me, if it be possible,' he said with
irony. 'I quite understand. But I warn you that you are
watched; and that wherever you go and whatever you do,
eyes which are mine are upon you. '
'I, too, understand,' I said coolly.
He stood awhile uncertain, regarding me with mingled
doubt and malevolence, tortured on the one hand by fear
of losing the prize if he granted delay, on the other of fail-
ing as utterly if he exerted his power and did not succeed in
subduing my resolution. I watched him, too, and gauging
his eagerness and the value of the stake for which he was
striving by the strength of his emotions, drew small com-
fort from the sight. More than once it had occurred to me,
and now it occurred to me again, to extricate myself by a
blow. But a natural reluctance to strike an unarmed man,
however vile and knavish, and the belief that he had not
trusted himself in my power without taking the fullest pre-
cautions, withheld me. When he grudgingly, and with
many dark threats, proposed to wait three days and not an
hour more for my answer, I accepted; for I saw no other
alternative open. And on these terms, but not without
some short discussion, we parted, and I heard his stealthy
footstep go sneaking down the stairs.
CHAPTER XIX.
MEN CALL IT CHANCE.
IF I were telling more than the truth, or had it in my
mind to embellish my adventures, I could, doubtless, by the
exercise of a little ingenuity make it appear that I owed
my escape from Father Antoine's meshes to my own craft ;
MEN CALL IT CHANCE 207
and tell, in fine, as pretty a story of plots and counterplots
as' M. de Brantome has ever woven. Having no desire,
however, to magnify myself, and, at this time of day,
scarcely any reason, I am fain to confess that the reverse
was the case ; and that while no man ever did less to free
himself than I did, my adversary retained his grasp to the
end, and had surely, but for a strange interposition, effected
my ruin. How relief came, and from what quarter, I might
defy the most ingenious person, after reading my memoirs
to this point, to say ; and this not so much by reason of any
subtle device, as because the hand of Providence was for
once directly manifest.
The three days of grace which the priest had granted I
passed in anxious but futile search for some means of escape,
every plan I conceived dying stillborn, and not the least of
my miseries lying in the fact that I could discern no better
course than still to sit and think, and seemed doomed to
perpetual inaction. M. de Rambouillet being a strict
Catholic, though in all other respects a patriotic man, I
knew better than to have recourse to him; and the priest's
influence over M. d'Agen I had myself witnessed. For
similar reasons I rejected the idea of applying to the king ;
and this exhausting the list of those on whom I had any
claim, I found myself thrown on my own resources, which '
seemed limited my wits failing me at this pinch to rny
sword and Simon Fleix.
Assured that I must break out of Blois if I would save,
not myself only, but others more precious because entrusted
to my charge, I thought it no disgrace to appeal to Simon ;
describing in a lively fashion the danger which threatened
us, and inciting the lad by every argument which I thought
likely to have weight with him to devise some way of
escape.
'Now is the time, my friend,' I said, 'to show your wits,
and prove that M. de Rosuy, who said you had a cunning
above the ordinary, was right. If your brain can ever save
your head, now is the time ! For I tell you plainly, if you
208 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
cannot find some way to outmanoauvre this villain before
to-morrow, I am spent. You can judge for yourself what
chance you will have of going free.'
I paused at that, waiting for him to make some sugges-
tion. To my chagrin he remained silent, leaning his head
on his hand, and studying the table with his eyes in a
sullen fashion ; so that I began to regret the condescension
I had evinced in letting him be seated, and found it neces-
sary to remind him that he had taken service with me, and
must do my bidding.
' Well,' he said morosely, and without looking up, ' I am
ready to do it. But I do not like priests, and this one least
of all. I know him, and I will not meddle with him ! '
'You will not meddle with him ?' I cried, almost beside
myself with dismay.
'No, I won't,' he replied, retaining his listless attitude.
'I know him, and I am afraid of him. I am no match for
him.'
' Then M. de Rosny was wrong, was he ? ' I said, giving
way to my anger.
' If it please you,' he answered pertly.
This was too much for me. My riding-switch lay handy,
and I snatched it up. Before he knew what I would be at,
' I fell upon him, and gave him such a sound wholesome drub-
bing as speedily brought him to his senses. When he cried
for mercy which he did not for a good space, being still
possessed by the peevish devil which had ridden him ever
since his departure from Eosny I put it to him again
whether M. de Rosny was not right. When he at last
admitted this, but not till then, I threw the whip away and
let him go, but did not cease to reproach him as he deserved.
'Did you think,' I said, 'that I was going to be ruined
because you would not use your lazy brains ? That I was
going to sit still, and let you sulk, while mademoiselle
walked blindfold into the toils ? Not at all, my friend ! '
' Mademoiselle ! ' he exclaimed, looking at me with a
sudden change of countenance, and ceasing to rub himself
MEN CALL IT CHANCE 209
and scowl, as he had been doing. ' She is not here, and
is in no danger.'
' She will be here to-morrow, or the next day,' I said.
' You did not tell me that ! ' he replied, his eyes glittering.
( Does Father Antoine know it ? '
' He will know it the moment she enters the town,' I
answered.
Noting the change which the introduction of mademoi-
selle's name into the affair had wrought in him, I felt
something like humiliation. But at the moment I had no
choice ; it was my business to use such instruments as came
to my hand, and not, mademoiselle's safety being at stake, to
pick and choose too nicely. In a few minutes our posi-
tions were reversed. The lad had grown as hot as I cold,
as keenly excited as I critical. When he .presently came
to a stand in front of me, I saw a strange likeness between
his face and the priest's ; nor was I astonished when he
presently made just such a proposal as I should have ex-
pected from Father Antoine himself.
' There is only one thing for it/ he muttered, trembling
all over. ' He must be got rid of ! '
' Fine talking ! ' I said, contemptuously. ( If he were a
soldier he might be brought to it. But he is a priest, my
friend, and does not fight.'
' Fight ? Who wants him to fight ? ' the lad answered,
his face dark, his hands moving restlessly. ' It is the
easier done. A blow in the back, and he will trouble us no
more.'
' Who is to strike it ? ' I asked drily.
Simon trembled and hesitated ; but presently, heaving a
deep si;?h, he said, ' I will.'
' It might not be difficult,' I muttered, thinking it over.
' It would be easy,' he answered under his breath. His
eyes shone, his lips were white, and his long dark hair
hung wet over his forehead.
I reflected ; and the longer I did so the more feasible
seemed the suggestion. A single word t and I might sweep
210 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
from my path the man whose existence threatened mine;
who would not meet me fairly, but, working against me
darkly and treacherously, deserved no better treatment at
my hands than that which a detected spy receives. He had
wronged my mother ; he would fain destroy my friends !
And, doubtless, I shall be blamed by some and ridiculed
by more for indulging in scruples at such a time. But I
have all my life long been prejudiced against that form of
underhand violence which I have heard old men contend
came into fashion in our country in modern times, and
which certainly seems to be alien from the French charac-
ter. Without judging others too harshly, or saying that
the poniard is never excusable for then might some
wrongs done to women and the helpless go without remedy
I have set my face against its use as unworthy of a
soldier. At the time, moreover, of which I am now writ-
ing the extent to which our enemies had lately resorted to
it tended to fix this feeling with peculiar firmness in my
mind ; and, but for the very desperate dilemma in which I
stood at the moment and not I alone I do not think that
I should have entertained Simon's proposal for a minute.
As it was, I presently answered him in a way which left
him in no doubt of my sentiments. ' Simon, my friend,' I
said and I remember I was a little moved 'you have
something still to learn, both as a soldier and a Huguenot.
Neither the one nor the other strikes at the back.'
' But if he will not tight ? ' the lad retorted rebelliously.
' What then ? '
It was so clear that our adversary gained an unfair advan-
tage in this way that I could not answer the question. I
let it pass, therefore, and merely repeating my former
injunction, bade Simon think out another way.
He promised reluctantly to do so, and, after spending
some moments in thought, went out to learn whether the
house was being watched.
When he returned, his countenance wore so new an expres-
sion that I saw at once that something had happened. He did
MEN CALL IT CHANCE 21 1
not meet my eye, however, and did not explain, but made as if
he would go out again, with something of confusion in his
manner. Before finally disappearing, however, he seemed to
change his mind once more ; for, inarching up to me where I
stood eyeing him with the utmost astonishment, he stopped
before me, and suddenly drawing out his hand, thrust some-
thing into mine.
' What is it, man ? ' I said mechanically.
' Look ! ' he answered rudely, breaking silence for the first
time. ' You should know. Why ask me ? What have I to
do with it ? '
I looked then, and saw that he had given me a knot of
velvet precisely similar in shape, size, and material to that
well-remembered one which had aided me so opportunely in
my search for mademoiselle. This differed from that a lit-
tle in colour, but in nothing else, the fashion of the bow
being the same, and one lappet bearing the initials ' C. d. 1.
V.,' while the other had the words, ' A moi.' I gazed at it
in wonder. 'But, Simon,' I said, 'what does it mean?
Where did you get it?'
' Where should I get it ? ' he answered jealously. Then,
seeming to recollect himself, he changed his tone. 'A
woman gave it to me in the street,' he said.
I asked him what woman.
' How should I know ? ' he answered, his eyes gleaming
with anger. ' It Avas a woman in a mask.'
'Was it Fanchette ?' I said sternly.
' It might have been. I do not know,* he responded.
I concluded at first that mademoiselle and her escort had
arrived in the outskirts of the city, and that Maignan had
justified his reputation for discretion by sending in to learn
from me whether the way was clear before he entered. In
this notion I was partly confirmed and partly shaken by the
accompanying message ; which Simon, from whom every
scrap of information had to be dragged as blood from a
tone, presently delivered.
' You are to meet the sender half an hour after sunset
o2
212 A GENTLEMAN" OF FRANCE
to-morrow evening/ he said, 'on the Parvis at the north-east
corner of the cathedral.'
' To-morrow evening ? '
' Yes, when else ? ' the lad answered ungraciously. ' I
said to-morrow evening.'
I thought this strange. I could understand why Maignan
should prefer to keep his charge outside the walls until he
heard from me, but not why he should postpone a meeting
so long. The message, too, seemed unnecessarily meagre, and
I began to think Simon was still withholding something.
' Was that all ? ' I asked him.
' Yes, all,' he answered, ' except '
' Except what ? ' I said sternly.
' Except that the woman showed me the gold token Made-
moiselle de la Vire used to carry,' he answered reluctantly,
'and said, if you wanted further assurance that would sat-
isfy you.'
' Did you see the coin ? ' I cried eagerly.
1 To be sure,' he answered.
' Then, mon dieu ! ' I retorted, ' either you are deceiving
me, or the woman you saw deceived you. For mademoiselle
has not got the token ! I have it ; here, in my possession !
Now, do you still say you saw it, man ? '
' I saw one like it,' he answered, trembling, his face damp.
' That I will swear. And the woman told me what I have
told you. And no more.'
'Then it is clear,' I answered, 'that mademoiselle has
nothing to do with this, and is doubtless many a league
away. This is one of M. de Bruhl's tricks. Fresnoy gave
him the token he stole from me. And I told him the story
of the velvet knot myself. This is a trap ; and had I fallen
into it, and gone to the Parvis to-morrow evening, I had
never kept another assignation, my lad.'
Simon looked thoughtful. Presently he said, with a
crestfallen air, ' You were to go alone. The woman said that.'
Though I knew well why he had suppressed this item, I
forbore to blame him. ' What was the woman like ? ' I said.
MEN CALL IT CHANCE 213
' She had very much of Fanchette's ^gure,' he answered
He could not go beyond that. Blinded by the idea that the
woman was mademoiselle's attendant, and no one else, he
had taken little heed of her, and could not even say for
certain that she was not a man in woman's clothes.
I thought the matter over and discussed it with him ; and
was heartily minded to punish M. de Bruhl, if I could dis-
cover a way of turning his treacherous plot against him-
self. But the lack of any precise knowledge of his plans
prevented me stirring in the matter ; the more as I felt no
certainty that I should be master of my actions when the
time came.
Strange to say the discovery of this movement on the
part of Bruhl, who had sedulously kept himself in the back-
ground since the scene in the king's presence, far from in-
creasing my anxieties, had the effect of administering a
fillip to my spirits; which the cold and unyielding pressure
of the Jacobin had reduced to a low point. Here was some-
thing I could understand, resist, and guard against. The
feeling that I had once more to do with a man of like
aims and passions with myself quickly restored me to the
use of my faculties ; as I have heard that a swordsman
opposed to the powers of evil regains his vigour on finding
himself engaged with a mortal foe. Though I knew that
the hours of grace were fast running to a close, and that on
the morrow the priest would call for an answer, I experi-
enced that evening an unreasonable lightness and cheerful-
ness. I retired to rest with confidence, and slept in comfort,
supported in part, perhaps, by the assurance that in that
room where my mother died her persecutor could have no
power to harm me.
Upon Simon Fleix, on the other hand, the discovery that
Bruhl was moving, and that consequently peril threatened
us from a new quarter, had a different effect. He fell into
a state of extreme excitement, and spent the evening and a
great part of the night in walking restlessly up and down
the room, wrestling with the fears and anxieties which beset
214 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
us, and now talking fast to himself, now biting his nails in
an agony of impatience. In vain I adjured him not to meet
troubles halfway ; or, pointing to the pallet which he occu-
pied at the foot of my couch, bade him, if he could not
devise a way of escape, at least to let the matter rest until
morning. He had no power to obey, but, tortured by the
vivid anticipations which it was his nature to entertain, he
continued to ramble to and fro in a fever of the nerves, and
had no sooner lain down than he was up again. Remem-
bering, however, how well he had borne himself on the
night of mademoiselle's escape from Blois, I refrained from
calling him a coward ; and contented myself instead with
the reflection that nothing sits worse on a fighting-man than
too much knowledge except, perhaps, a lively imagination.
I thought it possible that mademoiselle n.ight arrive next
day before Father Antoine called to receive his answer. In
this event I hoped to have the support of Maignan's ex-
perience. But the party did not arrive. I had to rely on
myself and my own resources, and, this being so, determined
to refuse the priest's offer, but in all other things to be
guided by circumstances.
About noon he came, attended, as was his practice, by two
friends, whom he left outside. He looked paler and more
shadowy than before, I thought, his hands thinner, and his
cheeks more transparent. I could draw no good augury,
however, from these signs of frailty, for the brightness of
his eyes and the unusual elation of his manner told plainly
of a spirit assured of the mastery. He entered the room
with an air of confidence, and addressed me in a tone of
patronage which left me in no doubt of his intentions ; the
frankness with which he now laid bare his plans going far
to prove that already he considered me no better than his
tool.
I did not at once undeceive him, but allowed him to pro-
ceed, and even to bring out the five hundred crowns which
he had promised me, and the sight of which he doubtless
supposed would clench the matter.
MEN CALL IT CHANCE 215
Seeing this he became still less reticent, and spoke so
largely that I presently felt myself impelled to ask him if
he would answer a question.
' That is as may be, M. de Marsac,' he answered lightly.
'You may ask it.'
'You hint at great schemes which you have in hand,
father,' I said. ' You speak of France and Spain and Na-
varre, and kings and Leagues and cardinals ! You talk of
secret strings, and would have me believe that if I comply
with your wishes I shall find you as powerful a patron as
M. de Rosny. But one moment, if you please/ I contin-
ued hastily, seeing that he was about to interrupt me with
such eager assurances as I had already heard; 'tell me
this. With so many irons in the fire, why did you interfere
with one old gentlewoman for the sake of a few crowns ? '
' I will tell you even that,' he answered, his face flushing
at my tone. ' Have you ever heard of an elephant ? Yes.
Well, it has a trunk, you know, with which it can either
drag an oak from the earth or lift a groat from the ground.
It is so with me. But again you ask,' he continued with an
airy grimace, ' why I wanted a few crowns. Enough that
I did. There are going to be two things in the world, and
two only, M. de Marsac : brains and money. The former I
have, and had : the latter I needed and toolL'
' Money and brains ? ' I said, looking at him thought-
fully.
' Yes,' he answered, his eyes sparkling, his thin nostrils
beginning to dilate. ' Give me these two, and I will rule
France ! '
' You will rule France ? ' I exclaimed, amazed beyond
measure by his audacity. ' You, man ? '
'Yes, I,' he answered, with abominable coolness. 'I,
priest, monk, Churchman, clerk. You look surprised, but
mark you, sir, there is a change going on. Our time is
coming, and yours is going. What hampers our lord the
king and shuts him up in Blois, while rebellions stalk
through France ? Lack of men ? No ; but lack of money;
216 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
Who can get the money for him you the soldier, or I the
clerk ? A thousand times, I ! Therefore, my time is coin-
ing, and before you die you will see a priest rule France.'
'God forbid it should be you,' I answered scornfully.
'As you please/ he answered, shrugging his shoulders,
and assuming in a breath a mask of humility which sat as
ill on his monstrous conceit as ever nun's veil on a trooper.
' Yet it may even be I ; by the favour of the Holy Catholic
Church, whose humble minister I am.'
I sprang up with a great oath at that, having no stomach
for more of the strange transformations, in which this man
delighted, and whereof the last had ever the air of being
the most hateful. 'You villain!' I cried, twisting my
moustaches, a habit I have when enraged. ' And so you
would make me a stepping-stone to your greatness. You
would bribe me a soldier and a gentleman. Go, before I
do you a mischief. That is all I have to say to you. Go !
You have your answer. I will tell you nothing not a jot
or a tittle. Begone from my room ! '
He fell back a step in his surprise, and stood against the
table biting his nails and scowling at me, fear and chagrin
contending with half a dozen devils for the possession of
his face. ' So you have been deceiving me,' he said slowly,
and at last. *
' I have let you deceive yourself,' I answered, looking at
him with scorn, but with none of the fear with which he
had for a while inspired me. ' Begone, and do your
worst.'
' You know what you are doing,' he said. ' I have that
will hang you, M. de Marsac or worse.'
' Go ! ' I cried.
'You have thought of your friends,' he continued
mockingly.
' Go ! ' I said.
' Of Mademoiselle de la Vire, if by any chance she fall
into my hands ? It will not be hanging for her. You
remember the two Foucauds ? ' and he laughed.
MEN- CALL IT CHANCE 217
The vile threat, which I knew he had used to my mother,
so worked upon me that I strode forward unable to control
myself longer. In another moment I had certainly taken
him by the throat and squeezed the life out of his miserable
carcase, had not Providence in its goodness intervened to
save me. The door, on which he had already laid his hand
in terror, opened suddenly. It admitted Simon, who,
closing it behind him, stood looking from one to the other
of us in nervous doubt ; divided between that respect for
the priest which a training at the Sorbonne had instilled
into him, and the rage which despair arouses in the
weakest.
His presence, while it checked me in my purpose, seemed
to give Father Antoine courage, for the priest stood his
ground, and even turned to me a second time, his face dark
with spite and disappointment. ' Good,' he said hoarsely.
' Destroy yourself if you will ! I advise you to bar your
door, for in an hour the guards will be here to fetch you to
the question.'
Simon cried out at the threat, so that I turned and
looked at the lad. His knees were shaking, his hair stood
on end.
The priest saw his terror and his own opportunity. ' Ay,
in an hour,' he continued slowly, looking at him with cruel
eyes. ' In an hour, lad ! You must be fond of pain to
court it, and out of humour with life to throw it away.
Or stay,' he continued abruptly, after considering Simon's
agony for a moment, and doubtless deducing from it a last
hope, ' I will be merciful. I will give you one more
chance.'
'And yourself ? ' I said with a sneer.
'As you please,' he answered, declining to be diverted
from the trembling lad, whom his gaze seemed to fascinate.
' I will give you until half an hour after sunset this
evening to reconsider the matter. If you make up your
minds to accept my terms, meet me then. I leave to-night
for Paris, and I will give yo \intil the last moment. But,'
218 A GENTLEMAN OF FKANCE
he continued grimly, ' if you do not meet me, or, meeting
me, remain obstinate God do so to me, and more also, if
you see the sun rise thrice.'
Some impulse, I know not what, seeing that I had no
thought of accepting his terms or meeting him, led me to
ask briefly, ' Where ? '
'On the Parvis of the Cathedral,' he answered after a
moment's calculation. 'At the north-east corner, half an
hour after sunset. It is a quiet spot.'
Simon uttered a stifled exclamation. And then for a
moment there was silence in the room, while the lad
breathed hard and irregularly, and I stood rooted to the
spot, looking so long and so strangely at the priest that
Father Antoine laid his hand again on the door and glanced
uneasily behind him. Nor was he content until he had hit
on, as he fancied, the cause of my strange regard.
' Ha ! ' he said, his thin lip curling in conceit at his
astuteness, ' I understand. You think to kill me to-night ?
Let me tell you, this house is watched. If you leave here
to meet me with any companion unless it be M. d'Agen,
whom I can trust I shall be warned, and be gone before
you reach the rendezvous. And gone, mind you,' he added,
with a grim smile, ' to sign your death-warrant.'
He went out with that, closing the door behind him ; and
we heard his step go softly down the staircase. I gazed at
Simon, and he at me, with all the astonishment and awe
which it was natural we should feel in presence of so
remarkable a coincidence.
For by a marvel the priest had named the same spot and
the same time as the sender of the velvet knot !
'He will go,' Simon said, his face flushed and his voice
trembling, 'and they will go.'
'And in the dark t^ey will not know him,' I muttered.
'He is about my height. They will take him for me!'
'And kill him!' Simon cried hysterically. 'They will
kill him ! He goes to his death, monsieur. It is the finger
of God.'
THE KING^S FACE 219
CHAPTER XX.
THE KING'S FACE.
IT seemed so necessary to bring home the crime to Bruhl
should the priest really perish in the trap laid for me, that
I came near to falling into one of those mistakes to which
men of action are prone. For my first impulse was to follow
the priest to the Parvis, closely enough, if possible, to detect
the assassins in the act, and with sufficient force, if I could
muster it, to arrest them. The credit of dissuading me
from this course lies with Simon, who pointed out its dan-
gers in so convincing a manner that I was brought with
little difficulty to relinquish it.
Instead, acting on his advice, I sent him to M. d'Agen's
lodging, to beg that young gentleman to call upon me before
evening. After searching the lodging and other places in
vain, Simon found M. d'Agen in the tennis-court at the
Castle, and, inventing a crafty excuse, brought him to my
lodging a full hour before the time.
My visitor was naturally surprised to find that I had
nothing particular to say to him. I dared not tell him
what occupied my thoughts, and for the rest invention
failed me. But his gaiety and those pretty affectations on
which he spent an infinity of pains, for the purpose, appar-
ently, of hiding the sterling worth of a character deficient
neither in courage nor backbone, were united to much good
nature. Believing at last that I had sent for him in a fit of
the vapours, he devoted himself to amusing me and abusing
Bruhl a very favourite pastime with him. And in this
way he made out a call of two hours.
I had not long to wait for proof of Simon's wisdom in
taking this precaution. We thought it prudent to keep
within doors after our guest's departure, and so passed the
night in ignorance whether anything had happened or not.
But about seven next morning one of the Marquis's servants,
220 A GENTLEMAN" OF FRANCE
despatched by M. d'Agen, burst in upon us with the news
which was no news from the moment his hurried footstep
sounded on the stairs that Father Antoine had been set
upon and killed the previous evening !
I heard this confirmation of my hopes with grave thank-
fulness ; Simon with so much emotion that when the mes-
senger was gone he sat down on a stool and began to sob
and tremble as if he had lost his mother, instead of a mortal
foe. I took advantage of the occasion to read him a sermon
on the end of crooked courses; nor could I myself recall
without a shudder the man's last words to me ; or the law-
less and evil designs in which he had rejoiced, while standing
Gin the very brink of the pit which was to swallow up both
him and them in everlasting darkness.
Naturally, the uppermost feeling in my mind was relief.
1 was free once more. In all probability the priest had
kept his knowledge to himself, and without him his agents
would be powerless. Simon, it is true, heard that the town
yas much excited by the event ; and that many attributed
ifc to the Huguenots. But we did not suffer ourselves to be
depressed by this, nor had I any foreboding until the sound
of a second hurried footstep mounting the stairs reached
our ears.
I knew the step in a moment for M. d'Agen's, and some-
thing ominous in its ring brought me to my feet before he
opened the door. Significant 'as was his first hasty look
round the room, he recovered at sight of me all his habitual
sang-froid. He saluted me, and spoke coolly, though rapidly.
But he panted, and I noticed in a moment that he had lost
his lisp.
<I am happy in finding you,' he said, closing the door
carefully behind him, 'for I am the bearer of ill news, and
there is not a moment to be lost. The king has signed an
order for your instant consignment to prison, M. de Marsac,
and, once there, it is difficult to say what may not happen.'
' My consignment ? ' I exclaimed. I may be pardoned
if the news for a moment found me unprepared.
THE KfNG^S FACE 221
* Yes,' he replied quickly. ' The king has signed it at
the instance of Marshal Retz.'
* But for what ? ' I cried in amazement.
' The murder of Father Antoine. You will pardon me/
he continued urgently, 'but this is no time for words. The
Provost-Marshal is even now on- his way to arrest you.
Your only hope is to evade him, and gain an audience of
the king. I have persuaded my uncle to go with you, and
he is waiting at his lodgings. There is not a moment to be
lost, however, if you would reach the king's presence before
you are arrested.'
'But I am innocent ! ' I cried.
' I know it,' M. d'Agen answered, ' and can prove it.
But if you cannot get speech of the king innocence will
avail you nothing. You have powerful enemies. Come
without more ado, M. de Marsac, I pray,' he added.
His manner, even more than his words, impressed me
with a sense of urgency ; and postponing for a time my own
judgment, I hurriedly thanked him for his friendly offices.
Snatching up my sword, which lay on a chair, I buckled
it on ; for Simon's fingers trembled so violently he could
give me no help. This done I nodded to M. d'Agen to go
first, and followed him from the room, Simon attending us
of his own motion. It would be then about eleven o'clock
in the forenoon.
My companion ran down the stairs without ceremony,
and so quickly it was all I could do to keep up with him.
At the outer door he signed me to stand, and darting him-
self into the street, he looked anxiously in the direction of
the Rue St. Denys. Fortunately the coast was still clear,
and he beckoned to me to follow him. I did so and start-
ing to walk in the opposite direction as fast as we could, in
less than a minute we had put a corner between us and the
house.
Our hopes of escaping unseen, however, were promptly
dashed. The house, I have said, stood in a quiet by-street,
which was bounded on the farther side by a garden-wall but-
222 A GENTLEMAAT OF FRANCE
tressed at intervals. We had scarcely gone a dozen paces
from my door when a man slipped from the shelter of one of
these buttresses, and after a single glance at us, set off to
run towards the Hue St. Denys.
M. d'Agen looked back and nodded. 'There goes the
news,' he said. ' They will try to cut us off, but I think we
have the start of them.'
I made no reply, feeling that I had resigned myself
entirely into his hands. But as we passed through the Hue
de Valois, in part of which a market was held at this hour,
attracting a considerable concourse of peasants and others,
I fancied I detected signs of unusual bustle and excitement.
It seemed unlikely that news of the priest's murder should
affect so many people and to such a degree, and I asked
M. d'Agen what it meant.
' There is a rumour abroad,' he answered, without slack-
ening speed, ' that the king intends to move south to Tours
at once.'
I muttered my surprise and satisfaction. ' He will come
to terms with the Huguenots then ? ' I said.
' It looks like it,' M. d'Agen rejoined. ' Retz's party are
in an ill-humour on that account, and will wreak it on you if
they get a chance. On guard ! ' he added abruptly. ' Here
are two of them ! '
As he spoke we emerged from the crowd, and I saw, hah'
a dozen paces in front of us, and coming to meet us, a
couple of Court gallants, attended by as many servants,
They espied us at the same moment, and came across thf*
street, which was tolerably wide at that part, with the
evident intention of stopping us. Simultaneously, however,
we crossed to take their side, and so met them face to face
in the middle of the way.
' M. d'Agen,' the foremost exclaimed, speaking in a haughty
tone, and with a dark side glance at me, ' I am sorry to see
you in such company ! Doubtless you are not aware that
this gentleman is the subject of an order which has even
now been issued to the Provost-Marshal.'
THE KING^S FACE 223
< And if so, sir ? What of that ? ' my companion lisped
in his silkiest tone.
' What of that ? ' the other cried, frowning, and pushing
slightly forward.
' Precisely,' M. d'Agen repeated, laying his hand on his
hilt and declining to give back. ' I am not aware that his
Majesty has appointed you Provost-Marshal, or that you
have any warrant, M. Villequier, empowering you to stop
gentlemen in the public streets.'
M. Villequier reddened with anger. ' You are young,
M. d'Agen,' he said, his voice quivering, ' or I would make
you pay dearly for that ! '
'My friend is not young,' M. d'Agen retorted, bowing.
He is a gentleman of birth, M. Villequier; by repute, as I
learned yesterday, one of the best swordsmen in France,
and no Gascon. If you feel inclined to arrest him, do so,
I pray. And I will have the honour of engaging your son.'
As we had all by this time our hands on our swords, there
needed but a blow to bring about one of those street brawls
which were more common then than now. A number of
market-people, drawn to the spot by our raised voices, had
gathered round, and were waiting eagerly to see what would
happen. But Villequier, as rny companion perhaps knew,
was a Gascon in heart as well as by birth, and seeing our
determined aspects, thought better of it. Shrugging his
shoulders with an affectation of disdain which imposed on
no one, he signalled to his servants to go on, and himself
stood aside.
' I thank you for your polite offer,' he said with an evil
smile, ' and will remember it. But as you say, sir, I am not
the Provost-Marshal.'
Paying little heed to his words, we bowed, passed him,
and hurried on. But the peril was not over. Not only had
the rencontre cost us some precious minutes, but the Gascon,
after letting us proceed a little way, followed us. And
word being passed by his servants, as we supposed, that
one of us was the murderer of Father Antoine, the rumour
224 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
spread through the crowd like wildfire, and in a few mo-
ments we found ourselves attended by a troop of canaille
who, hanging on our skirts, caused Simon Meix no little
apprehension. Notwithstanding the contempt which M.
d'Agen, whose bearing throughout was admirable, expressed
for them, we might have found it necessary to turn and
teach them a lesson had we not reached M. de Eambouillet's
in the nick of time ; where we found the door surrounded
by half a dozen armed servants, at sight of whom our per-
secutors fell back with the cowardice which is usually found
in that class.
If I had been tempted of late to think M. de Rambouillet
fickle, I had no reason to complain now ; whether his atti-
tude was due to M. d'Agen's representations, or to the
reflection that without me the plans he had at heart must
miscarry. I found him waiting within, attended by three
gentlemen, all cloaked and ready for the road ; while the air
of purpose which sat on his brow indicated that he thought
the crisis no common one. Not a moment was lost, even in
explanations. Waving me to the door again, and exchang
ing a few sentences with his nephew, he gave the word to
start, and we issued from the house in a body. Doubtless
the fact that those who sought to ruin me were his political
enemies had some weight with him ; for I saw his face
harden as his eyes met those of M. de Villequier, who
passed slowly before the door as we came out. The Gascon,
however, was not the man to interfere with so large a party,
and dropped back ; while M. de Rambouillet, after exchang-
ing a cold salute with him, led the way towards the Castle
at a round pace. His nephew and I walked one on either
side of him, and the others, to the number of ten or eleven,
pressed on behind in a compact body, our cortege presenting
so determined a front that the crowd, which had remained
hanging about the door, fled every way. Even some peace-
able folk who found themselves in our road took the pre-
caution of slipping into doorways, or stood aside to give us
the full width of the street.
THE KING^S FACE 225
I remarked and I think it increased my anxiety that
our leader was dressed with more than usual care and rich-
ness, but, unlike his attendants, wore no arms. He took
occasion, as we hurried along, to give me a word of advice.
<M. de Marsac,' he said, looking at me suddenly, 'my
nephew has given me to understand that you place yourself
entirely in my hands.'
I replied that I asked for no better fortune, and, whatever
the event, thanked him from the bottom of my heart.
' Be pleased then to keep silence until I bid you speak,'
he replied sharply, for he was one of those whom a sudden
stress hours and exacerbates. ' And, above all, no violence
without my orders. We are about to fight a battle, and a
critical one, but it must be won with our heads. If we can
we will keep you out of the Provost-Marshal's hands.'
And if not ? I remembered the threats Father Antoine
had used, and in a moment I lost sight of the street with
all its light and life and movement. I felt no longer the
wholesome stinging of the wind. I tasted instead a fetid
air, and saw round me a narrow cell and masked figures, and
in particular a swatby man in a leather apron leaning over
a brazier, from whim came lurid flames. And I was bound.
I experienced that atter helplessness which is the last test
of courage. The r .an came forward, and then then, thank
God ! the vision passed away. An exclamation to which
M. d'Agen gave vent, brought me back to the present, and
to the blessed knowledge that the fight was not yet over.
We were within a score of paces, I found, of the Castle
gates : but so were also a second party, who had just de-
bouched from a side-street, and now hurried on, pace for
pace, with us, with the evident intention of forestalling us.
The race ended in both companies reaching the entrance at
the same time, with the consequence of some jostling taking
place amongst the servants. This must have led to blows
but for the strenuous commands which M. de Rambouillet
had laid upon his followers. I found myself in a moment
confronted by a row of scowling faces, while a dozen threat-
226 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
erring hands were stretched out towards me, and. as many
voices, among which I recognised Fresnoy's, cried out
tumultuously, ' That is he ! That is the one ! '
An elderly man in a quaint dress stepped forward, a paper
in his hand, and, backed as he w?~ by half a dozen halber-
diers, would in a moment have laid hands on me if M. de
Rambouillet had not intervened with a negligent air of
authority, which sat on him the more gracefully as he held
nothing but a riding-switch in his hands. 'Tut, tut ! What
is this?' he said lightly. 'I am not wont to have my people
interfered with, M. Provost, without my leave. You know
me, I suppose?'
' Perfectly, M. le Marquis,' the man answered with dogged
respect ; ' but this is by the king's special command.'
' Very good,' my patron answered, quietly eyeing the faces
behind the Provost-Marshal, as if he were making a note of
them ; which caused some of the gentlemen manifest uneasi-
ness. ' That is soon seen, for we are even now about to seek
speech with his Majesty.'
'Not this gentleman,' the Provost-Marshal answered
firmly, raising his hand again. 'I car not let him pass.'
'Yes, this gentleman too, by your leave,' the Marquis
retorted, lightly putting the hand aside with his carie.
' Sir,' said the other, retreating a step and speaking Avith
some heat, 'this is no jest with all respect. I hold the
king's own order, and it may not be resisted.'
The nobleman tapped his silver comfit-box and smiled.
'I shall be the last to resist it if you have it,' he said
languidly.
'You may read it for yourself,' the Provost-Marshal
answered, his patience exhaiisted.
M. de Rambouillet took the parchment with the ends of
his fingers, glanced at it, and gave it back. 'As I thought,'
he said, ' a manifest forgery.'
' A forgery ! ' cried the officer, crimson with indignation.
' And I had it from the hands of the king's own secretary ! '
At this those behind murmured, some 'shame,' and some
THE KING^S FACE 227
one thing, and some another all with an air so threatening
that the Marquis's gentlemen closed up behind him, and
M. d'Agen laughed rudely.
But M. de Rambouillet remained unmoved. 'You may
have had it from whom you please, sir,' he said. ' It is a
forgery, and I shall resist its execution. If you choose to
await me here, I will give you my word to render this
gentleman to you within an hour, should the order hold
good. If you will not wait, I shall command my servants
to clear the way, and if ill happen, then the responsibility
will lie with you.'
He spoke in so resolute a manner it was not difficult to
see that something more was at stake than the arrest of a
single man. This was so ; the real issue was whether the
king, with whose instability it was difficult to cope, should
fall back into the hands of his old advisers or not. My
arrest was a move in the game intended as a counterblast
to the victory which M. de Rambouillet had gained when
he persuaded the king to move to Tours ; a city in the
neighbourhood of the Huguenots, and a place of arms
whence union with them would be easy.
The Provost-Marshal could, no doubt, make a shrewd
guess at these things. He knew that the order he had
would be held valid or not according as one party or the
other gained the mastery ; and, seeing M. de Rambouillet's
resolute demeanour, he gave way. Rudely interrupted more
than once by his attendants, among whom were some of
Bruhl's men, he muttered an ungracious assent to our pro-
posal ; on which, and without a moment's delay, the Marquis
took me by the arm and hurried me across the courtyard.
And so far, well. My heart began to rise. But, for the
Marquis, as we mounted the staircase the anxiety he had
dissembled while we faced the Provost-Marshal, broke out
in angry mutterings ; from which I gathered that the crisis
was yet to come. I was not surprised, therefore, when an
usher rose on our appearance in the antechamber, and,
quickly crossing the floor, interposed between us and the
228 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
door of the chamber, informing the Marquis with a low
obeisance that his Majesty was engaged.
' He will see me,' M. de Rambouillet cried, looking
haughtily round on the sneering pages and lounging court-
iers, who grew civil under his eye.
* I have particular orders, sir, to admit no one,' the man
answered.
'Tut, tut, they do not apply to me,' my companion
retorted, nothing daunted. 'I know the business on which
the king is engaged, and I am here to assist him.' And
raising his hand he thrust the startled official aside, and
hardily pushed the doors of the chamber open.
The king, surrounded by half a dozen persons, was in the
a,ct of putting on his riding-boots. On hearing us, he
turned his head with a startled air, and dropped in his con-
fusion one of the ivory cylinders he was using ; while his
aspect, and that of the persons who stood round him, re-
minded me irresistibly of a party of schoolboys detected in
a fault.
He recovered himself, it is true, almost immediately ; and
turning his back to us, continued to talk to the persons
round him on such trifling subjects as commonly engaged
him. He carried on this conversation in a very free way,
studiously ignoring our presence; but it was plain he re-
mained aware of it, and even that he was uneasy under the
cold and severe gaze which the Marquis, who seemed in
nowise affrighted by his reception, bent upon him.
I, for my part, had no longer any confidence. Nay, I
came near to regretting that I had persevered in an attempt
so useless. The warrant which awaited 'me at the gates
seemed less formidable than his Majesty's gi-o wing displeas-
ure ; which I saw I was incurring by remaining where I
was. It needed not the insolent glance of Marshal Retz,
who lounged smiling by the king's hand, or the laughter of
a couple of pages who stood at the head of the chamber, to
deprive me of my last hope ; while some things which
might have cheered me the uneasiness of some about the
THE KING^S FACE 229
king, and the disquietude which underlay Marshal Retz's
manner escaped my notice altogether.
What I did see clearly was that the king's embarrassment
was fast changing to anger. The paint which reddened his
cheeks prevented any alteration in his colour being visible,
but his frown and the nervous manner in which he kept
taking off and putting on his jewelled cap betrayed him.
At length, signing to one of his companions to follow,
lie moved a little aside to a window, whence, after a few
moments, the gentleman came to us.
' M. de Rambouillet,' he said, speaking coldly and for-
mally, ' his Majesty is displeased by this gentleman's pres-
ence, and requires him to withdraw forthwith.'
' His Majesty's word is law,' my patron answered, bowing
low, and speaking in a clear voice audible throughout the
chamber, 'but the matter which brings this gentleman here
is of the utmost importance, and touches his Majesty's
person.'
M. de Retz laughed jeeringly. The other courtiers looked
grave. The king shrugged his shoulders with a peevish
gesture, but after a moment's hesitation, during which he
looked first at Retz and then at M. de Rambouillet, he
signed to the Marquis to approach.
' Why have you brought him here ? ' he muttered sharply,
looking askance at me. 'He should have been bestowed
according to my orders.'
' He has information for your Majesty's private ear,'
Rambouillet answered. And he looked so meaningly at
the king that Henry, I think, remembered on a sudden his
compact with Rosny, and my part in it ; for he started with
the air of a man suddenly awakened. ' To prevent that in-
formation reaching you, sire,' my patron continued, 'his
enemies have practised on your Majesty's well-known sense
of justice.'
' Oh, but stay, stay ! ' the king cried, hitching forward the
scanty cloak he wore, which barely came down to his waist.
'The man has killed a priest ! He has killed a priest, man !'
230 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
he repeated with confidence, as if he had now got hold of
the right argument.
' That is not so, sire, craving your Majesty's pardon,' M.
de Rambouillet replied with the utmost coolness.
'Tut! Tut! The evidence is clear,' the king said pee-
vishly.
'As to that, sire,' my companion rejoined, 'if it is of the
murder of Father Antoine he is accused, I say boldly that
there is none.'
'Then there you are mistaken!' the king answered. 'I
heard it with my own ears this morning.'
' Will you deign, sire, to tell me its nature ? ' M. de
Rambouillet persisted.
But on that Marshal Retz thought it necessary to inter-
vene. 'Need we turn his Majesty's chamber into a court of
justice?' he said smoothly. Hitherto he had not spoken;
trusting, perhaps, to the impression he had already made
upon the king.
M. de Rambouillet took no notice of him.
' But Bruhl,' said the king, ' you see, Bruhl says '
'Bruhl !' my companion replied, with so much contempt
that Henry started. l Surely your Majesty has not taken
his word against this gentleman, of all people ? '
Thus reminded, a second time, of the interests entrusted
to me, and of the advantage which Bruhl would gain by my
disappearance, the king looked first confused, and then an-
gry. He vented his passion in one or two profane oaths,
with the childish addition that we were all a set of traitors,
and that he had no one whom he could trust. But my
companion had touched the right chord at last; for when the
king grew more composed, he waved aside Marshal Retz's
protestations, and sullenly bade Rambouillet say what he
had to say.
'The monk was killed, sire, about sunset,' he answered.
' Now my nephew, M. d'Agen, is without, and will tell your
Majesty that he was with this gentleman at his lodgings
from about an hour before sunset last evening until a full
THE KING^S FACE 231
hour after. Consequently, M. de Marsac can hardly be the
assassin, and M. le Marechal must look elsewhere if he
wants vengeance.'
'Justice, sir, not vengeance,' Marshal Retz said with a
dark glance. His keen Italian face hid his trouble well,
but a little pulse of passion beating in his olive cheek be-
trayed the secret to those who knew him. He had a harder
part to play than his opponent; for while Rambouillet's
hands were clean, Retz knew himself a traitor, and liable
at any moment to discovery and punishment.
' Let M. d'Agen be called,' Henry said curtly.
'And if your Majesty pleases,' Retz added, 'M. de Bruhl
also. If you really intend, sire, that is, to reopen a matter
which I thought had been settled.'
The king nodded obstinately, his face furrowed with ill-
temper. He kept his shifty eyes, which seldom met those
of the person he addressed, on the floor ; and this accentu-
ated the awkward stooping carriage which was natural to
him. There were seven or eight dogs of exceeding small-
ness in the room, and while we waited for the persons who
had been summoned, he kicked, now one and now another
of the baskets which held them, as if he found in this some
vent for his ill-humour.
The witnesses presently appeared, followed by several
persons, among whom were the Dukes of Nevers and
Merco3ur, who came to ride out with the king, and M.
de Crillon ; so that the chamber grew passably full. The
two dukes nodded formally to the Marquis, as they passed
him, but entered into a muttered conversation with Retz,
who appeared to be urging them to press his cause. They
seemed to decline, however, shrugging their short cloaks as
if the matter were too insignificant. Crillon on his part
cried audibly, and with an oath, to know what the matter
was ; and being informed, asked whether all this fuss was
being made about a damned shaveling monk.
Henry, whose tenderness for the cowl was well known,
darted an angry glance at him, but contented himself with
232 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
saying sharply to M. d'Agen, 'Now, sir, what do you know
about the matter?'
' One moment, sire,' M. Rambouillet cried, interposing
before Francois could answer. f Craving your Majesty's
pardon, you have heard M. de Bruhl's account. May I, as
a favour to myself, beg you, sire, to permit us also to hear
it?'
1 What ? ' Marshal Retz exclaimed angrily, ' are we to be
the judges, then, or his Majesty ? Arnidieu ! ' he contin-
ued hotly, ' what, in the fiend's name, have we to do with
it ? I protest 'fore Heaven '
1 Ay, sir, and what do you protest ? ' my champion re-
torted, turning to him with stern disdain.
'Silence!' cried the king, who had listened almost be-
wildered. ' Silence ! By God, gentlemen,' he continued,
his eye travelling round the circle with a sparkle of royal
anger in it not unworthy of his crown, 'you forget your-
selves. I will have none of this quarrelling in my presence
or out of it. I lost Quelus and Maugiron that way, and loss
enough, and I will have none of it, I say ! M. de Bruhl,'
he added, standing erect, and looking for the moment, with
all his paint and frippery, a king, l M. de Bruhl, repeat
your story.'
The feelings with which I listened to this controversy
may be imagined. Devoured in turn by hope and fear as
now one side and now the other seemed likely to prevail, I
confronted at one moment the gloom of the dungeon, and
at another tasted the air of freedom, which had never
seemed so sweet before. Strong as these feelings were,
however, they gave way to curiosity at this point ; when I
heard Bruhl called, and saw him come forward at the king's
command. Knowing this man to be himself guilty, I mar-
velled with what face he would present himself before all
those eyes, and from what depths of impudence he could
draw supplies in such an emergency.
I need not have troubled myself, however, for he was
fully equal to the occasion. His high colour and piercing
THE KING^S FACE 233
black eyes met the gaze of friend and foe alike without
flinching. Dressed well and elegantly, he wore his raven
hair curled in the mode, and looked alike gay, handsome,
and imperturbable. If there was a suspicion of coarseness
about his bulkier figure, as he stood beside M. d'Agen, who
was the courtier perfect and point devise, it went to the
scale of sincerity, seeing that men naturally associate truth
with strength.
'I know no more than this, sire,' he said easily; 'that,
happening to cross the Parvis at the moment of the mur-
der, I heard Father Antoine scream. He uttered four words
only, in the tone of a man in mortal peril. They were '
and here the speaker looked for an instant at me ' Ha I
Marsac ! A moi ! '
'Indeed ! ' M. de Rambouillet said, after looking to the king
for permission. ' And that was all ? You saw nothing ? '
Bruhl shook his head. ' It was too dark,' he said.
' And heard no more ? '
'No.'
'Do I understand, then,' the Marquis continued slowly,
'that M. de Marsac is arrested because the priest God
rest his soul ! cried to him for help ? '
' For help ? ' M. de Retz exclaimed fiercely.
' For help ? ' said the king, surprised. And at that the
most ludicrous change fell upon the faces of all. The king
looked puzzled, the Duke of Nevers smiled, the Duke of
Mercosur laughed aloud. Crillon cried boisterously, ' Good
hit!' and the majority, who wished no better than to
divine the winning party, grinned broadly, whether they
would or no.
To Marshal Retz, however, and Bruhl, that which to
everyone else seemed an amusing retort had a totally
different aspect; while the former turned yellow with
chagrin and came near to choking, the latter looked as
chapfallen and startled as if his guilt had been 'that
moment brought home to him. Assured by the tone of the
monk's voice which must, indeed, have thundered in his
234 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
ears that my name was uttered in denunciation by one
who thought me his assailant, he had chosen to tell the
truth without reflecting that words, so plain to him, might
bear a different construction when repeated.
' Certainly the words seem ambiguous/ Henry muttered.
'But it was Marsac killed him/ Retz cried in a rage.
' It is for some evidence of that we are waiting/ my
champion answered suavely.
The Marshal looked helplessly at Nevers and Mercosur,
who commonly took part with him ; but apparently those
noblemen had not been primed for this occasion. They
merely shook their heads and smiled. In the momentary
silence which followed, while all looked curiously at Bruhl,
who could not conceal his mortification, M. d'Ageu stepped
forward.
'If your Majesty will permit me/ he said, a malicious
simper crossing his handsome face I had often remarked
his extreme dislike for Bruhl without understanding it ' I
think I can furnish some evidence more to the point than
that to which M. de Bruhl has with so much fairness
restricted himself.' He then went on to state that he had
had the honour of being in my company at the time of the
murder; and he added, besides, so many details as to
exculpate me to the satisfaction of any candid person.
The king nodded. 'That settles the matter/ he said,
with a sigh of relief. ' You think so, Mercosur, do you
not ? Precisely. Villequier, see that the order respecting
M. de Marsac is cancelled.'
M. de Eetz could not control his wrath on hearing this
direction given. 'At this rate/ he cried recklessly, 'we
shall have few priests left here ! We have got a bad name
at Blois, as it is !'
For a moment all in the circle held their breath, while
the king's eyes flashed fire at this daring allusion to the
murder of the Duke de Guise, and his brother the Cardinal.
But it was Henry's misfortune to be ever indulgent in the
wrong place, and severe when severity was either unjust or
TWO WOMEN 235
impolitic. He recovered himself with an effort, and
revenged himself only by omitting to invite the Marshal,
who was now trembling in his shoes, to join his riding-party.
The circle broke up amid some excitement. I stood on
one side with M. d'A.gen, while the king and his immediate
following passed out, and, greatly embarrassed as I was by
the civil congratulating of many who would have seen me
hang with equal goodwill, I was sharp enough to see that
something was brewing between Bruhl and Marshal Retz,
who stood back conversing in low tones. I was not
surprised, therefore, when the former made his way
towards me through the press which filled the antechamber,
and with a lowering brow requested a word with me.
'Certainly,' I said, watching him narrowly, for I knew
him to be both treacherous and a bully. ' Speak on, sir.'
' You have baulked me once and again,' he rejoined, in a
voice which shook a little, as did the fingers with which he
stroked his waxed moustache. ' There is no need of words
between us. I, with one sword besides, will to-morrow at
noon keep the bridge at Chaverny, a league from here. It
is an open country. Possibly your pleasure may lead you
to ride that way with a friend ? '
' You may depend upon me, sir,' I answered, bowing low,
and feeling thankful that the matter was at length to be
brought to a fair and open arbitration. ' I will be there and
in person. For my deputy last night,' I added, searching
his face with a steadfast eye, ' seems to have been some-
what unlucky.'
CHAPTER XXI.
TWO WOMEN.
OUT of compliment, and to show my gratitude, I attended
M. de Rambouillet home to his lodging, and found him as
much pleased with himself, and consequently with me, as I
236 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
was with him. For the time, indeed, I came near to lov-
ing him ; and, certainly, he was a man of high and patriotic
feeling, and of skill and conduct to match. But he lacked
that touch of nature and that power of sympathising with
others which gave to such men as M. de Rosny and the
king, my master, their peculiar charm ; though after what I
have related of him in the last chapter it does not lie in my
mouth to speak ill of him. And, indeed, he was a good man.
When I at last reached my lodging, I found a surprise
awaiting me in the shape of a note which had just arrived
no one knew how. If the manner of its delivery was
mysterious, however, its contents were brief and sufficiently
explicit; for it ran thus: 'Sir, by meeting me three hours
after noon in the square before the House of the Little Sisters
you will do a service at once to yourself and to the under-
signed, Marie de BruhU
That was all, written in a feminine character, yet it was
enough to perplex me. Simon, who had manifested the
liveliest joy at my escape, would have had me treat it as I
had treated the invitation to the Parvis of the Cathedral ;
ignore it altogether I mean. But I was of a different
mind, and this for three reasons, among others : that the
request was straightforward, the time early, and the place
sufficiently public to be an unlikely theatre for violence,
though well fitted for an interview to which the world at
large was not invited. Then, too, the square lay little
more than a bowshot from my lodging, though on the
farther side of the Hue St. Denys.
Besides, I could conceive many grounds which Madame de
Bruhl might have for seeing me ; of which some touched
me nearly. I disregarded Simon's warnings, therefore, and
repaired at the time appointed to the place a clean, paved
square a little off the Rue St. Denys, and entered from the
latter by a narrow passage. It was a spot pleasantly con-
venient for meditation, but overlooked on one side by the
House of the Little Sisters ; in which, as I guessed after-
wards, madame must have awaited ms, for the square when
TWO WOMEN 23>
I entered it was empty, yet in a moment, though no one
came in from the street, she stood beside me. She wore a
mask and long cloak. The beautiful hair and perfect
complexion, which had filled me with so much admiration
at our first meeting in her house, were hidden, but I saw
enough of her figure and carriage to be sure that it was
Madame de Bruhl and no other.
She began by addressing me in a tone of bitterness, for
which I was not altogether unprepared.
' Well, sir,' she exclaimed, her voice trembling with
anger, ' you are satisfied, I hope, with your work ? '
I expected this and had my answer ready. 'I am not
aware, madame,' I said, 'that I have cause to reproach
myself. But, however that may be, I trust you have sum-
moned me for some better purpose than to chide me for
another's fault; though it was my voice which brought
it to light.'
' Why did you shame me publicly ? ' she retorted, thrust-
ing her handkerchief to her lips and withdrawing it again
with a passionate gesture.
'Madame,' I answered patiently I was full of pity for
her, 'consider for a moment the wrong your husband did
me, and how small and inadequate was the thing I did to
him in return.'
' To him ! ' she ejaculated so fiercely that I started. ' It
was to me to me you did it ! What had I done that you
should expose me to the ridicule of those who know no
pity, and the anger of one as merciless ? What had I done,
sir?'
I shook my head sorrowfully. 'So far, madame,' I
answered, ' I allow I owe you reparation, and I will make it
should it ever be in my power. Nay, I will say more,' I
continued, for the tone in which she spoke had wrung my
heart. ' In one point I strained the case against your
husband. To the best of my belief he abducted the lady
who was in my charge, not for the love of her, but for polit-
ical reasons, and as the agent of another.'
238 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
She gasped. ' What ? ' she cried. ' Say that again! *
As I complied she tore off her mask and gazed into my
face with straining eyes and parted lips. I saw then how-
much she was changed, even in these few days how pale
and worn were her cheeks, how dark the circles round her
eyes. 'Will -you swear to it?' she said at last, speaking
with uncontrollable eagerness, while she laid a hand which
shook with excitement on my arm. ' Will you swear to it,
sir?'
'It is true,' I answered steadfastly. I might have added
that after the event her husband had so treated mademoi-
selle as to lead her to fear the worst. But I refrained,
feeling that it was no part of my duty to come between
husband and wife.
She clasped her hands, and for a moment looked passion-
ately upwards, as though she were giving thanks to Heaven j
while the flush of health and loveliness which I had so
much admired returned, and illumined her face in a won-
derful manner. She seemed, in truth and for the moment,
transformed. Her blue eyes filled with tears, her lips
moved ; nor have I ever seen anything bear so near a
resemblance to those pictures of the Virgin Mary which
Romans worship as madame did then.
The change, however, was as evanescent as it was admi-
rable. In an instant she seemed to collapse. She struck
her hands to her face and moaned, and I saw tears, which
she vainly strove to restrain, dropping through her fingers.
1 Too late ! ' she murmured, in a tone of anguish which
wrung my heart. ' Alas, you robbed me of one man, you
give me back another. I know him now for what he is.
If he did not love her then, he doe? now. It is too late ! '
She seemed so much overcome thau I assisted her to reach
a bench which stood against the wall a few paces away ;
nor, I confess, was it without difficulty and much self-
reproach that I limited myself to those prudent offices only
which her state and my duty required. To console her on
the subject of her husband was impossible ; to ignore him,
TWO WOMEff 239
and so to console her, a task which neither my discretion
nor my sense of honour, though sorely tried, permitted me to
undertake.
She presently recovered and, putting on her mask again,
said hurriedly that she had still a word to say to me. 'You
have treated me honestly,' she continued, 'and, though I
have no cause to do anything but hate you, I say in return,
look to yourself ! You escaped last night I know all, for
it was my velvet knot which I had made thinking to send
it to you to procure this meeting that he used as a lure.
But he is not yet at the end of his resources. Look to
yourself, therefore.'
I thought of the appointment I had made with him for
the morrow, but I confined myself to thanking her, merely
saying, as I bowed over the hand she resigned to me in
token of farewell, l Madame, I am grateful. I am obliged
to you both for your warning and your forgiveness.'
Bending her head coldly she drew away her hand. At
that moment, as I lifted my eyes, I saw something which
for an instant rooted me to the spot with astonishment.
In the entrance of the passage which led to the Rue St.
Denys two people were standing, watching us. The one
was Simon Fleix, and the other, a masked woman, a trifle
below the middle height, and clad in a riding-coat, was
Mademoiselle de la Vire !
I knew her in a moment. But the relief I experienced
on seeing her safe and in Blois was not unmixed with an-
noyance that Simon Fleix should have been so imprudent
as to parade her unnecessarily in the street. I felt some-
thing of confusion also on my own account ; for I could
not tell how long she and her escort had been watching me.
And these two feelings were augmented when, after turning
to pay a final salute to Madame de Bruhl, I looked again
towards the passage and discovered that mademoiselle and
her squire were gone.
Impatient as I was, I would not seem to leave madame
rudely or without feeling, after the consideration she had
240 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
shown me in her own sorrow ; and accordingly I waited
uncovered until she disappeared within the ' Little Sisters.'
Then I started eagerly towards my lodging, thinking I
might yet overtake mademoiselle before she entered. I
was destined to meet, however, with another though very
pertinent hindrance. As I passed from the Rue St. Denys
into the quiet of my street I heard a voice calling my
name, and, looking back, saw M. de Rambouillet's equerry,
a man deep in his confidence, running after me. He
brought a message from his master, which he begged me to
consider of the first importance.
' The Marquis would not trust it to writing, sir,' he con-
tinued, drawing me aside into a corner where we were
conveniently retired, ' but he made me learn it by heart.
" Tell M. de Marsac," said he, " that that which he was left
in Blois to do must be done quickly, or not at all. There
is something afoot in the other camp, I am not sure what.
But now is the time to knock in the nail. I know his zeal,
and I depend upon him." ;
An hour before I should have listened to this message
with serious doubts and misgivings. Now, acquainted with
mademoiselle's arrival, I returned M. de Rambouillet an
answer in the same strain, and parting civilly from Bertram,
who was a man I much esteemed, I hastened on to my lodg-
ings, exulting in the thought that the hour and the woman
were come at last, and that before the dawn of another day
I might hope, all being well, to accomplish with honour to
myself and advantage to others the commission which M.
de Rosny had entrusted to me.
I must not deny that, mingled with this, was some ex-
citement at the prospect of seeing mademoiselle again. I
strove to conjure up before me as I mounted the stairs the
exact expression of her face as I had last seen it bending
from the window at Rosny ; to the end that I might have
some guide for my future conduct, and might be less likely
to fall into the snare of a young girl's coquetry. But I
could come now, as then, to no satisfactory or safe con-
LA FEMME DISPOSED 241
elusion, and only felt anew the vexation I had experienced
on losing the velvet knot, which she had given me on that
occasion.
I knocked at the door of the rooms which I had reserved
for her, and which were on the floor below my own ; but I
got no answer. Supposing that Simon had taken her up-
stairs, I mounted quickly, not doubting I should find her
there. Judge of my surprise and dismay when I found
that room also empty, save for the lackey, whom M. de
Eainbouillet had lent me !
'Where are they?' I asked the man, speaking sharply,
and standing with my hand on the door.
'The lady and her woman, sir?' he answered, coming
forward.
' Yes, yes ! ' I cried impatiently, a sudden fear at my
heart.
' She went out immediately after her arrival with Simon
Fleix, sir, and has not yet returned,' he answered.
The words were scarcely out of his mouth before I heard
several persons enter the passage below and begin to ascend
the stairs. I did not doubt that mademoiselle and the lad
had come home another way and been somehow detained ;
and I turned with a sigh of relief to receive them. But
when the persons whose steps I had heard appeared, they
proved to be only M. de Eosny's equerry, stout, burly, and
bright-eyed as ever, and two armed servants.
CHAPTER XXII.
'LA FEMME DISPOSE.'
THE moment the equerry's foot touched the uppermost
stair I advanced upon him. 'Where is your mistress,
man ? ' I said. ' Where is Mademoiselle de la Vire ? Be
quick, tell me what you have done with her.'
Q
242 A GENTLEMAAT OF FRANCE
His face fell amazingly. l Where is she?' he answered,
faltering between surprise and alarm at my sudden on-
slaught. 'Here, she should be. I left her here not an
hour ago. Mon Dieu ! Is she not here now ? '
His alarm increased mine tenfold. ' No ! ' I retorted, ( she
is not ! She is gone ! And you what business had you,
in the fiend's name, to leave her here, alone and unpro-
tected ? Tell me that ! '
He leaned against the balustrade, making no attempt to
defend himself, and seemed, in his sudden terror, anything
but the bold, alert fellow who had ascended the stairs two
minutes before. 'I was a fool,' he groaned. 'I saw your
man Simon here ; and Fauchette, who is as good as a man,
was with her mistress. And I went to stable the horses.
I thought no evil. And now My God!' he added, sud-
denly straightening himself, while his face grew hard and
grim, ' I am undone ! My master will never forgive me ! '
' Did you come straight here ? ' I said, considering that,
after all, he was no more in fault than I had been on a
former occasion.
'We went first to M. de Rosny's lodging,' he answered,
'where we found your message telling us to come here.
We came on without dismounting.'
'Mademoiselle may have gone back, and be there,' I said.
' It is possible. Do you stay here and keep a good look-out,
and I will go and see. Let one of your men come with me/
He uttered a brief assent ; being a man as ready to take
as to give orders, and thankful now for any suggestion
which held out a hope of mademoiselle's safety. Followed
by the servant he selected, I ran down the stairs, and in a
moment was hurrying along the Rue St. Denys. The day
was waning. The narrow streets and alleys were already
dark, but the air of excitement which I had noticed in the
morning still marked the townsfolk, of whom a great num-
ber were strolling abroad, or standing in doorways talking
to their gossips. Feverishly anxious as I was, 1 remarked
the gloom which dwelt on all faces ; but as I set it down
<LA FEMME DISPOSED 243
to the king's approaching departure, and besides was intent
on seeing that those we sought did not by any chance pass
us in the crowd, I thought little of it. Five minutes' walk-
ing brought us to M. de Eosny's lodging. There I knocked
at the door ; impatiently, I confess, and with little hope of
success. But, to my surprise, barely an instant elapsed
before the door opened, and I saw before me Simon Fleix !
Discovering who it was, he cowered back, with a terrified
face, and retreated to the wall with his arm raised.
' You scoundrel ! ' I exclaimed, restraining myself with
difficulty. 'Tell me this moment where Mademoiselle de
la Vire is ! Or, by Heaven, I shall forget what my mother
owed to you, and do you a mischief ! '
For an instant he glared at me viciously, with all his
teeth exposed, as though he meant to refuse aiid more.
Then he thought better of it, and, raising his hand, pointed
sulkily upwards.
' Go before me and knock at the door/ I said, tapping the
hilt of ray dagger with meaning.
Cowed by my manner, he obeyed, and led the way to the
room in which M. de Rambouillet had surprised us on a
former occasion. Here he stopped at the door and knocked
gently ; on which a sharp voice inside bade us enter. I
raised the latch and did so, closing the door behind me.
Mademoiselle, still wearing her riding-coat, sat in a chair
before the hearth, on which a newly kindled fire sputtered
and smoked. She had her back to me, and did not turn on
my entrance, but continued to toy in an absent manner
with the strings of the mask which lay in her lap. Fan-
chette stood bolt upright behind her, with her elbows
squared and her hands clasped ; in such an attitude that I
guessed the maid had been expressing her strong dissatis-
faction with this latest whim of her mistress, and particu-
larly with mademoiselle's imprudence in wantonly exposing
herself, with so inadequate a guard as Simon, in a place
where she had already suffered so much. I was confirmed
in this notion on seeing the woman's harsh countenance
Q2
244 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE
clear at sight of me; though the churlish nod, which was
all the greeting she bestowed on me, seemed to betoken
anything but favour or good-will. She touched her mistress
on the shoulder, however, and said, ' M. de Marsac is here.'
Mademoiselle turned her head and looked at me lan-
guidly, without stirring in her chair or removing the foot
she was warming. ' Good evening,' she said.
The greeting seemed so brief and so commonplace, ignor-
ing, as it did, both the pains and anxiety to which she had
just put me and the great purpose for which we were here
to say nothing of that ambiguous parting which she must
surely remember as well as I that the words I had pre-
pared died on my lips, and I looked at her in honest con-
fusion. All her small face was pale except her lips. Her
brow was dark, her eyes were hard as well as weary. And
not words only failed me as I looked at her, but anger ;
having mounted the stairs hot foot to chide, I felt on a
sudden despite my new cloak and scabbard, my appoint-
ment, and the name I had made at Court the same con-
sciousness of age and shabbiness and poverty which had
possessed me in her presence from the beginning. I mut-
tered, 'Good evening, mademoiselle,' and that was all I
could say I who had frightened the burly Maignan a few
minutes before !
Seeing, I have no doubt, the effect she produced on me,
she maintained for some time an embarrassing silence. At
length she said, frigidly, ' Perhaps M. de Marsac will sit,
Fanchette. Place a chair for him. I am afraid, however,
that after his successes at Court he may find our reception
somewhat cold. But we are only from the country,' she
added, looking at me askance, with a gleam of anger in her
eyes.
I thanked her huskily, saying that I would not sit, as I
could not stay. < Simon lleix,' I continued, finding my
voice with difficulty, 'has, I am afraid, caused you some
trouble by bringing you to this house instead of telling you
that I had made preparation for you at my lodgings.'
*LA FEMME DISPOSE"* 245
* It was not Simon Fleix's fault,' she replied curtly. ' I
prefer these rooms. They are more convenient.'
' They are, perhaps, more convenient,' I rejoined humbly,
'but I have to think of safety, mademoiselle, as you know.
At my house I have a competent guard, and can answer for
your being unmolested.'
' You can send your guard here/ she said with a royal
air.
'But, mademoiselle '
'Is it not enough that I have said that I prefer these
rooms ? ' she replied sharply, dropping her mask on her lap
and looking round at me in undisguised displeasure. ' Are
you deaf, sir ? Let me tell you, I am. in no mood for argu-
ment. I am tired with riding. I prefer these rooms, and
that is enough ! '
Nothing could exceed the determination with which she
said these words, unless it were the malicious pleasure in
thwarting my wishes which made itself seen through the
veil of assumed indifference. I felt myself brought up with
a vengeance, and in a manner the most provoking that could
be conceived. But opposition so childish, so utterly wanton,
by exciting my indignation, had presently the effect of
banishing the peculiar bashfulness I felt in her presence,
and recalling me to my duty.
' Mademoiselle,' I said firmly, looking at her with a fixed
countenance, 'pardon me if I speak plainly. This is no
time for playing with straws. The men from whom you
escaped once are as determined and more desperate now.
By this time they probably know of your arrival. Do,
then, as I ask, I pray and beseech you. Or this time I may
lack the power, though never the will, to save you.'
Wholly ignoring my appeal, she looked into my face for
by this time I had advanced to her side with a whimsical
smile. ' You are really much improved in manner since I
last saw you,' she said.
' Mademoiselle ! ' I replied, baffled and repelled. ' Whal
do you mean ? ;
246 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
' What I say,' she answered, flippantly. ' But it was to
be expected.'
' For shame ! ' I cried, provoked almost beyond bearing
by her ill-timed raillery, 'will you never be serious until
you have ruined us and yourself ? I tell you this house is
not safe for you ! It is not safe for me ! I cannot bring
my men to it, for there is not room for them. If you have
any spark of consideration, of gratitude, therefore '
'Gratitude!' she exclaimed, swinging her mask slowly to
and fro by a ribbon, while she looked up at me as though
my excitement amused her. ' Gratitude 'tis a very pretty
phrase, and means much; but it is for those who serve us
faithfully, M. de Marsac, and not for others. You receive
so many favours, I am told, and are so successful at Court,
that I should not be justified in monopolising your services.'
'But, mademoiselle ' I said in a low tone. And there I
stopped. I dared not proceed.
' Well, sir,' she answered, looking up at me after a mo-
ment's silence, and ceasing on a sudden to play with her toy,
'what is it?'
'You spoke of favours,' I continued, with an effort. 'I
never received but one from a lady. That was at Rosny,
and from your hand.'
' From iny hand ? ' she answered, with an air of cold sur-
prise.
' It was so, mademoiselle.'
'You have fallen into some strange mistake, sir,' she
replied, rousing herself, and looking at me indifferently.
' I never gave you a favour.'
I bowed low. ' If you say you did not, mademoiselle, that
is enough,' I answered.
' Nay, but do not let me do you an injustice, M. de Mar-
sac,' she rejoined, speaking more quickly and in an altered
tone. ' If you can show me the favour I gave you, I shall,
of course, be convinced. Seeing is believing, you know,'
she added, wfth a light nervous laugh, and a gesture of
something like shyness,
<LA FEMME DISPOSE" 1 247
If I had not sufficiently regretted my carelessness, and
loss of the bow at the time, I did so now. I looked at her
in silence, and saw her face, that had for a moment shown
signs of feeling, almost of shame, grow slowly hard again.
1 Well, sir ? ' she said impatiently. ' The proof is easy.'
' It was taken from me ; I believe, by M. de Rosny,' I
answered lamely, wondering what ill-luck had led her to
put the question and press it to this point.
1 It was taken from you ! ' she exclaimed, rising and con-
fronting me with the utmost suddenness, while her eyes
flashed, and her little hand crumpled the mask beyond
future usefulness. ' It was taken from you, sir ! ' she re-
peated, her voice and her whole frame trembling with anger
and disdain. 'Then I thank you, I prefer my version.
Yours is impossible. For let me tell you, when Made-
moiselle de la Vire does confer a favour, it will be on a man
with the power and the wit and the constancy, to keep it,
even from M. de Rosny ! '
Her scorn hurt, though it did not anger me. I felt it to
be in a measure deserved, and raged against myself rather
than against her. But aware through all of the supreme
importance of placing her in safety, I subjected my imme-
diate feelings to the exigencies of the moment and stooped
to an argument which would, I thought, have weight though
private pleading failed.
'Putting myself aside, mademoiselle,' I said, with more
formality than I had yet used, ' there is one consideration
which must weigh with you. The king '
'The king!' she cried, interrupting me violently, her face
hot with passion and her whole person instinct with stub-
born self-will. ' I shall not see the king ! '
'You will not see the king ? ' I repeated in amazement.
' No, I will not ! ' she answered, in a whirl of anger, scorn,
and impetuosity. ' There ! I will not ! I have been made
a toy and a tool long enough, M. de Marsac,' she continued,
' and I will serve others' ends no more. I have made up
my mind. Do not talk to me ; you will do no good, sir. I
248 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
would to Heaven/ she added bitterly, 'I had stayed at Chize
and never seen this place ! '
'But, mademoiselle,' I said, 'you have not thought '
1 Thought ! ' she exclaimed, shutting her small white teeth
so viciously I all but recoiled. 'I have thought enough.
I am. sick of thought. I am going to act now. I will be a
puppet no longer. You may take me to the castle by force
if you will ; but you cannot make me speak.'
I looked at her in the utmost dismay and astonishment ;
being unable at first to believe that a woman who had gone
through so much, had run so many risks, and ridden so many
miles for a purpose, would, when all was done and the hour
come, decline to carry out her plan. I could not believe it,
I say, at first ; and I tried arguments and entreaties without
stint, thinking that she only asked to be entreated or
coaxed.
But I found prayers and even threats breath wasted upon
her ; and beyond these I would not go. I know I have been
blamed by some and ridiculed by others for not pushing the
matter farther ; but those who hav stood face to face with
a woman of spirit a woman whose very frailty and weak-
ness fought for her will better understand the difficulties
with which I had to contend and the manner in which con-
viction was at last borne in on my mind. I had never
before confronted stubbornness of this kind. As made-
moiselle said again and again, I might force her to Court,
but I could not make her speak.
When I had tried every means of persuasion, and still
found no way of overcoming her resolution the while
Fanchette looked on with a face of wood, neither aiding
me nor taking part against me I lost, I confess, in the
chagrin of the moment that sense of duty which hac?
hitherto animated me ; and though my relation to made'
moiselle should have made me as careful as ever of he/
safety, even in her own despite, I left her at last in anger
and went out without saying another word about removing
her a thing which was still in my power. I believe a
'LA FEMME DISPOSED 249
very brief reflection would have recalled me to myself and
my duty ; but the opportunity was not given me, for I had
scarcely reached the head of the stairs before Fanchette
came after me, and called to me in a whisper to stop.
She held a taper in her hand, and this she raised to my
face, smiling at the disorder which she doubtless read
there. ' Do you say that this house is not safe ? ' she
asked abruptly, lowering the light as she spoke.
' You have tried a house in Blois before ? ' I replied with
the same bluntness. 'You should know as well as I,
woman.'
' She must be taken from here, then,' she answered,
nodding her head, cunningly. 'I can persuade her. Do
you send for your people, and be here in half an hour. It
may take me that time to wheedle her. But I shall do it.'
' Then listen,' I said eagerly, seizing the opportunity and
her sleeve and drawing her farther from the door. ' If you
can persuade her to that, you can persuade to all I wish.
Listen, my friend,' I continued, sinking niy voice still
lower. ' If she will see the king for only ten minutes, and
tell him what she knows, I will give you '
' What ? ' the woman asked suddenly and harshly,
drawing at the same time her sleeve from my hand.
'Fifty crowns,' I replied, naming in my desperation a
sum which would seem a fortune to a person in her
position. ' Fifty crowns down, the moment the interview
is over.'
' And for that you would have me sell her ! ' the woman
cried with a rude intensity of passion which struck me like
a blow. ' For shame ! For shame, man ! You persuaded
her to leave her home and her friends, and the country
where she was known ; and now you would have me sell
her! Shame on you! Go!' she added scornfully. 'Go
this instant and get your men. The king, say you ? The
king ! I tell you I would not have her finger ache to save
all your kings ! '
She flounced away with that, and I retired crestfallen ;
250 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
wondering much at the fidelity which Providence, doubtless
for the well-being of the gentle, possibly for the good of
all, has implanted in the humble. Finding Simon, to
whom I had scarce patience to speak, waiting on the stairs
below, I despatched him to Maignan, to bid him come to
me with his men. Meanwhile I watched the house myself
until their arrival, and then, going up, found that Fanchette
had been as good as her word. Mademoiselle, with a
sullen mien, and a red spot on either cheek, consented to
descend, and, preceded by a couple of links, which Maignan
had thoughtfully provided, was escorted safely to my
lodgings ; where I bestowed her in the rooms below my
own, which I had designed for her.
At the door she turned and bowed to me, her face on
fire.
' So far, sir, you have got your way,' she said, breathing
quickly. 'Do not flatter yourself, however, that you will
get it farther even by bribing my woman ! '
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE LAST VALOIS.
I STOOD for a few moments on the stairs, wondering
what I should do in an emergency to which the Marquis's
message of the afternoon attached so pressing a character.
Had it not been for that I might have waited until morning,
and felt tolerably certain of finding mademoiselle in a more
reasonable mood then. But as it was I dared not wait. I
dared not risk the delay, and I came quickly to the
conclusion that the only course open to me was to go at
once to M. de Eambouillet, and tell him frankly how the
matter stood.
Maignan had posted one of his men at the open doorway
leading into the street, and fixed his own quarters on the
THE LAST V ALOIS 251
landing at the top, whence he could overlook an intruder
without being seen himself. Satisfied with the arrange-
ment, I left Rambouillet's man to reinforce him, and took
with me Simon Fleix, of whose conduct in regard to
mademoiselle I entertained the gravest doubts.
The night, I found on reaching the street, was cold, the
sky where it was visible between the eaves being bright
with stars. A sharp wind was blowing, too, compelling us
to wrap our cloaks round U3 and hurry on at a pace which
agreed well with the excitement of my thoughts. Assured
that had mademoiselle been complaisant I might have seen
my mission accomplished within the hour, it was impossible
I should not feel impatient with one who, to gratify a
whim, played with the secrets of a kingdom as if they were
counters, and risked in passing ill-humour the results of
weeks of preparation. And I was impatient, and with her.
But my resentment fell so far short of the occasion that
I wondered uneasily at my own easiness, and felt more
annoyed with myself for failing to be properly annoyed
with her, than inclined to lay the blame where it was due.
It was in vain I told myself contemptuously that she was a
woman, and that women were not accountable. I felt that
the real secret and motive of my indulgence lay, not in
this, but in the suspicion, which her reference to the
favour given me on my departure from Eosny had
converted almost into a certainty, that I was myself the
cause of her sudden ill-humour.
I might have followed this train of thought farther, and
to very pertinent conclusions. But on reaching M. de
Eambouillet's lodging I was diverted from it by the abnor-
mally quiet aspect of the house, on the steps of which half
a dozen servants might commonly be seen lounging. Now
the doors were closed, no lights shone through the windows,
and the hall sounded empty and desolate when I knocked.
Not a lackey hurried to receive me even then ; but the slip-
shod tread of .the old porter, as he came with a lantern to
open, alone broke the silence. I waited eagerly wondering
252 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
what all this could mean ; and when the man at last opened,
and, recognising my face, begged my pardon if he had kept
me waiting I asked him impatiently what was the matter.
'And where is the Marquis ?' I added, stepping inside to
be out of the wind, and loosening my cloak.
' Have you not heard, sir ? ' the man asked, holding up
his lantern to my face. He was an old, wizened, lean fellow.
'It is a break-up, sir, I am afraid, this time.'
'A break-up?' I rejoined, peevishly. 'Speak out, man!
What is the matter ? I hate mysteries.'
' You have not heard the news, sir ? That the Duke of
Mercosur and Marshal Retz, with all their people, left Blois
this afternoon ? '
' No ? ' I answered, somewhat startled. ' Whither are
they gone ? '
' To Paris, it is said, sir, to join the League.'
' But do you mean that they have deserted the king ? ' I
asked.
' For certain, sir ! ' he answered.
'Not the Duke of Mercosur ? ' I exclaimed. ' Why, man,
he is the king's brother-in-law. He owes everything to him.'
'Well, he is gone, sir,' the old man answered positively.
'The news was brought to M. le Marquis about four o'clock
or a little after. He got his people together, and started
after them to try and persuade them to return. Or, so it is
said.'
As. quickly as I could, I reviewed the situation in my
mind. If this strange news were true, and men like Mer-
coeur, who had every reason to stand by the king, as well as
men like Retz, who had long been suspected of disaffection,
were abandoning the Court, the danger must be coming close
indeed. The king must feel his throne already tottering,
and be eager to grasp at any means of supporting it. Under
such circumstances it seemed to be my paramount duty to
reach him ; to gain his ear if possible, and at all risks ; that
I and not Bruhl, Navarre not Turenne, might profit by the
first impulse of self-preservation.
THE LAST VALOIS 253
Bidding the porter shut his door and keep close, I hurried
to the Castle, and was presently more than confirmed in my
resolution. For to my surprise I found the Court in much
the same state as M. de Rambouillet's house. There were
double guards indeed at the gates, who let ine pass after
scrutinising me narrowly ; but the courtyard, which should
have been at this hour ablaze with torches and crowded with
lackeys and grooms, was a dark wilderness, in which half
a dozen links trembled mournfully. Passing through the
doors I found things within in the same state: the hall
ill lit and desolate; the staircase manned only by a few
whispering groups, who scanned me as I passed ; the ante-
chambers almost empty, or occupied by the grey uniforms
of the Svvitzer guards. Where I had looked to see courtiers
assembling to meet their sovereign and assure him of theisr
fidelity, I found only gloomy faces, watchful eyes, andi
mouths ominously closed. An air of constraint and fore,
boding rested on all. A single footstep sounded hollowly.
The long corridors, which had so lately rung with laughter
and the rattle of dice, seemed already devoted to the silence
and desolation which awaited them when the Court should
depart. Where any spoke I caught the name of Guise ;
and I could have fancied that his mighty shadow lay upon
the place and cursed it.
Entering the chamber, I found matters little better there.
His Majesty was not present, nor were any of the Court
ladies ; but half a dozen gentlemen, among whom I recog-
nised Revol, one of the king's secretaries, stood near the
alcove. They looked up on my entrance, as though expect-
ing news, and then, seeing who it was, looked away again
impatiently. The Duke of Nevers was Balking moodily to
and fro before one of the windows, his hands clasped behind
his back : while Biron and Crillon, reconciled by the com-
mon peril, talked loudly on the hearth. I hesitated a mo-
ment, uncertain how to proceed, for I was not yet so
old at Court as to feel at home there. But, at last mak-
ing up my mind, I walked boldly up to Crillon and re-
254 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
quested his good offices to procure me an immediate audience
of the king.
' An audience ? Do you mean you want to see him
alone?' he said, raising his eyebrows and looking whimsi-
cally at Biron.
' That is my petition, M. de Crillon,' I answered firmly,
though my heart sank. ' I am here on M. de Kambouillet's
business, and I need to see his Majesty forthwith.'
' Well, that is straightforward,' he replied, clapping me
on the shoulder. ' And you shall see him. In coming to
Crillon you have come to the right man. Revol,' he con-
tinued, turning to the secretary, 'this gentleman bears a
message from M. de Kambouillet to the king. Take him
to the closet without delay, my friend, and announce him.
I will be answerable for him.'
But the secretary shrugged his shoulders up to his ears.
'It is quite impossible, M. de Crillon,' he said gravely.
'Quite impossible at present.'
' Impossible ! Chut ! I do not know the word,' Crillon
retorted rudely. ' Come, take him at once, and blame me
if ill comes of it. Do you hear ? '
'But his Majesty '
'Well?'
'Is at his devotions,' the secretary said stiffly.
'His Majesty's devotions be hanged!' Crillon rejoined
so loudly that there was a general titter, and M. de Nevers
laughed grimly. 'Do you hear?' the Avennais continued,
his face growing redder and his voice higher, ' or must I
pull your ears, my friend ? Take this gentleman to the
closet, I say, and if his Majesty be angry, tell him it was by
my order. I tell you he comes from Rambouillet.'
I do not know whether it was the threat, or the mention
of M. de Rambouillet's name, which convinced the secretary.
But at any rate, after a moment's hesitation, he acquiesced.
He nodded sullenly to me to follow him, and led the way
to a curtain which masked the door of the closet. I fol-
lowed him across the chamber, after muttering a hasty word
THE LAST VALOIS 255
of acknowledgment to Crillon ; and I had as nearly as pos-
sible reached the door when the bustle of some one entering
the chamber caught my ear. I had just time to turn and
see that this was Bruhl, just time to intercept the dark look
of chagrin and surprise which he fixed on me, and then
Kevol, holding up the curtain, signed to me to enter.
I expected to pass at once into the presence o^ the king,
and had my reverence ready. Instead, I found myself to
my surprise in a small chamber, or rather passage, curtained
at both ends, and occupied by a couple of guardsmen mem-
bers, doubtless, of the Band of the Forty-Five who rose at
my entrance and looked at me dubiously. Their guard-room,
dimly illumined by a lamp of red glass, seemed to me, in
spite of its curtains and velvet bench, and the thick tapes-
try which kept out every breath of wholesome air, the most
sombre I could imagine. And the most ill-omened. But I
had no time to make any long observation ; for Kevol, pass-
ing me brusquely, raised the curtain at the other end, and,
with his finger on his lip, bade me by signs to enter.
I did so as silently, the heavy scent of perfumes striking
me in the face as I raised a second curtain, and stopped
short a pace beyond it ; partly in reverence because kings
love their subjects best at a distance and partly in sur-
prise. For the room, or rather that portion of it in which I
stood, was in darkness; only the farther end being illumined
by a cold pale flood of moonlight, which, passing through a
high, straight window, lay in a silvery sheet on the floor.
For an instant I thought I was alone ; then I saw, resting
against this window, with a hand on either mullion, a tall
figure, having something strange about the head. This
peculiarity presently resolved itself into the turban in
which I had once before seen his Majesty. The king for
he it was was talking to himself. He had not heard me
enter, and having his back to me remained unconscious
of my presence.
I paused in doubt, afraid to advance, anxious to withdraw;
yet uncertain whether I could move again unheard. At this
256 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
moment while I stood hesitating, he raised his voice, and
his words, reaching my ears, riveted my attention, so
strange and eerie were both they and his tone. ' They say
there is ill-luck in thirteen,' he muttered. 'Thirteen Valois
and last ! ' He paused to laugh a wicked, mirthless laugh.
'Ay, Thirteenth! And it is thirteen years since I entered
Paris, a crowned King ! There were Quelus and Maugiron
and St. Megrin and I and lie, I remember. Ah, those days,
those nights ! I would sell my soul to live them again ; had
I not sold it long ago in the living them once ! We were
young then, and rich, and I was king ; and Quelus was an
Apollo ! He died calling on me to save him. And Mau-
giron died, blaspheming God and the saints. And St.
Megrin, he had thirty-four wounds. And he he is dead
too, curse him ! They are all dead, all dead, and it is all
over ! My God ! it is all over, it is all over, it is all over ! '
He repeated the last four words more than a dozen times,
rocking himself to and fro by his hold on the niullione I
trembled as I listened, partly through fear on my owu
account should I be discovered, and partly by reason of the
horror of despair and remorse no, not remorse, regret
which spoke in his monotonous voice. I guessed that some
impulse had led him to draw the curtain from the window
and shade the lamp ; and that then, as he looked down on
the moonlit country, the contrast between it and the vicious,
heated atmosphere, heavy with intrigue and worse, in
which he had spent his strength, had forced itself upon his
mind. For he presently went on.
' France ! There it lies ! And what will they do with
it? Will they cut it up into pieces, as it was before
old Louis XI.? Will Mercosur curse him ! be the most
Christian Duke of Brittany ? And Mayenne, by the grace
of God, Prince of Paris and the Upper Seine ? Or will the
little Prince of Beam beat them, and be Henry IV., King
of France and Navarre, Protector of the Churches ? Curse
him too ! He is thirty-six. He is my age. But he is
young and strong, and has all before him. While I I
THE LAST VALOIS 257
oh, my God, have mercy on me \ Have mercy on me,
God in Heaven ! '
With the last word he fell on his knees on the step
before the window, and burst into such an agony of unmanly
tears and sobbings as I had never dreamed of or imagined,
and least of all in the King of France. Hardly knowing
whether to be more ashamed or terrified, I turned at all risks,
and stealthily lifting the curtain, crept out with infinite
care ; and happily with so much good fortune as to escape
detection. There was space enough between the two
curtains to admit my body and no more; and here I stood
a short while to collect my thoughts. Then, striking my
scabbard against the wall, as though by accident, and
coughing loudly at the same moment, I twitched the cur-
tain aside with some violence and re-entered, thinking that
by these means I had given him warning enough.
But I had not reckoned on the darkness in which the
room lay, or the excitable state in which I had left him.
He heard me, indeed, but being able to see only a tall, in-
distinct figure approaching him, he took fright, and falling
back against the moonlit window, as though he saw a ghost,
thrust out his hand, gasping at the same time two words,
which sounded to me like ' Ha ! Guise ! -'
The next instant, discerning that I fell on my knee
where I stood, and came no nearer, he recovered himself.
With an effort, which his breathing made very apparent,
he asked in an unsteady voice who it was.
'One of your Majesty's most faithful servants/ I an-
swered, remaining on my knee, and affecting to see nothing.
Keeping his face towards me, he sidled to the lamp and
strove to withdraw the shade. But his fingers trembled so
violently that it was some time before he succeeded, and
set free the cheerful beams, which, suddenly filling the room
with radiance, disclosed to my wondering eyes, instead of
darkness and the cold gleam of the moon, a profusion of
riches, of red stuffs and gemmed trifles and gilded arms
crowded together in reckless disorder. A monkey chained
258 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
in one corner began to gibber and mow at me. A cloak of
strange cut, strekhed .on a wooden stand, deceived me for
an instant into thinking that there was a third person
present; while the table, heaped with dolls r.nd powder-
puffs, dog-collars and sweet-meats, a mask, a woman's slip-
per, a pair of pistols, some potions, a scourge, and an
immense quantity of like litter, had as melancholy an
appearance in my eyes as the king himself, whose disorder
the light disclosed without mercy. His turban was awry,
and betrayed the premature baldness of his scalp. The
paint on his cheeks was cracked and stained, and had soiled
the gloves he \wore. He looked fifty years old; and in his
excitement he had tugged his sword to the front, whence it
refused to be thrust back.
' Who sent you here ? ' he asked, when he had so far
recovered his senses as to recognise me, which he did with
great surprise.
' I am here, sire,' I answered evasively, ' to place myself
at your Majesty's service.'
' Such loyalty is rare,' he answered, with a bitter sneer.
'But stand up, sir. I suppose I must be thankful for
small mercies, and, losing a Mercosur, be glad to receive
a Marsac.'
1 By your leave, sire,' I rejoined hardily, ' the exchange
is not so adverse. Your Majesty may make another duke
when you will. But honest men are not so easily come by.'
1 So ! so ! ' he answered, looking at me with a fierce light
in his eyes. ' You remind me in season. I may still make
and unmake ! I am still King of France ? That is so,
sirrah, is it not ? '
' God forbid that it should be otherwise ! ' I answered
earnestly. ' It is to lay before yonr Majesty certain means
by which you may give fuller effect to your wishes that I
am here. The King of Navarre desires only, sire '
'Tut, tut!' he exclaimed impatiently, and with some
displeasure, ' I know his will better than you, man. But
you see,' he continued cunningly, forgetting my inferior
THE LAST VALOIS 259
position as quickly as he had remembered it, 'Turenne
promises well, too. And Turenne it is true he may play
the Lorrainer. But if I trust Henry of Navarre, and he
prove false to me '
He did not complete the sentence, but strode to and fro
a time or two, his mind, which had a natural inclination
towards crooked courses, bent on some scheme by which he
might play off the one party against the other. Apparently
he was not very successful in finding one, however ; or
else the ill-luck with which he had supported the League
against the Huguenots recurred to his mind. For he pres-
ently stopped, with a sigh, and came back to the point.
' If I knew that Turenne were lying,' he muttered, ' then
indeed . But Kosny promised evidence, and he has
sent me none.'
'It is at hand, sire,' I answered, my heart beginning to
beat. 'Your Majesty will remember that M. de Eosny
honoured me with the task of introducing it to you.'
'To be sure,' he replied, awaking as from a dream, and
looking and speaking eagerly. ' Matters to-day have driven
everything out of my head. Where is your witness, man ?
Convince me, and we will act promptly. We will give them.
Jarnac and Moncontour over again. Is he outside ? '
'It is a woman, sire,' I made answer, dashed somewhat
by his sudden and feverish alacrity.
' A woman, eh ? You have her here ? '
' No, sire,' I replied, wondering what he would say to my
next piece of information. ' She is in Blois, she has arrived,
but the truth is I humbly crave your Majesty's indulgence
she refuses to come or speak. I cannot well bring her
here by force, and I have sought you, sire, for the purpose
of taking your commands in the matter.'
He stared at me in the utmost astonishment.
' Is she young ?' he asked after a long pause.
' Yes, sire,' I answered. ' She is maid of honour to the
Princess of Navarre, and a ward also of the Vicomte de
Turenne.'
B2
260 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
'Gad! then she is worth hearing, the little rebel!' he
replied. ' A ward of Turenne's is she ? Ho ! ho ! And
now she will not speak ? My cousin of Navarre now would
know how to bring her to her senses, but I have eschewed
these vanities. I might send and have her brought, it
is true; but a very little thing would cause a barricade
to-night.'
' And besides, sire,' I ventured to add, ( she is known to
Turenne's people here, who have once stolen her away.
Were she brought to your Majesty with any degree of open-
ness, they would learn it, and know that the game was
lost.'
' Which would not suit me,' he answered, nodding and
looking at me gloomily. ' They might anticipate our
Jarnac ; and until we have settled matters with one or the
other our person is not too secure. You must go and fetch
her. She is at your lodging. She must be brought, man.'
' I will do what you command, sire,' I answered. ' But
I am greatly afraid that she will not come.'
He lost his temper at that. ' Then why, in the devil's
name, have you troubled me with the matter ? ' he cried
savagely. 'God knows I don't why Rosny employed
such a man and such a woman. He might have seen from
the cut of your cloak, sir, which is full six months behind
the fashion, that you could not manage a woman ! Was
ever such damnable folly heard of in this world ? But
it is Navarre's loss, not mine. It is his loss. And I hope
to Heaven it may be yours too ! ' he added fiercely.
There was so much in what he said that I bent before
the storm, and accepted with humility blame which was as
natural on his part as it was undeserved on mine. Indeed
I could not wonder at his Majesty's anger; nor should I
have wondered at it in a greater man. I knew that but for
reasons, on which I did not wish to dwell, I should have
shared it to the full, and spoken quite as strongly of the
caprice which ruined hopes and lives for a whim.
The king continued for some time to say to me all the
THE LAST VALOIS 261
hard things lie could think of. Wearied at last by my
patience, he paused, and cried angrily. 'Well, hrve you
nothing to say for yourself ? Can you suggest nothing ? '
'I dare not mention to your Majesty,' I said humbly,
' what seems to me to be the only alternative.'
' You mean that I should go to the wench ! ' he answered
for he did not lack quickness. '"Se no va el otero a
Malwma, vaya Malioma al otero," as Mendoza says. But
the saucy quean, to force me to go to her ! Did my wife
guess but there, I will go. By God I will go ! ' he added
abruptly and fiercely. ' I will live to ruin Retz yet !
Where is your lodging ? '
I told him, wondering much at this flash of the old
spirit, which twenty years before had won him a reputa-
tion his later life did nothing to sustain.
1 Do you know,' he asked, speaking with sustained energy
and clearness, ' the door by which M. de Rosny entered to
talk with me ? Can you find it in the dark ? '
' Yes, sire,' I answered, my heart beating high.
'Then be in waiting there two hours before midnight,'
he replied. ' Be well armed, but alone. I shall know how
to make the girl speak. I can trust you, I suppose ? ' he
added suddenly, stepping nearer to me and looking fixedly
into my eyes.
'I will answer for your Majesty's life with my own/ I
replied, sinking on one knee.
<I believe you, sir,' he answered gravely, giving me his
hand to kiss, and then turning away. ' So be it. Now
leave me. You have been here too long already. Not a
word to any one as you value your life.'
I made fitting answer and was leaving him ; but when I
had my hand already on the curtain, he called me back. ' In
Heaven's name get a new cloak ! ' he said peevishly, eyeing
me all over with his face puckered up. ' Get a new cloak,
man, the first thing in the morning. It is worse seen from
the side than the front. It would ruin the cleverest courtier
of them all ! '
262 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
CHAPTER XXIV.
A ROYAL PERIL.
THE elation with which I had heard the king announce
his resolution quickly diminished on cooler reflection. It
stood in particular at a very low ebb as I waited, an hour
later, at the little north postern of the Castle, and, cowering
within the shelter of the arch to escape the wind, debated
whether his Majesty's energy would sustain him to the
point of action, or whether he might not, in one of those
fits of treacherous vacillation which had again and again
marred his plans, send those to keep the appointment who
would give a final account of me. The longer I considered
his character the moiv dubious I grew. The loneliness cf
the situation, the darkness, the black front, unbroken by
any glimmer of light, which the Castle presented on this
side, and the unusual and gloomy stillness which lay upon
the town, all contributed to increase my uneasiness. It
was with apprehension as well as relief that I caught at
last the sound of footsteps on the stone staircase, and,
standing a little to one side, saw a streak of light appear
at the foot of the door.
On the latter being partially opened a voice cried my
name. I advanced with caution and showed myself. A
brief conversation ensued between two or three persons who
stood within; but in the end, a masked figure, which I had
no difficulty in identifying as the king, stepped briskly out.
'You are armed? ' he said, pausing a second opposite me.
I put back my cloak and showed him, by the light which
streamed from the doorway, that I carried pistols as well
as a sword.
'Good!' he answered briefly; 'then let us go. Do you
walk on my left hand, my friend. It is a dark night, is it
not? '
'Very dark, sire,' I said.
A ROYAL PERIL 263
He made no answer to this, and we started, proceeding
with caution until we had crossed the narrow bridge, and
then with greater freedom and at a better pace. The slen-
derness of the attendance at Court that evening, and the
cold wind, which swept even the narrowest streets and
drove roisterers indoors, rendered it unlikely that we should
be stopped or molested by any except professed thieves;
and for these I was prepared. The king showed no incli-
nation to talk; and keeping silence myself out of respect,
I had time to calculate the chances and to consider whether
his Majesty would succeed where I had failed.
This calculation, which was not inconsistent with the
keenest watchfulness on my part whenever we turned a
corner or passed the mouth of an alley, was brought to an
end by our safe arrival at the house. Briefly apologising
to the king for the meanness and darkness of the staircase,
I begged leave to precede him, and rapidly mounted until
I met Maignan. Whispering to him that all was well, I
did not wait to hear his answer, but, bidding him be on the
watch, I led the king on with as much deference as was
possible until we stood at the door of mademoiselle's apart-
ment, which I have elsewhere stated to consist of an outer
and inner room. The door was opened by Simon Fleix,
and him I promptly sent out. Then, standing aside and
uncovering, I begged the king to enter.
He did so, still wearing his hat and mask, and I followed
and secured the door. A lamp hanging from the ceiling
diffused an imperfect light through the room, which was
smaller but more comfortable in appearance than that which
I rented overhead. I observed that Fanchette, whose
harsh countenance looked more forbidding than usual, occu-
pied a stool which she had set in a strange fashion against
the inner door; but I thought no more of this at the
moment, my attention passing quickly to mademoiselle,
who sat crouching before the fire, enveloped in a large out-
door cloak, as if she felt the cold. Her back was towards
us, and she was, or pretended to be, still ignorant of our
264 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
presence, \7ith a muttered word I pointed ner out to the
king, and went towards her with lum.
'Mademoiselle/ I said in a low voice, 'Mademoiselle de
la Vire! I have the honour '
She would not turn, and I stopped. Clearly she heard,
but she betrayed that she did so only by drawing her cloak
more closely round her. Primed by my respect for the
king, I touched her lightly on the shoulder. 'Mademoi-
selle!' I said impatiently, 'you are not aware of it,
but '
She shook herself free from my hand with so rude a gest-
ure that I broke off, and stood gaping foolishly at her.
The king smiled, and nodding to me to step back a pace,
took the task on himself. 'Mademoiselle,' he said with
dignity, 'I am not accustomed '
His voice had a magical effect. Before he could add
another word she sprang up as if she had been struck, and
faced us, a cry of alarm on her lips. Simultaneously we
both cried out too, for it was not mademoiselle at all. The
woman who confronted us, her hand on her mask, her eyes
glittering through the slits, was of a taller and fuller fig-
ure. We stared at her. Then a lock of bright golden hair
which had escaped from the hood of her cloak gave us the
clue. 'Madame!' the king cried.
'Madame de Bruhl! ' I echoed, my astonishment greater
than his.
Seeing herself known, she began with trembling fingers
to undo the fastenings of her mask; but the king, who had
hitherto displayed a trustfulness I had not expected in him,
had taken alarm at sight of her, as at a thing unlocked
for, and of which I had not warned him. 'How is this?'
he said harshly, drawing back a pace from her and regard-
ing me with anger and distrust. 'Is this some pretty
arrangement of yours, sir? Am I an intruder at an assigna-
tion, or is this a trap with M. de Bruhl in the background?
Answer, sirrah!' he continued, working himself rapidly
into a passion. 'Which am I to understand is the case? '
A ROYAL PERIL 265
'Neither, sire,' I answered with as much dignity as I
could assume, utterly surprised and mystified as I was by
Madame's presence. 'Your Majesty wrongs Madame de
Bruhl as much by the one suspicion as you injure me by
the other. I am equally in the dark with you, sire, and as
little expected to see madame here.'
'I came, sire,' she said proudly, addressing herself to the
king, and ignoring me, 'out of no love to M. de Marsac,
but as any person bearing a message to him might come.
Nor can you, sire,' she added with spirit, 'feel half as much
surprise at seeing me here, as I at seeing your Majesty.'
'I can believe that,' the king answered drily. 'I would
you had not seen me.'
'The King of France is seen only when he chooses,' she
replied, curtseying to the ground.
'Good,' he answered. 'Let it be so, and you will oblige
the King of France, madame. But enough,' he continued,
turning from her to me; 'since this is not the lady I came
to see, M. de Marsac, where is she? '
'In the inner room, sire, I opine,' I said, advancing to
Fanchette with more misgiving at heart than my manner
evinced. 'Your mistress is here, is she not?' I continued,
addressing the woman sharply.
'Ay, and will not come out,' she rejoined, sturdily keep-
ing her place.
'Nonsense!' I said. 'Tell her '
'You may tell her what you please,' she replied, refusing
to budge an inch. ' She can hear. '
'But, woman!' I cried impatiently, 'you do not under-
stand. I must speak with her. I must speak with her at
once! On business of the highest importance.'
'As you please,' she said rudely, still keeping her seat.
'I have told you you can speak.'
Perhaps I felt as foolish on this occasion as ever in my
life; and surely never was man placed in a more ridiculous
position. After overcoming numberless obstacles, and
escaping as many perils, I had brought the king here, a
266 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
feat beyond my highest hopes only to be baffled and
defeated by a waiting- woman ! I stood irresolute ; witless
and confused; while the king waited half angry and half
amused, and madame kept her place by the entrance, to
which she had retreated.
I was delivered from my dilemma by the curiosity which
is, providentially perhaps, a part of woman's character,
and which led mademoiselle to interfere herself. Keenly
on the watch inside, she had heard part of what passed
between us, and been rendered inquisitive by the sound of
a strange man's voice, and by the deference which she
could discern I paid to the visitor. At this moment, she
cried out, accordingly, to know who was there; and Fan-
chette, seeming to take this as a command, rose and dragged
her stool aside, saying peevishly and without any increase
of respect, 'There, I told you she could hear.'
'Who is it? ' mademoiselle asked again, in a raised voice.
I was about to answer when the king signed to me to
stand back, and, advancing himself, knocked gently on the
door. 'Open, I pray you, mademoiselle,' he said courte-
ously.
'Who is there?' she cried again, her voice trembling.
'It is I, the king,' he answered softly; but in that tone
of majesty which belongs not to the man, but to the descend-
ant, and seems to be the outcome of centuries of command.
She uttered an exclamation and slowly, and with seeming
reluctance, turned the key in the lock. It grated, and the
door opened. I caught a glimpse for an instant of her pale
face and bright eyes, and then his Majesty, removing his
hat, passed in and closed the door; and I withdrew to the
farther end of the room, where madame continued to stand
by the entrance.
I entertained a suspicion, I remember, and not unnatu-
rally, that she had come to my lodging as her husband's
spy ; but her first words when I joined her dispelled this.
'Quick! ' she said with an imperious gesture. 'Hear me
and let me go! I have waited long enough for you, and
A ROYAL PERIL 267
suffered enough through you. As for that woman in there,
she is niad, and her servant too! Now, listen to me. You
spoke to me honestly to-day, and I have come to repay you.
You have an appointment with my husband to-morrow at
Chaverny. Is it not so? ' she added impatiently.
I replied that it was so.
'You are to go with one friend,' she went on, tearing the
glove she had taken off, to strips in her excitement. 'He
is to meet you with one also? '
'Yes,' I assented reluctantly, 'at the bridge, madame.'
'Then do not go,' she rejoined emphatically. 'Shame on
me that I should betray my husband; but it were worse to
send an innocent man to his death. He will meet you with
one sword only, according to his challenge, but there will
be those under the bridge who will make certain work.
There, I have betrayed him now ! ' she continued bitterly.
'It is done. Let me go!'
'Xay, but, madame,' I said, feeling more concerned for
her, on whom from the first moment of meeting her I had
brought nothing but misfortune, than surprised by this new
treachery on his part, 'will you not run some risk in return-
ing to him? Is there nothing I can do for you no step I
can take for your protection? '
'None!' she said repellently and almost rudely, 'except
to speed my going.'
'But you will not pass through the streets alone?'
She laughed so bitterly my heart ached for her. 'The
unhappy are always safe,' she said.
Remembering how short a time it was since I had sur-
prised her in the first happiness of wedded love, I felt for
her all the pity it was natural I should feel. But the re-
sponsibility under which his Majesty's presence and the
charge of mademoiselle laid me forbade me to indulge in
the luxury of evincing my gratitude. Gladly would I have
escorted her back to her home even if I could not make
that home again what it had been, or restore her husband
to the pinnacle from which I had dashed him but I dared
268 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
not do this. I was forced to content myself with less, and
was about to offer to send one of my men with her, when a
hurried knocking at the outer door arrested the words on
my lips.
Signing to her to stand still, I listened. The knocking
was repeated, and grew each moment more urgent. There
was a little grille, strongly wired, in the upper part of the
door, and this I was about to open in order to learn what
was amiss, when Simon's voice reached me from the far-
ther side imploring me to open the door quickly. Doubt-
ing the lad's prudence, yet afraid to refuse lest I should
lose some warning he had to give, I paused a second, and
then undid the fastenings. The moment the door gave way
he fell in bodily, crying out to me to bar it behind him. I
caught a glimpse through the gap of a glare as of torches,
and saw by this light half a dozen flushed faces in the act
of rising above the edge of the landing. The men who
owned them raised a shout of triumph at sight of me, and,
clearing the upper steps at a bound, made a rush for the
door. But in vain. We had just time to close it and drop
the two stout bars. In a moment, in a second, the fierce
outcry fell to a dull roar; and safe for the time, we had
leisure to look in one another's faces and learn the different
aspects of alarm. Madame was white to the lips, while
Simon's eyes seemed starting from his head, and he shook
in every limb with terror.
At first, on my asking him what it meant, he could not
speak. But that would not do, and I was in the act of seiz-
ing him by the collar to force an answer from him when the
inner door opened, and the king came out, his face wearing
an air of so much cheerfulness as proved both his satisfac-
tion with mademoiselle's story and his ignorance of all we
were about. In a word he had not yet taken the least
alarm; but seeing Simon in my hands, and madame leaning
against the wall by the door like one deprived of life, he
stood and cried out in surprise to know what it was.
'I fear we are besieged, sire/ I answered desperately,
A ROYAL PERIL 269
feeling my anxieties increased a hundredfold by his appear-
ance 'but by whom I cannot say. This lad knows, how-
ever,' I continued, giving Simon a vicious shake, 'and he
shall speak. Now, trembler,' I said to him, 'tell your
tale?'
'The Provost-Marshal!' he stammered, terrified afresh
by the king's presence: for Henry had removed his mask.
'I was on guard below. I had come up a few steps to be
out of the cold, when I heard them enter. There are a
round score of them. '
I cried out a great oath, asking him why he had not gone
up and warned Maignan, who with his men was now cut off
from us in the rooms above. ' You fool ! ' I continued,
almost beside myself with rage, 'if you had not come to
this door they would have mounted to my rooms and beset
them! What is this folly about the Provost-Marshal? '
'He is there,' Simon answered, cowering away from me,
his face working.
I thought he was lying, and had merely fancied this in
his fright. But the assailants at this moment began to
hail blows on the door, calling on us to open, and using
such volleys of threats as penetrated even the thickness of
the oak; driving the blood from the women's cheeks, and
arresting the king's step in a manner which did not escape
me. Among their cries I could plainly distinguish the
words, 'In the king's name! ' which bore out Simon's state-
ment.
At the moment I drew comfort from this ; for if we had
merely to deal with the law we had that on our side which
was above it. And I speedily made up my mind what to
do. 'I think the lad speaks the truth, sire,' I said coolly.
'This is only your Majesty's Provost-Marshal. The worst
to be feared, therefore, is that he may learn your presence
here before you would have it known. It should not be a
matter of great difficulty, however, to bind him to silence,
and if you will please to mask, I will open the grille and
speak with him.'
270 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
The king, who had taken his stand in the middle of the
room, and seemed dazed and confused by the suddenness of
the alarm and the uproar, assented with a brief word. Ac-
cordingly I was preparing to open the grille when Madame
de Bruhl seized my arm, and forcibly pushed me back
from it.
'What would you do? ' she cried, her face full of terror.
'Do you not hear? He is there.'
'Who is there?' I said, startled more by her manner
than her words.
'Who?' she answered; 'who should be there? My hus-
band! I hear his voice, I tell you! He has tracked me
here ! He has found me, and will kill me ! '
'God forbid! ' I said, doubting if she had really heard his
voice. To make sure, I asked Simon if he had seen him;
and my heart sank when I heard from him too that Bruhl
was of the party. For the first time I became fully sensi-
ble of the danger which threatened us. For the first time,
looking round the ill-lit room on the women's terrified faces,
and the king's masked figure instinct with ill-repressed
nervousness, I recognised how hopelessly we were en-
meshed. Fortune had served Bruhl so well that, whether
he knew it or not, he had us all trapped alike the king
whom he desired to compromise, and his wife whom he
hated, mademoiselle who had once escaped him, and me who
had twice thwarted him. It was little to be wondered at
if my courage sank as I looked from one to another, and
listened fco the ominous creaking of the door, as the stout
panels complained under the blows rained upon them.
For my first duty, and that which took the^os of all others,
was to the king to save him harmless. How, then, was I
to be answerable for mademoiselle, how protect Madame de
Bruhl? how, in a word, redeem all those pledges in which
my honour was concerned?
It was the thought of the Provost-Marshal which at this
moment rallied my failing spirits. I remembered that
until the mystery of his presence here in alliance with
A ROYAL PERIL 271
Bruhl was explained there was no need to despair; and
turning briskly to the king I begged him to favour me by
standing with the women in a corner which was not visible
from the door. lie complied mechanically, and in a manner
which I did not like; but lacking time to weigh trifles, I
turned to the grille and opened it without more ado.
The appearance of my face at the trap was greeted with a
savage cry of recognition, which subsided as quickly into
silence. It was followed by a momentary pushing to and
fro among the crowd outside, which in its turn ended in the
Provost-Marshal coming to the front. 'In the king's
name ! ' he said fussily.
' What is it? ' I replied, eyeing rather the flushed, eager
faces which scowled over his shoulders than himself. The
light of two links, borne by some of the party, shone rud-
dily on the heads of the halberds, and, flaring up from time
to time, filled all the place with wavering, smoky light.
'What do you want? ' I continued, 'rousing my lodging at
this time of night? '
'I hold a warrant for your arrest,' he replied bluntly.
'Resistance will be vain. If you do not surrender I shall
send for a ram to break in the door.'
'Where is your order?' I said sharply. 'The one you
held this morning was cancelled by the king himself.'
'Suspended only,' he answered. 'Suspended only. It
was given out to me again this evening for instant execu-
tion. And I am here in pursuance of it, and call on you to
surrender. '
'Who delivered it to you? ' I retorted.
'M. de Villeqtiier, ' he answered readily. 'And here it
is. Now, come, sir,' he continued, 'you are only making
matters worse. Open to us.'
'Before I do so,' I said drily, 'I should like to know what
part in the pageant my friend M. de Bruhl, whom I see on
the stairs yonder, proposes to play. Arid there is my old
friend Fresnoy,' I added. 'And I see one or two others
whom I know, M. Provost. Before I surrender I must
272 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
know among other things what M. de Bruhl's business is
here.'
'It is the business of every loyal man to execute the
king's warrant,' the Provost answered evasively. 'It is
yours to surrender, and mine to lodge you in the Castle.
But I am loth to have a disturbance. I will give you until
that torch goes out, if you like, to make up your mind.
At the end of that time, if you do not surrender, I shall
batter down the door. '
'You will give the torch fair play?' I said, noting its
condition.
He assented; and thanking him sternly for this indul-
gence, I closed the grille.
CHAPTER XXV.
TERMS OF SURRENDER.
I STILL had my hand on the trap when a touch on the
shoulder caused me to turn, and in a moment apprised me
of the imminence of a new peril; a peril of such a kind
that, summoning all my resolution, I could scarcely hope
to cope with it. Henry was at my elbow. He had taken
off his mask, and a single glance at his countenance warned
me that that had happened of which I had already felt
some fear. The glitter of intense excitement shone in his
eyes. His face, darkly-flushed and wet with sweat, be-
trayed overmastering emotion, while his teeth, tight
clenched in the effort to restrain the fit of trembling which
possessed him, showed between his lips like those of a
corpse. The novelty of the danger which menaced him,
the absence of his gentlemen, and of all the familiar faces
and surroundings without which he never moved, the hour,
the mean house, and his isolation among strangers, had
roved too much for nerves long weakened by his course of
TERMS OF SURRENDER 273
living, and for a courage, proved indeed in the field, but
unequal to a sudden stress. Though he still strove to pre-
serve his dignity, it was alarmingly plain to my eyes that
he was on the point of losing, if he had not already lost,
all self-command.
'Open!' he muttered between his teeth, pointing impa-
tiently to the trap with the hand with which he had already
touched me. 'Open, I say, sir! '
I stared at him, startled and confounded. 'But your
Majesty,' I ventured to stammer, 'forgets that I have not
yet '
'Open, I say!' he repeated passionately. 'Do you hear
me, sir? I desire that this door be opened.' His lean
hand shook as with the palsy, so that the gems on it
twinkled in the light and rattled as he spoke.
I looked helplessly from him to the women and back
again, seeing in a flash all the dangers which might
follow from the discovery of his presence there dangers
which I had not before formulated to myself, but which
seemed in a moment to range themselves with the utmost
clearness before my eyes. At the same time I saw what
seemed to me to be a way of escape ; and emboldened by
the one and the other, I kept my hand on the trap and
strove to parley with him.
'Nay, but, sire,' I said hurriedly, yet still with as much
deference as I could command, 'I beg you to permit me
first to repeat what I have seen. M. de Bruhl is without,
and I counted six men whom I believe to be his following.
They are ruffians ripe for any crime; and I implore your
Majesty rather to submit to a short imprisonment '
I paused struck dumb on that word, confounded by the
passion which lightened in the king's face. My ill-chosen
expression had indeed applied the spark to his wrath.
Predisposed to suspicion by a hundred treacheries, he
forgot the perils outside in the one idea which on the
instant possessed his mind; that I would confine his person,
and had brought him hither for no other purpose. He
274 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
glared round him with eyes full of rage and fear, and his
trembling lips breathed rather than spoke the word 'Im-
prison? '
Unluckily, a trifling occurrence added at this moment to
his disorder, and converted it into frenzy. Someone out-
side fell heavily against the door; this, causing madame to
utter a low shriek, seemed to shatter the last remnant of the
king's self-control. Stamping his foot on the floor, he
cried to me with the utmost wildness to open the door \>y
which I had hitherto kept my place.
But, wrongly or rightly, I was still determined to put off
opening it; and I raised my hands with the intention of
making a last appeal to him. He misread the gesture, and
retreating a step, with the greatest suddenness whipped
out his sword, and in a moment had the point at my breast,
and his wrist drawn back to thrust.
It has always been my belief that he would not have dealt
the blow, but that the mere touch of the hilt, awaking the
courage which he undoubtedly possessed, and which did not
desert him in his last moments, would have recalled him to
himself. But the opportunity was not given him, for while
the blade yet quivered, and I stood motionless, controlling
myself by an effort, my knee half bent and my eyes on his,
Mademoiselle de la Vire sprang forward at his back, and
with a loud scream clutched his elbow. The king, sur-
prised, and ignorant who held him, flung up his point
wildly, and striking the lamp above his head with his
blade, shattered it in an instant, bringing down the pottery
with a crash and reducing the room to darkness; while the
screams of the women, and the knowledge that we had ?-
madman among us, peopled the blackness with a hundred
horrors.
Fearing above all for mademoiselle, I made my way a?
soon as I could recover my wits to the embers of the fire,
and regardless of the king's sword, which I had a vague
idea was darting about in the darkness, I searched for and
found a half-burnt stick, Avhich I blew into a blaze. With
TERMS OF SURRENDER 275
this, still keeping my back to the room, I contrived to
light a taper that I had noticed standing by the hearth; and
then, and then only, I turned to see what I had to confront.
Mademoiselle de la Vire stood in a corner, half-fierce,
half-terrified, and wholly flushed. She had her hand
wrapped up in a 'kerchief already stained with blood; and
from this I gathered that the king in his frenzy had
wounded her slightly. Standing before her mistress, with
her hair bristling, like a wild-cat's fur, and her arms
akimbo, was Fanchette, her harsh face and square form
instinct with fury and defiance. Madame de Bruhl and
Simon cowered against the wall not far from them ; and in
a chair, into which he had apparently just thrown himself,
sat the king, huddled up and collapsed, the point of his
sword trailing on the ground beside him, and his nerveless
hand scarce retaining force to grip the pommel.
In a moment I made up my mind what to do, and going
to him in silence, I laid my pistols, sword, and dagger on
a stool by his side. Then I knelt.
'The door, sire,' I said, 'is there. It is for your Majesty
to open it when you please. Here, too, sire, are my weap-
ons. I am your prisoner, the Provost-Marshal is outside,
and you can at a word deliver me to him. Only one thing
I beg, sire,' I continued earnestly, 'that your Majesty will
treat as a delusion the idea that I meditated for a moment
disrespect or violence to your person.'
He looked at me dully, his face pale, his eyes fish-like.
'Sanctus, man ! ' he muttered, 'why did you raise your hand? '
'Only to implore your Majesty to pause a moment,' I an-
swered, watching the intelligence return slowly to his face.
'If you will deign to listen I can explain in half a dozen
words, sire. M. de Bruhl's men are six or seven, the Pro-
vost has eight or nine; but the former are the wilder
blades, and if M. de Bruhl find your Majesty in my lodg-
ing, and infer his own defeat, he will be capable of any
desperate stroke. Your person would hardly be safe in
his company through the streets. And there is another
82
276 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
consideration,' I went on, observing with joy that the
king listened, and was gradually regaining his composure.
'That is, the secrecy you desired to preserve, sire, until this
matter should be well advanced. M. de Rosny laid the
strictest injunctions on me in that respect, fearing an
dmeute in Blois should your Majesty's plans become known.'
'You speak fairly,' the king answered with returning
energy, though he avoided looking at the women. 'Bruhl
is likely enough to raise one. But how am I to get out,
sir?' he continued, querulously. 'I cannot remain here.
I shall be missed, man! I am not a hedge-captain, neither
sought nor wanted! '
'If your Majesty would trust me?' I said slowly and
with hesitation.
'Trust you! ' he retorted peevishly, holding up his hands
and gazing intently at his nails, of the shape and white-
ness of which he was prouder than any woman. 'Have I
not trusted you? If I had not trusted you, should I have
been here? But that you were a Huguenot God forgive
me for saying it! I would have seen you in hell before I
would have come here with you ! '
I confess to having heard this testimony to the Eeligion
with a pride which made me forget for a moment the im-
mediate circumstances the peril in which we stood, the
gloomy room darkly lighted by a single candle, the scared
faces in the background, even the king's huddled figure, in
which dejection and pride struggled for expression. For a
moment only; then I hastened to reply, saying that I
doubted not I could still extricate his Majesty without dis-
covery.
'In Heaven's name do it, then! ' he answered sharply.
'Do what you like, man! Only get me back into the castle,
and it shall not be a Huguenot will entice me out again. I
am over old for these adventures ! '
A fresh attack on the door taking place as he said this
induced me to lose no time in explaining my plan, which
he was good enough to approve, after again upbraiding me
TERMS OF SURRENDER 277
for bringing him into such a dilemma. Fearing lest the
door should give way prematurely, notwithstanding the
bars I had provided for it, and goaded on by Madame de
Bruhl's face, which evinced the utmost terror, I took the
candle and attended his Majesty into the inner room; where
I placed my pistols beside him, but silently resumed my
sword and dagger. I then returned for the women, and
indicating by signs that they were to enter, held the door
open for them.
Mademoiselle, whose bandaged hand I could not regard
without emotion, though the king's presence and the respect
I owed him forbade me to utter so much as a word, ad-
vanced readily until she reached the doorway abreast of me.
There, however, looking back, and seeing Madame de Bruhl
following her, she stopped short, and darting a haughty
glance at me, muttered, 'And that lady? Are we to be
shut up together, sir? '
'Mademoiselle,' I answered quickly in the low tone she
had used herself, 'have I ever asked anything dishonoura-
ble of you? '
She seemed by a slight movement of the head to answer
in the negative.
'Nor do I now,' I replied with earnestness. 'I entrust
to your care a lady who has risked great peril for us; and
the rest I leave to you. '
She looked me very keenly in the face for a second, and
then, without answering, she passed on, Madame and Fan-
chette following her in that order. I closed the door and
turned to Simon; who by my direction had blown the
embers of the fire into a blaze so as to partially illumine
the room, in which only he and I now remained. The lad
seemed afraid to meet my eye, and owing to the scene at
which he had just assisted, or to the onslaught on the door,
which grew each moment more furious, betrayed greater
restlessness than I had lately observed in him. I did not
doubt his fidelity, however, or his devotion to mademoi-
selle ; and the orders I had to give him were simple enough.
^, 7 8 A GENTLEMAN" OF FRANCE
'This is what you have got to do,' I said, my hand already
on the bars. 'The moment I am outside secure this door.
After that, open to no one except Maignan. AVhen he
applies, let him in with caution, and bid him, as he loves
M. de Kosny, take his men as soon as the coast is clear,
and guard the King of France to the castle. Charge him to
be brave and wary, for his life will answer for the king's. 7
Twice I repeated this; then fearing lest the Provost-
Marshal should make good his word and apply a ram to the
door, I opened the trap. A dozen angry voices hailed my
appearance, and this with so much violence and impatience
that it was some time before I could get a hearing; the
knaves threatening me if I would not instantly open, and
persisting that I should do so without more words. Their
leader at length quieted them, but it was plain that his
patience too was worn out. 'Do you surrender or do you
aot?' he said. 'I am not going to stay out of my bed all
night for you ! '
'I warn you,' I answered, 'that the order you have there
has been cancelled by the king! '
'That is not my business,' he rejoined hardily.
'No, but it will be when the king sends for you to-morrow
morning, ' I retorted ; at which he looked somewhat moved.
'However, I will surrender to you on two conditions,' I
continued, keenly observing the coarse faces of his follow-
ing. 'First, that you let me keep my arms until we reach
the gate-house, I giving you my parole to come with you
quietly. That is number one.'
'Well,' the Provost-Marshal said more civilly, 'I have
no objection to that.'
'Secondly, that you do not allow your men to break into
my lodgings. I will come out quietly, and so an end.
Your order does not direct you to sack my goods.'
^Tut, tut! ' he replied; 'I want you to come out. I do
not want to go in.'
'Then draw your men back to the stairs,' I said. 'And
if you keep terms with me, I will uphold you to-morrow.
TERMS OF SURRENDER 279
For your orders' will certainly bring you into tro\ ble. M.
de Retz, who procured it this morning, is away, you know.
M. de Villequier may be gone to-morrow. But depend
upon it, M. de Rambouillet will be here! '
The remark was well timed and to the point. It startled
the man as much as I had hoped it would. Without rais-
ing any objection he ordered his men to fall back and guard
the stairs ; and I on my side began to undo the fastenings
of the door.
The matter was not to be so easily concluded, however;
for Bruhl's rascals, in obedience, no doubt, to a sign given
by their leader, who stood with Fresnoy on the upper flight
of stairs, refused to withdraw ; and even hustled the Pro-
vost-Marshal's men when the latter would have obeyed the
order. The officer, already heated by delay, replied by lay-
ing about him with his staff, and in a twinkling there
seemed to be every prospect of a very pretty mlee, the end
of which it was impossible to foresee.
Reflecting, however, that if Bruhl's men routed their
opponents our position might be made worse rather than
better, I did not act on my first impulse, which was to see
the matter out where I was. Instead, I seized the oppor-
tunity to let myself out, while Simon fastened the door be-
hind me. The Provost-Marshal was engaged at the moment
in a wordy dispute with Fresnoy; whose villainous coun-
tenance, scarred by the wound which I had given him at
Chize, and flushed with passion, looked its worst by the
light of the single torch which remained. In one respect
the villain had profited by his present patronage, for he
was decked out in a style of tawdry magnificence. But I
have always remarked this about dress, that while a shabby
exterior does not entirely obscure a gentleman, the extreme
of fashion is powerless to gild a knave.
Seeing me on a sudden at the Provost's elbow, he recoiled
with a change of countenance so ludicrous that that officer
was himself startled, and only held his ground on my
saluting him civilly and declaring myself his prisoner. I
280 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE
added a, warning that he should look to the torch which
remained; seeing that if it failed we were both like to
have our throats cut in the confusion.
He took the hint promptly, and calling the link-man to
his side prepared to descend, bidding Fresnoy and his men,
who remained clumped at the head of the stairs, make way
for us without ado. They seemed much inclined, however,
to dispute our passage, and replying to his invectives with
rough taunts, displayed so hostile a demeanour that the
Provost, between regard for his own importance and respect
for Bruhl, appeared for a moment at a loss what to do ; and
seemed rather relieved than annoyed when I begged leave
to say a word to M. de Bruhl.
'If you can bring his men to reason,' he replied testily,
'speak your fill to him! '
Stepping to the foot of the upper flight, on which Bruhl
retained his position, I saluted him formally. He returned
my greeting with a surly, watchful look only, and draw-
ing his cloak more tightly round him affected to gaze down
at me with disdain ; which ill concealed, however, both the
triumph he felt and the hopes of vengeance he entertained.
I was especially anxious to learn whether he had tracked
his wife hither, or was merely here in pursuance of his
general schemes against me, and to this end I asked him
with as much irony as I could compass to what I was to
attribute his presence. 'I am afraid I cannot stay to offer
you hospitality,' I continued; 'but for that you have only
your friend M. Villequier to thank ! '
'I am greatly obliged to you,' he answered with a devil-
ish smile, 'but do not let that affect you. When you are
gone I propose to help myself, my friend, to whatever takes
my taste.'
'Do you?' I retorted coolly not that I was unaffected
by the threat and the villainous hint which underlay the
words, but that, fully expecting them, I was ready with my
answer. 'We will see about that.' And therewith I
raised my fingers to my lips, and, whistling shrilly, criea
'Maignan! Maignan! ' in a clear voice.
. TERMS OF SURRENDER 281
1 had no need to cry the name a third time, for before
the Provost-Marshal could do more than start at this unex-
pected action, the landing above us rang under a heavy
tread, and the man I called, descending the stairs swiftly,
appeared on a sudden within arm's length of M. de Bruhl ;
who, turning with an oath, saw him, and involuntarily
recoiled. At all times Maignan's hardy and confident
bearing was of a kind to impress the strong; but on this
occasion there was an added dash of recklessness in his
manner which was not without its effect on the spectators.
As he stood there smiling darkly over Bruhl's head, while
his hand toyed carelessly with his dagger, and the torch
shone ruddily on his burly figure, he was so clearly an
antagonist in a thousand that, had I sought through Blois,
I might not have found his fellow for strength and sang-
froid. He let his black eyes rove from one to the other,
but took heed of me only, saluting me with effusion and
a touch of the Gascon which was in place here, if ever.
I knew how M. de Eosny dealt with him, and followed
the pattern as far as I could. 'Maignan! ' I said curtly, 'I
have taken a lodging for to-night elsewhere. When I am
gone you will call out your men and watch this door. If
anyone tries to force an entrance you will do your duty.'
'You may consider it done,' he replied.
'Even if the person be M. de Bruhl here,' I continued.
'Precisely.'
'You will remain on guard,' I went on, 'until to-morrow
morning if M. de Bruhl remains here; but whenever he
leaves you will take your orders from the persons inside,
and follow them implicitly. '
'Your Excellency's mind may be easy,' he answered,
handling his dagger.
Dismissing him with a nod, I turned with a smile to M.
de Bruhl, and saw that between rage at this unexpected
check and chagrin at the insult put upon him, his discom-
fiture was as complete as I could wish. As for Eresnoy,
if he had seriously intended to dispute our passage, he was
282 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
no longer in the mood for the attempt. Yet I did not let
his master off without one more prick. 'That being set-
tled, M. de Bruhl,' I said pleasantly, 'I may bid you good
evening. You will doubtless honour me at Chaverny to-
morrow. But we will first let Maignan look under the
bridge ! '
CHAPTER XXVI.
MEDITATIONS.
EITHER the small respect I had paid M. de Bruhl, or the
words I had let fall respecting the possible disappearance
of M. Villequier, had had so admirable an effect on the
Provost-Marshal's mind that from the moment of leaving
my lodgings he treated me with the utmost civility; per-
mitting me even to retain my sword, and assigning me a
sleeping-place for the night in his own apartments at the
Gate-house.
Late as it was, I could not allow so much politeness to
pass unacknowledged. I begged leave, therefore, to dis-
tribute a small gratuity among his attendants, and re-
quested him to do me the honour of drinking a bottle of
wine with me. This being speedily procured, at such an
expense as is usual in these places, where prisoners pay,
according as they are rich or poor, in purse or person,
kept us sitting for an hour, and finally sent us to our pal-
lets perfectly satisfied with one another.
The events of the day, however, and particularly one
matter, on which 1 have not dwelt at length, proved as
effectual to prevent my sleeping as if I had been placed in
the dampest cell below the castle. So much had been
crowded into a time so short that it seemed as if I had had
until now no opportunity of considering whither I was
being hurried, or what fortune awaited me at the end of
this turmoil. From the first appearance of M. d'Agen in
MED IT A TIONS 283
the morning, with the startling news that the Provost-
Marshal was seeking me, to my final surrender and encoun-
ter with Bruhl on the stairs, the chain of events had run
out so swiftly that I had scarcely had time at any particu-
lar period to consider how I stood, or the full import of the
latest check or victory. Now that I had leisure I lived the
day over again, and, recalling its dangers and disappoint-
ments, felt thankful that all had ended so fairly.
I had the most perfect confidence in Maignan, and did
not doubt that Bruhl would soon weary, if he had not
already wearied, of a profitless siege. In an hour at most
and it was not yet midnight the king would be free to
go home; and with that would end, as far as he was con-
cerned, the mission with which M. de Rosny had honoured
me. The task of communicating his Majesty's decision to
the King of Navarre would doubtless be entrusted to M. de
Rambouillet, or some person of similar position and influ-
ence; and in the same hands would rest the honour and
responsibility of the treaty which, as we all know now,
gave after a brief interval and some bloodshed, and one
great providence, a lasting peace to France. But it must
ever be and I recognised this that night with a bounding
heart, which told of some store of youth yet unexhausted
a matter of lasting pride to me that I, whose career but
now seemed closed in failure, had proved the means of
conferring so especial a benefit on my country and religion.
Remembering, however, the King of Navarre's warning
that I must not look to him for reward, I felt greatly doubt-
ful in what direction the scene would next open to me; my
main dependence being upon M. de Rosny's promise that
he would make my fortune his own care. Tired of the
Court at Blois, and the atmosphere of intrigue and treach-
ery which pervaded it, and with which I hoped I had now
done, I was still at a loss to see how I could recross the
Loire in face of the Vicomte de Turenne's enmity. I
might have troubled myself much more with speculating
upon this point had I not found in close connection with
284 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
it other and more engrossing food for thought in the
capricious behaviour of Mademoiselle de la Vire.
To that behaviour it seemed to me that I now held the
clue. I suspected with as much surprise as pleasure that
only one construction could be placed upon it a construc-
tion which had strongly occurred to me on catching sight
of her face when she intervened between me and the king.
Tracing the matter back to the moment of our meeting in
the antechamber at St. Jean d'Angely, I remembered the
jest which Mathurine had uttered at our joint expense.
Doubtless it had dwelt in mademoiselle's mind, and excit-
ing her animosity against me had prepared her to treat me
with contumely when, contrary to all probability, we met
again, and she found herself placed in a manner in my
hands. It had inspired her harsh words and harsher looks
on our journey northwards, and contributed with her native
pride to the low opinion I had formed of her when I con-
trasted her with my honoured mother.
But I began to think it possible that the jest had worked
in another way as well, by keeping me before her mind and
impressing upon her the idea after my re-appearance at
Chize more particularly that our fates were in some way
linked. Assuming this, it was not hard to understand her
manner at Rosny when, apprised that I was no impostor,
and regretting her former treatment of me, she still re-
coiled from the feelings which she began to recognise in
her own breast. From that time, and with this clue, I had
no difficulty in tracing her motives, always supposing that
this suspicion, upon which I dwelt with feelings of wonder
and delight, were well founded.
Middle-aged and grizzled, with the best of my life behind
me, I had never dared to think of her in this way before.
Poor and comparatively obscure, I had never raised my
eyes to the wide possessions said to be hers. Even now I
felt myself dazzled and bewildered by the prospect so sud-
denly unveiled. I could scarcely, without vertigo, recall
her as I had last seen her, with her hand wounded in my
MEDITATIONS 285
defence; nor, without emotions painful in their intensity,
fancy myself restored to the youth of which I had taken
leave, and to the rosy hopes and plannings which visit most
men once only, and then in early years. Hitherto I had
deemed such things the lot of others.
Daylight found me and no wonder -still diverting my-
self with these charming speculations; which had for me,
be it remembered, all the force of novelty. The sun chanced
to rise that morning in a clear sky, and brilliantly for the
time of year; and words fail me when I look back, and try
to describe how delicately this simple fact enhanced my
pleasure ! I sunned myself in the beams, which penetrated
my barred window; and tasting the early freshness with a
keen and insatiable appetite, I experienced to the full that
peculiar aspiration after goodness which Providence allows
such moments to awaken in us in youth; but rarely when
time and the camp have blunted the sensibilities.
I had not yet arrived at the stage at which difficulties
have to be reckoned up, and the chief drawback to the
tumult of joy I felt took the shape of regret that my mother
no longer lived to feel the emotions proper to the time, and
to share in the prosperity which she had so often and so
fondly imagined. Nevertheless, I felt myself drawn closer
to her. I recalled with the most tender feelings, and at
greater leisure than had before been the case, her last days
and words, and particularly the appeal she had uttered on
mademoiselle's behalf. And I vowed, if it were possible, to
pay a visit to her grave before leaving the neighbourhood,
that I might there devote a few moments to the thought of
the affection which had consecrated all women in my eyes.
I was presently interrupted in these reflections by a cir-
cumstance which proved in the end diverting enough, though
far from reassuring at the first blush. It began in a dism? 1
rattling of chains in the passage below and on the stairs
outside my room; which were paved, like the rest of the
building, with stone. I waited with impatience and some
uneasiness to see what would come of this; and my sur-
286 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
prise may be imagined when, the door being unlocked,
gave entrance to a man in whom I recognised on the in-
stant deaf Matthew the villain whom I had last seen with
Fresnoy in the house in the Rue Valois. Amazed at seeing
him here, I sprang to my feet in fear of some treachery,
and for a moment 'apprehended that the Provost-Marshal
had basely given me over to Bruhl's custody. But a
second glance informing me that the man was in irons
hence the noise I had heard I sat down again to see what
would happen.
It then appeared that he merely brought me my break-
fast, and was a prisoner in less fortunate circumstances
than myself; but as he pretended not to recognise me, and
placed the things before me in obdurate silence, and I had
no power to make him hear, I failed to learn how he came
to be in durance. The Provost-Marshal, however, came
presently to visit me, and brought me in token that the
good-fellowship of the evening still existed a pouch of the
Queen's herb; which I accepted for politeness' sake rather
than from any virtue I found in it. And from him I
learned how the rascal came to be in his charge.
It appeared that Fresnoy, having no mind to be hampered
with a wounded man, had deposited him on the night of our
m&l6e at the door of a hospital attached to a religious house
in that part or the town. The Fathers had opened to him,
but before taking him in put, according to their custom,
certain questions. Matthew had been primed with the
right answers to these questions, which were commonly a
form; but, unhappily for him, the Superior by chance or
mistake began with the wrong one.
'You are not a Huguenot, my son? ' he said.
'In God's name, I am! ' Matthew replied with simplicity,
believing he was asked if he was a Catholic.
'What?' the scandalised Prior ejaculated, crossing him-
self in doubt, 'are you not a true son of the Church? '
'Never! ' quoth our deaf friend thinking all went well
'A heretic ! ' cried the monk.
MEDITATIONS 287
'Amen to that!' replied Matthew innocently; never
doubting but that he was asked the third question, which
was, commonly, whether he needed aid.
Naturally after this there was a very pretty commotion,
and Matthew, vainly protesting that he was deaf, was hur-
ried off to the Provost-Marshal's custody. Asked how he
communicated with him, the Provost answered that he
could not, but that his little godchild, a girl only eight
years old, had taken a strange fancy to the rogue, and was
never so happy as when talking to him by means of signs,
of which she had invented a great number. I thought this
strange at the time, but I had proof before the morning
was out that it was true enough, and that the two were
seldom apart, the little child governing this grim cut-throat
with unquestioned authority.
After the Provost was gone I heard the man's fetters
clanking again. This time he entered to remove my cup
and plate, and surprised me by speaking to me. Maintain-
ing his former sullenness, and scarcely looking at me, he
said abruptly: 'You are going out again? '
I nodded assent.
'Do you remember a bald-faced bay horse that fell with
you? ' he muttered, keeping his dogged glance on the floor.
I nodded again.
'I want to sell the horse,' he said. 'There is not such
another in Blois, no, nor in Paris ! Touch it on the near
hip with the whip and it will go down as if shot. At other
times a child might ride it. It is in a stable, the third
from the Three Pigeons, in the Ruelle Amancy. Fresnoy
does not know where it is. He sent to ask yesterday, but
I would not tell him.'
Some spark of human feeling which appeared in his low-
ering, brutal visage as he spoke of the horse led me to
desire further information. Fortunately the little girl
appeared at that moment at the door in search of her play-
fellow; and through her I learned that the man's motive
for seeking to sell the horse was fear lest the dealer in
288 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
whose charge it stood should dispose of it to repay himself
for its keep, and he, Matthew, lose it without return.
Still I did not understand why he applied to me, but I
was well pleased when I learned the truth. Base as the
knave was, he had an affection for the bay, which had been
his only property for six years. Having this in his mind,
he had conceived the idea that I should treat it well, and
should not, because he was in prison and powerless, cheat
him of the price.
In the end I agreed to buy the horse for ten crowns, pay-
ing as well what was due at the stable. I had it in my
head to do something also for the man, being moved to this
partly by an idea that there was good in him, and partly
by the confidence he had seen fit to place in me, which
seemed to deserve some return. But a noise below stairs
diverted my attention. I heard myself named, and for the
moment forgot the matter.
CHAPTER XXVII.
TO ME, MY FRIENDS!
I WAS impatient to learn who had come, and what was
their errand with me; and being still in that state of ex-
altation in which we seem to hear and see more than at
other times, I remarked a peculiar lagging in the ascending
footsteps, and a lack of buoyancy, which was quick to com-
municate itself to my mind. A vague dread fell upon me
as I stood listening. Before the door opened I had already
conceived a score of disasters. 1 wondered that I had not
inquired earlier concerning the king's safety, and in fine I
experienced in a moment that complete reaction of the
spirits which is too frequently consequent upon an exces-
sive flow of gaiety.
TO ME, MY FRIENDS! 289
I was prepared, therefore, for heavy looks, but not for
the persons who wore them nor the strange bearing the
latter displayed on entering. My visitors proved to be M.
d'Agen and Simon Fleix. And so far well. But the
former, instead of coming forward to greet me with the
punctilious politeness which always characterised him, and
which I had thought to be proof against every kind of sur-
prise and peril, met me with downcast eyes and a counte-
nance so gloomy as to augment my fears a hundredfold;
since it suggested all those vague and formidable pains
which M. de Rambouillet had hinted might await me in a
prison. I thought nothing more probable than the en-
trance after them of a gaoler laden with gyves and hand-
cuffs ; and saluting M. Franqois with a face which, do what
I would, fashioned itself upon his, I had scarce composure
sufficient to place the poor accommodation of my room at
his disposal.
He thanked me ; but he did it with so much gloom and
so little naturalness that I grew more impatient with each
laboured syllable. Simon Fleix had slunk to the window
and turned his back on us. Neither seemed to have any-
thing to say. But a state of suspense was one which I
could least endure to suffer; and impatient of the con-
straint which my friend's manner was fast imparting to
mine, I asked him at once and abruptly if his uncle had
returned.
'He rode in about midnight,' he answered, tracing a pat-
tern on the floor with the point of his riding-switch.
I felt some surprise on hearing this, since d'Agen was
still dressed and armed for the road, and was without all
those prettinesses which commonly marked his attire. But
as he volunteered no further information, and did not even
refer to the place in which he found me, or question me as
to the adventures which had lodged me there, I let it pass,
and asked him if his party had overtaken the deserters.
'Yes/ he answered, 'with no result.'
'And the king? '
290 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
'M. de Rambouillet is with him now,' he rejoined, still
bending over his tracing.
This answer relieved the worst of my anxieties, but the
manner of the speaker was so distrait and so rnnch at vari-
ance with the studied insouciance which he usually affected,
that I only grew more alarmed. I glanced at Simon Fleix,
but he kept his face averted, and I could gather nothing
from it; though I observed that he, too, was dressed for
the road, and wore his arms. I listened, but I could hear
no sounds which indicated that the Provost -Marshal was
approaching. Then on a sudden I thought of Mademoiselle
de la Vire. Could it be that Maignan had proved unequal
to his task?
I started impetuously from my stool under the influence
of the emotion which this thought naturally aroused, and
seized M. d'Ageii by the arm. 'What has happened?' I
exclaimed. 'Is it Bruhl? Did he break into my lodgings
last night? What! ' I continued, staggering back as I read
the confirmation of my fears in his face. 'He did? '
M. d'Agen, who had risen also, pressed my hand with
convulsive energy. Gazing into my face, he held me a
moment thus embraced, his manner a strange mixture of
fierceness and emotion. 'Alas, yes,' he answered, 'he did,
and took away those whom he found there ! Those whom
he found there, you understand ! But M. de Rambouillet
is on his way here, and in a few minutes you will be free.
We will follow together. If wa overtake them well. If
not, it will be time to talk.'
He broke off, and I stood looking at him, stunned by the
blow, yet in the midst of my own horror and surprise re-
taining sense enough to wonder at the gloom on his brow
and the passion which trembled in his words. What had
this to do with him? 'But Bruhl? ' I said at last, recover-
ing myself with an effort 'how did he gain access to the
room? I left it guarded.'
'By a ruse, while Maignan and his men were away,' was
the answer. 'Only this lad of yours was there. Bruhl's
men overpowered him.'
TO ME, MY FRIENDS! 291
'Which way has Bruhl gone?' I muttered, my throat
dry, my heart beating wildly.
He shook his head. 'All we know is that he passed
through the south gate with eleven horsemen, two women,
and six led horses, at daybreak this morning,' he answered.
'Maignan came to my uncle with the news, and M. de Ram-
bouillet went at once, early as it was, to the king to pro-
cure your release. He should be here now.'
I looked at the barred window, the most horrible fears at
my heart; from it to Simon Fleix, who stood beside it, his
attitude expressing the utmost dejection. I went towards
him. 'You hound!' I said in a low voice, 'how did it
happen?'
To my surprise he fell in a moment on his knees, and
raised his arm as though to ward off a blow. 'They imi-
tated Maignan's voice,' he muttered hoarsely. 'We
opened. '
'And you dare to come here and tell me! ' I cried, scarcely
restraining my passion. 'You, to whom I. entrusted her.
You, whom I thought devoted to her. You have destroyed
her, man! '
He rose as suddenly as he had cowered down. His thin,
nervous face underwent a startling change; growing on a
sudden hard and rigid, while his eyes began to glitter with
excitement. ' I I have destroyed her ? Ay, mon dieu ! I
have, ' he cried, speaking to my face, and no longer flinch-
ing or avoiding my eye. 'You may kill me, if you like.
You do not know all. It was I who stole the favour she
gave you from your doublet, and then said M. de Rosny
had taken it ! It was I who told her you had given it away !
It was I who brought her to the Little Sisters', that she
might see you with Madame de Bruhl ! It was I who did
all, and destroyed her! Now you know! Do with me
what you like ! '
He opened his arms as though to receive a blow, while I
stood before him astounded beyond measure by a disclosure
so unexpected; full of righteous wrath and indignation,
T2
292 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
and yet uncertain what I ought to do. 'Did you also let
Bruhl into the room on purpose? ' I cried at last.
'I?' he exclaimed, with a sudden flash of rage in his
eyes. 'I would have died first! '
I do not know how I might have taken this confession ;
but at the moment there was a trampling of horses outside,
and before I could answer him I heard M. de Kambouillet
speaking in haughty tones, at the door below. The Pro-
vost-Marshal was with him, but his lower notes were lost
in the ring of bridles and the stamping of impatient hoofs.
I looked towards the door of my room, which stood ajar,
and presently the two entered, the Marquis listening with
an air of contemptuous indifference to the apologies which
the other, who attended at his elbow, was pouring forth.
M. de Rambouillet's face reflected none of the gloom and
despondency which M. d'Agen's exhibited in so marked a
degree. He seemed, on the contrary, full of gaiety and
good-humour, and, coming forward and seeing me, embraced
me with the utmost kindness and condescension.
'Ha! my friend,' he said cheerfully, 'so I find you here
after all! But never fear. I am this moment from the
king with an order for your release. His Majesty has
told me all, making me thereby your lasting friend and
debtor. As for this gentleman, ' he continued, turning with
a cold smile to the Provost-Marshal, who seemed to be
trembling in his boots, 'he may expect an immediate order
also. M. de Villequier has wisely gone a-hunting, and will
not be back for a day or two.'
Racked as I was by suspense and anxiety, I could not
assail him with immediate petitions. It behoved me first
to thank him for his prompt intervention, and this in terms
as warm as I could invent. Nor could I in justice fail to
commend the Provost to him, representing the officer's
conduct to me, and lauding his ability. All this, though
my heart was sick with thought and fear and disappoint-
ment, and every minute seemed an age.
'Well, well/ the Marquis said with stately good-nature,
TO ME, MY FRIENDS! 293
f we will lay the blame on Villequier then. He is an old
fox, however, and ten to one he will go scot-free. It is not
the first time he has played this trick. But I have not yet
come to the end of my commission, ' he continued pleasantly.
'His Majesty sends you this, M. de Marsac, and bade me say
that he had loaded it for you. '
He drew from under his cloak as he spoke the pistol
which I had left with the king, and which happened to be
the same M. de Eosny had given me. I took it, marvel-
ling impatiently at the careful manner in which he handled
it; but in a moment I understood, for I found it loaded to
the muzzle with gold-pieces, of which two or three fell and
rolled upon the floor. Much moved by this substantial
mark of the king's gratitude, I was nevertheless for pocket-
ing them in haste ; but the Marquis, to satisfy a little curi-
osity on his part, would have me count them, and brought
the tale to a little over two thousand livres, without count-
ing a ring set with precious stones which I found among
them. This handsome present diverted my thoughts from
Simon Fleix, but could not relieve the anxiety I felt on
mademoiselle's account. The thought of her position so
tortured me that M. de Rambouillet began to perceive my
state of mind, and hastened to assure me that before going
to the Court he had already issued orders calculated to
assist me.
'You desire to follow this lady, I understand?' he said.
'What with the king, who is enraged beyond the ordinary
by this outrage, and Franqois there, who seemed beside
himself when he heard the news, I have not got any very
clear idea of the position.'
'She was entrusted to me by by one, sir, well known to
you,' I answered hoarsely. 'My honour is engaged to him
and to her. If I follow on my feet and alone, I must fol-
low. If I cannot save her, I can at least punish the villains
who have wronged her. '
'But the man's wife is with them,' he said in some
wonder.
294 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE
'That goes for nothing,' I answered.
He saw the strong emotion under which I laboured, and
which scarcely suffered me to answer him with patience;
and he looked at me curiously, but not unkindly. 'The
sooner you are off, the better then,' he said, nodding. 'I
gathered as much. The man Maignan will have his fellows
at the south gate an hour before noon, I understand.
Franqois has two lackeys, and he is wild to go. With your-
self and the lad there you will muster nine swords. I will
lend you two. I can spare no more, for we may have an
6meute at any moment. You will take the road, therefore,
eleven in all, and should overtake them some time to-night
if your horses are in condition. '
I thanked him warmly, without regarding his kindly
statement that my conduct on the previous day had laid
him under lasting obligations to me. We went down to-
gether, and he transferred two of his fellows to me there
and then, bidding them change their horses for fresh ones
and meet me at the south gate. He sent also a man to my
stable Simon Fleix having disappeared in the confusion
for the Cid, and was in the act of inquiring whether I
needed anything else, when a woman slipped through the
knot of horsemen who surrounded us as we stood in the
doorway of the house, and, throwing herself upon me,
grasped me by the arm. It was Fanchette. Her harsh
features were distorted with grief, her cheeks were mottled
with the violent weeping in which such persons vent their
sorrow. Her hair hung in long wisps on her neck. Her
dress was torn and draggled, and there was a great bruise
over her eye. She had the air of one frantic with despair
and misery.
She caught me by the cloak, and shook me so that I stag-
gered. 'I have found you at last! ' she cried joyfully.
'You will take me with you! You will take me to her! '
Though her words tried my composure, and my heart
went out to her, I strove to answer her according to tn,
sense of the matter. 'It is impossible,' I said sternly,
TO ME, MY FRIENDS \ 295
'This is a man's errand. We shall have to ride day and
night, my good woman. '
'But I will ride day and night too! ' she replied passion-
ately, flinging the hair from her eyes, and looking wildly
from me to M. de Rambouillet. 'What would I not do for
her? I am as strong as a man, and stronger. Take me,
take me, I say, and when I meet that villain I will tear
him limb from limb ! '
I shuddered, listening to her; but remembering that,
being country bred, she was really as strong as she said,
and that likely enough some advantage might accrue to us
from her perfect fidelity and devotion to her mistress, I
gave a reluctant consent. I sent one of M. de Rambouil-
let's men to the stable where the deaf man's bay was stand-
ing, bidding him pay whatever was due to the dealer, and
bring the horse to the south gate; my intention being to
mount one of my men on it, and furnish the woman with a
less tricky steed.
The briskness of these and the like preparations, which
even for one of my age and in my state of anxiety were
not devoid of pleasure, prevented my thoughts dwelling on
the future. Content to have M. Francois' assistance with-
out following up too keenly the train of ideas which his
readiness suggested, I was satisfied also to make use of
Simon without calling him to instant account for his
treachery. The bustle of the streets, which the confirma-
tion of the king's speedy departure had filled with surly,
murmuring crowds, tended still further to keep my fears
at bay; while the contrast between my present circum-
stances, as I rode through them well-appointed and well-
attended, with the Marquis by my side, and the poor appear-
ance I had exhibited on my first arrival in Blois, could not
fail to inspire me with hope that I might surmount this
danger also, and in the event find Mademoiselle safe and
uninjured. I took leave of M. de Rambouillet with many
expressions of esteem on both sides, and a few minutes
before eleven reached the rendezvous outside the south gate.
296 A GENTLEMAN" OF FRANCE
M. d'Agen and Maignan advanced to meet me, the
former still presenting an exterior so stern and grave that
I wondered to see him, and could scarcely believe he was
the same gay spark whose elegant affectations had more
than once caused me to smile. He saluted me in silence;
Maignan with a sheepish air, which ill-concealed the savage
temper defeat had roused in him. Counting my men, I
found we mustered ten only, but the equerry explained that
he had despatched a rider ahead to make inquiries and leave
word for us at convenient points ; to the end that we might
follow the trail with as few delays as possible. Highly
commending Maignan for his forethought in this, I gave
the word to start, and crossing the river by the St. Gervais
Bridge, we took the road for Selles at a smart trot.
The weather had changed much in the last twenty-four
hours. The sun shone brightly, with a warm west wind,
and the country already showed signs of the early spring
which marked that year. If, the first hurry of departure
over, I had now leisure to feel the gnawing of anxiety and
the tortures inflicted by an imagination which, far outstrip-
ping us, rode with those whom we pursued and shared their
perils, I found two sources of comfort still open to me. No
man who has seen service can look on a little band of well-
appointed horsemen without pleasure. I reviewed the
stalwart forms and stern faces which moved beside me,
and comparing their decent order and sound equipments
with the scurvy foulness of the men who had ridden north
with me, thanked God, and ceased to wonder at the indig-
nation which Matthew and his fellows had aroused in
mademoiselle's mind. My other source of satisfaction,
the regular beat of hoofs and ring of bridles continually
augmented. Every step took us farther from Blois farther
from the close town and reeking streets and the Court;
which, if it no longer seemed to me a shambles, befouled
by one great deed of blood experience had removed that
impression retained an appearance infinitely mean and
miserable in my eyes. I hated and loathed its intrigues
TO ME, MY FRIENDS I 297
and its jealousies, the folly which trifled in a closet while
rebellion mastered France, and the pettiness which recog-
nised no wisdom save that of balancing party and party. I
thanked God that my work there was done, and could have
welcomed any other occasion that forced me to turn my
back on it, and sent me at large over the pure heaths,
through the woods, and under the wide heaven, speckled
with moving clouds.
But such springs of comfort soon ran dry. M. d'Agen's
gloomy rage and the fiery gleam in Maignan's eye would
have reminded me, had I been in any danger of forgetting
the errand on which we were bound, and the need, exceed-
ing all other needs, which compelled us to lose no moment
that might be used. Those whom we followed had five
hours' start. The thought of what might happen in those
five hours to the two helpless women whom I had sworn to
protect burned itself into my mind; so that to refrain from
putting spurs to my horse and riding recklessly forward
taxed at times all my self-control. The horses seemed to
crawl. The men rising and falling listlessly in their sad-
dles maddened me. Though I could not hope to come upon
any trace of our quarry for many hours, perhaps for days,
I scanned the long, flat heaths unceasingly, searched eveiy
marshy bottom before we descended into it, and panted for
the moment when the next low ridge should expose to our
view a fresh track of wood and waste. The rosy visions of
the past night, and those fancies in particular which had
made the dawn memorable, recurred to me, as his deeds in
the body (so men say) to a hopeless drowning wretch. I
grew to think of nothing but Bruhl and revenge. Even
the absurd care with which Simon avoided the neighbour-
hood of Fanchette, riding anywhere so long as he might
ride at a distance from the angry woman's tongue and
hand which provoked many a laugh from the men, and
came to be the joke of the company failed to draw a smile
from me.
We passed through Centres, four leagues from Blois, an
298 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
hour after noon, and three hours later crossed the Cher at
Selles, where we stayed awhile to bait our horses. Here
we had news of the party before us, and henceforth had
little doubt that Bruhl was making for the Limousin; a
district in which he might rest secure under the protection
of Turenne, and safely defy alike the King of France and
the King of Navarre. The greater the necessity, it was
plain, for speed ; but the roads in that neighbourhood, and
forward as far as Valancy, proved heavy and foundrous,
and it was all we could do to reach Levroux with jaded
horses three hours after sunset. The probability that Bruhl
would lie at Chateauroux, five leagues farther on for I
could not conceive that under the circumstances he would
spare the women, would have led me to push forward had
it been possible; but the darkness and the difficulty of find-
ing a guide who would venture deterred me from the hope-
less attempt, and we stayed the night where we were.
Here we first heard of the plague; which was said to be
ravaging Chateauroux and all the country farther south.
The landlord of the inn would have regaled us with many
stories of it, and particularly of the swiftness with which
men and even cattle succumbed to its attacks. But we had
other things to think of, and between anxiety and weariness
had clean forgotten the matter when we rose next morning.
We started shortly after daybreak, and for three leagues
pressed on at tolerable speed. Then, for no reason stated,
our guide gave us the slip as we passed through a wood,
and was seen no more. We lost the road, and had to
retrace our steps. We strayed into a slough, and extracted
ourselves with difficulty. The man who was riding the bay
I had purchased forgot the secret which I had imparted to
him, and got an ugly fall. In fine, after all these mishaps
it wanted little of noon, and less to exhaust our patience,
when at length we came in sight of Chateauroux.
Before entering the town we had still an adventure ; for
we came at a turn in the road 011 a scene as surprising as
it was at first inexplicable. A little north of the town, in
TO ME, M.Y FRIENDS!
a' coppice of box facing ; the south; and west, we happed
suddenly on; a rude encampment, consisting; of a dozen huts
and booths, set back from the :road and .'formed, some of
branches of evergreen trees laid clumsily together, and
some df sacking stretched aver poles. A number of men
and women of decent appearance ;lay on; the. short grass be-
fore the booths, idly .sunning themselves; .or moved about,
cooking and /tending rfires, .while a ; seore of children raced
to and fro with .noisy shouts and .laughter. The ; appear-
ance of our paity on .the scene caused : an instant panic.
The women and 'children fled screaming .into the wood,
spreading the sound of breaking 'branches farther. and far-
ther as they retreated; while the .men,. a miserable pale-
faced f set, ; drew i together, : and seeming half T inclined to fly
also, -regarded us with glances of :f ear. and suspicion.
Remarking that their appearance and dressiwere not those
of vagrants, while .'the booths -seemed to indicate little : skill
ior: experience in 'the .builders, I bade i my i companions halt,
and advanced alone.
'What;is the meaning of this, my men?' "I said, address-
ing 'the first <group I reached. ''You .seem to ha/ve come
a-Maying before' the time. Whenee are you? '
'.I^rom Chateauroux, 1 ' - the iforemost answered sullerily.
His dress, now I: saw him nearer, seemed 'to ,be .that i of : a
:respectable rtownsman.
' Why ? ' I replied. 'Have you .no rhomes ? ; '
"'Ay^werhave homes, Mie answered with '.the: same brevity.
'Then why, 'in God's name, ; are you :here? ' I retorted,
/marking .the gloomy air and 'downcast faces of the .group.
'Have you ! been ;hairied? '
'Ay/harried.byrthjeiPlague! ' he answered :bittefly. IDo
-.you :mean .to :say ".you have not heard? In c Ch,teauroux
! there is 'one man dead in -three. Take my advice, ;sir
\you arera:brave eompany 4urn, 'and go home;again^'
''Is .it as ;bad asrfchat? ' I exclaimed. :lJhad forgotten the
.landlord's gossip, :and;the ^explanation struck me'with.<;fche
;foree of surprise.
300 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
'Ay, is it! Do you see the blue haze?' he continued,
pointing with a sudden gesture to the lower ground before
us, over which a light pall of summery vapour hung still
and motionless. 'Do you see it? Well, under that there
is death! You may find food in Chateauroux, and stalls
for your horses, and a man to take money; for there are
still men there. But cross the Indre, and you will see
sights worse than a battle-field a week old! You will find
no living soul in house or stable or church, but corpses
plenty. The land is cursed! cursed for heresy, some say!
Half are dead, and half are fled to the woods ! And if you
do not die of the plague, you Avill starve. '
'God forbid!' I muttered, thinking with a shudder of
those before us. This led me to ask him if a party resem-
bling ours in number, and including two women, had passed
that way. He answered, Yes, after sunset the evening
before; that their horses were stumbling with fatigue and
the men swearing in pure weariness. He believed that
they had not entered the town, but had made a rude encamp-
ment half a mile beyond it; and had again broken this up,
and ridden southwards two or three hours before our arrival.
'Then we may overtake them to-day?' I said.
'By your leave, sir,' he answered, with grave meaning.
'I think you are more likely to meet them.'
Shrugging my shoulders, I thanked him shortly and left
him; the full importance of preventing my men hearing
what I had heard lest the panic which possessed these
townspeople should seize on them also being already in
my mind. Nevertheless the thought came too late, for on
turning my horse I found one of the foremost, a long,
solemn-faced man, had already found his way to Maignan's
stirrup; where he was dilating so eloquently upon the
enemy which awaited us southwards that the countenances
of half the troopers were as long as his own, and I saw
nothing for it but to interrupt his oration by a smart ap-
plication of my switch to his shoulders. Having thus
stopped him, and rated him back to his fellows, I gave the
TO ME, MY FRIENDS 1 . 301
word to march. The men obeyed mechanically, we swung
into a canter, and for a moment the danger was over.
But I knew that it would recur again and again. Stealth-
ily marking the faces round me, and listening to the whis-
pered talk which went on, I saw the terror spread from one
to another. Voices which earlier in the day had been
raised in song and jest grew silent. Great reckless fellows
of Maiguan's following, who had an oath and a blow for all
coiners, and to whom the deepest ford seemed to be child's
play, rode with drooping heads and knitted brows; or
scanned with ill-concealed anxiety the strange haze before
us, through which the roofs of the town, and here and there
a low hill or line of poplars, rose to plainer view. Mai-
gnan himself, the stoutest of the stout, looked grave, and
had lost his swaggering air. Only three persons preserved
their sang-froid entire. Of these, M. d'Agen rode as if he
had heard nothing, and Simon Fleix as if he feared noth-
ing; while Fanchette, gazing eagerly forward, saw, it was
plain, only one object in the mist, and that was her mis-
tress's face.
We found the gates of the town open, and this, which
proved to be the herald of stranger sights, daunted the
hearts of my men more than the most hostile reception.
As we entered, our horses' hoofs, clattering loudly on the
pavement, awoke a hundred echoes in the empty houses
to right and left. The main street, flooded with sunshine,
which made its desolation seem a hundred times more formi-
dable, stretched away before us, bare and empty ; or haunted
only by a few slinking dogs, and prowling wretches, who
fled, affrighted at the unaccustomed sounds, or stood and
eyed us listlessly as we passed. A bell tolled ; in the dis-
tance we heard the wailing of women. The silent Avays,
the black cross which marked every second door, the fright-
ful faces which once or twice looked out from upper win-
dows and blasted our sight, infected my men with terror so
profound and so ungovernable that at last discipline was for-
gotten ; and one shoving his horse before another in narrow
302. A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
places, there was a scuffle to be first; One, and then a sec-
ond, began to trot. The trot grew into a shuffling canter;.
The gates of the inn lay open, nay seemed to invite us to
enter; but no one turned or halted. Moved by a single-
impulse we pushed breathlessly on and on^. until the open
country was reached, and we who had entered the streets
in silent awe, swept out and over the bridge as if the fiend
were at our heels.
That I shared in this flight causes me no shame even
now, for my men were at the time ungovernable, as the
best-trained troops are when seized by such panics ; and,
moreover, I could have done no good by remaining in the
town, where the strength of the contagion was probably
greater and the inn larder like to be as bare as the hillside.
Few towns -are without a hostelry outside the gates for: the:
convenience of knights of the road or those who would;
avoid: the dues, and Chateauroux proved no exception to
this rule. A- short half-mile from the walls we drew rein
befoxe a second encampment raised about a wayside house.
It scarcely needed the sound of music mingled with: brawl-
ing voices to inform us that: the wilder spirits of the town
had taken refuge here, and were seeking to drown in riot
and debauchery, as I have seen happen. in a besieged place,
the remembrance of the enemy which stalked; abroad in
the sunshine. Our sudden appearance, while it. put a stop
to 'the mimicry of mirth, brought, out a score of men and
women in 'every stage oi drunkenness and dishevelment r of
whom some, with hiccoughs and doose gestures, cried to us
to join them, while others ;s wore horridly, at being recalled
to the present, which, with the future, they were endeavour-
ing to forget;
I cursed^ them' in return for a pack of 'craven wretches,
and threatening to ride down those who obstructed; us,
ordered my men forward ; halting eventually a quarter of
a mile farther on, where a wood of groundling oaks which
still wore last year's leaves afforded . fair, shelter. Afraid
to leave my men! myself, lest some should stray to. the inn
TO ME, .MY FRIEND SI 303
and others desert altogether, J requested M. rd'Agan. tto
return thither with Maignan and Simon, and bring us what
forage and food we required. This he did 'with perfect
success, though not until after a scuffle, in which Maignan
showed himself a match for a 'hundred. We watered -the
horses at a neighbouring brook, and assigning two hours :to
rest and : refreshment a great :part of -which 'M. d'Agen
and I spent walking up and down in moody silence, each
immersed in his own thoughts we presently took the road
again with renewed spirits.
But a panic is not easily shaken off, nor is any fear so
difficult to combat and defeat as the fear of the invisible.
The terrors which food and drink ; had for a time thrust out
presently returned with sevenfold force. Men looked un-
easily in one another's faces, and from them to the j haze
which veiled all distant objects. They miittered of the
heat, which was sudden, strange, and abnormal at that r time
of the year. And by-and-by they had other things to speak
of. We met a man, who ran beside its and begged of us,
crying out in a dreadful voice that his wife and four chil-
dren lay un buried in the house. A little farther on, beside
a well, the corpse of a woman with a child at her breast lay
-poisoning the water ; she had crawled 'to it to appease -her
thirst, and 'died of the draught. Last of all, in a beech-
'wood near Lotier we came upon, a lady I living in .her coach,
with one or two panic-stricken women for her only: attend-
ants. 'Her 'husbaad was in Paris, she told nte; half her
'servants were dead, the rest had'.fled. Still she rretained; in
a remarkable 'degree both courage and courtesy, and accept-
ing with fortitude my reasons and excuses' for perforce, leav-
ing her in such; a- plight, gave me a clear account of -Bruhl
and his party, who i had passed her some 'hours before. The
picture <df 'this lady -gazing after us 'with ; perfect good-
breeding, as we xode away at speed, followed by .the
(lamentations of her women, remains with me .to '.this day;
'filling-my mind. at once with admiration and melancholy.
;For, as I learned later, : she fell ill of the plague where we
304 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
left her in the beech-wood, and died in a night with both
her servants.
The intelligence we had from her inspired us to push
forward, sparing neither spur nor horseflesh, in the hope
that we might overtake Bruhl before night should expose
his captives to fresh hardships and dangers. But the pitch
to which the dismal sights and sounds I have mentioned,
and a hundred like them, had raised the fears of my follow-
ing did much to balk my endeavours. For a while, indeed,
under the influence of momentary excitement, they spurred
their horses to the gallop, as if their minds were made up
to face the worst ; but presently they checked them despite
all my efforts, and, lagging slowly and more slowly, seemed
to lose all spirit and energy. The desolation which met
our eyes on every side, no less than the death-like stillness
which prevailed, even the birds, as it seemed to us, being
silent, chilled the most reckless to the heart. Maignan's
face lost its colour, his voice its ring. As for the rest, start-
ing at a sound and wincing if a leather galled them, they
glanced backwards twice for once they looked forwards,
and held themselves ready to take to their heels and be
gone at the least alarm.
Noting these signs, and doubting if I could trust even
Maignan, I thought it prudent to change my place, and fall-
ing to the rear, rode there with a grim face and a pistol
ready to my hand. It was not the least of my annoyances
that M. d'Agen appeared to be ignorant of any cause for
apprehension save such as lay before us, and riding on in
the same gloomy fit which had possessed him from the
moment of starting, neither sought my opinion nor gave
his own, but seemed to have undergone so complete and
mysterious a change that I could think of one thing only
that could have power to effect so marvellous a transforma-
tion. I felt his presence a trial rather than a help, and
reviewing the course of our short friendship, which a day
or two before had been so great a delight to me as the
friendship of a young man commonly is to one growing
TO ME, MY FRIENDS! 305
old I puzzled myself with much wondering whether there
could be rivalry between us.
Sunset, which was welcome to my company, since it
removed the haze, which they regarded with superstitious
dread, found us still plodding through a country of low
ridges and shallow valleys, both clothed in oak-woods. Its
short brightness died away, and with it my last hope of
surprising Bruhl before I slept. Darkness fell upon us as
we wended our way slowly down a steep hillside where the
path was so narrow and difficult as to permit only one to
descend at a time. A stream of some size, if we might
judge from the noise it made, poured through the ravine
below us, and presently, at the point where we believed the
crossing to be, we espied a solitary light shining in the black-
ness. To proceed farther was impossible, for the ground
grew more and more precipitous ; and, seeing this, I bade
Maignan dismount, and leaving us where we were, go for a
guide to the house from which the light issued.
He obeyed, and plunging into the night, which in that
pit between the hills was of an inky darkness, presently
returned with a peasant and a lanthorn. I was about to
bid the man guide us to the ford, or to some level ground
where we could picket the horses, when Maignan gleefully
cried out that he had neAvs. I asked what news.
'Speak up, manant !' he said, holding up his lanthorn so
that the light fell on the man's haggard face and unkempt
hair. ' Tell his Excellency what you have told me, or I will
skin you alive, little man ! '
' Your other party came to the ford an hour before sun-
set,' the peasant answered, staring dully at us. 'I saw
them coming, and hid myself. They quarrelled by the ford.
Some were for crossing, and some not.'
'They had ladies with them?' M. d'Agen said sudden^.
'Ay, two, your Excellency,' the clown answered, 'riding
like men. In the end they did not cross for fear of the
plague, but turned up the river, and rode westwards towards
St. Gaultier.' n
306 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
'St. Gaultierl'I said. 'Where is that? Where does'
the road to it go to besides ? '
But the peasant's knowledge was confined to his own
neighbourhood. He knew no world beyond St; G-aultier,
and could not answer ray question. I was about to bid
him show us the way down, when Maignan cried out that
he knew more.
'What?' I asked.
' Arnidieu ! he heard them say where they were going to
spend the night !''
'Ha! 'I cried: ''Where?'
' In an old ruined castle two leagues from this-, and be-
tween here and St. Gaultier,' the equerry answered, for-'
getting in his triumph both plague and panic. ' What' do
you 1 say to that, your Excellency ?' It is so, sirrah, is it
not ? ' he continued; turning to the peasant. ' Speak,
Master Jacques, or I will roast : you before a slow fire !'
But I did not wait to hear the answer. Leaping to the
ground^ I took the Cid's rein on my arm, and cried impa
tiently to the man to lead us down.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE certainty that Bruhl and his captives were not fav
off, and the likelihood that we might be engaged within th?
hour, expelled from the minds of even the most, timorous
among us the vapourish fears- which had before haunted 7
them. In the hurried scramble which presently landed us
on the bank of the stream, men who had ridden-for hours
in sulky silence found their voices, and from cursing'their
horses- blunders soon advanced to swearing 'and singing
after the -fashion of their kineL This change^ by relieving
me of a great fear, left me at leisure to consider our posi-
THE CASTLE <ON THE HILL 307
tion, and estimate more -clearly than I 'might have done 'the
advantages of hastening, or postponing, ;an attack. We
numbered eleven; the enemy, to the best of my belief,
twelve. Of this slight superiority I should have recked
little in the daytime; nor, perhaps, counting Maignan as
two, have allowed that it existed. -But the result of a
night attack is more difficult to 'forecast; and I had'also to
take into account 'the perils : to which the two ladies would
be exposed, between the darkness and tumult, in the event
of the issue remaining for a time in doubt.
These considerations, and particularly the last, weighed
so power fully 'with me, that before : I 'reached the'bottom of
the gorge 'I had decided to : postpone 1 the attack iintil mom-
ing. The answers to -some questions 'whicli I put to 'the
inhabitant of the house by the ford as soon as I reached
Jevel ground only confirmed : me in this resolution. The
Toad Bruhl had 'taken ran for -a distance by the river-
side,-' and along the 'bottom of the gorge; and, difficult >by
day, -was repotted 'to be impracticable 'for horses by night.
The castle he had mentioned lay full two leagues away,
and on the farther edge of a tract of rough rsvoodland.
iFinally, I doubted .whether, .in the .absence of any other
reason "for delay, II ( could have marched my men, , weary . as
they .were, .to~ the plaice ' before > day break.
When I came 'to announce this decision, rhowever, and to
inquire what. accommodation the peasant rcould afford us, I
found myselfiin trouble. .'Fauchette, mademoiselle's woman,
suddenly confronted me r her face scarlet with rage. Thrust-
ing ;herself forward into the circle of 'light cast by : the Ian-
thorn/ she 'assailed rme> with; a virulence and -fierceness. which
said; more /for 'her devotion rto -her imistress 'thanlher respect
for : me. Her - wild gesticulation s, hex ihreats, rand the ap-
peals which yshe ;made now^.toianejcand now to" the men who
stood in a circle round us, their faces in shadow, discomfited
as much as they : surprised;nve.
f What f ' : she ciied .violently, ^you -call .yourself a gentle-
man, and lie .here :uad Jlet jny imistress be murdered, of
u2
308 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
worse, within a league of you ! Two leagues ? A groat
for your two leagues ! I would walk them barefoot if that
would shame you. And you, you call yourselves men, and
suffer it ! It is God's truth you are a set of cravens and
sluggards. Give me as many women, and I would '
' Peace, woman ! ' Maignan said in his deep voice. ' You
had your way and came with us, and you will obey orders
as well as another ! Be off, and see to the victuals before
worse happen to you ! '
' Ay, see to the victuals ! ' she retorted. ( See to the
victuals, forsooth ! That is all you think of to lie warm
and eat your fill ! A set of dastardly, drinking, droning
guzzlers you are ! You are ! ' she retorted, her voice rising
to a shriek. ' May the plague take you ! '
' Silence ! ' Maignan growled fiercely, ' or have a care to
yourself ! For a copper-piece I would send you to cool your
heels in the water below for that last word ! Begone, do
you hear,' he continued, seizing her by the shoulder and
thrusting her towards the house, ' or worse may happen to
you. We are rough customers, as you will find if you do
not lock up your tongue ! '
I heard her go wailing into the darkness ; and Heaven
knows it was not without compunction I forced myself to
remain inactive in the face of a devotion which seemed so
much greater than mine. The men fell away one by one to
look to their horses and choose sleeping-quarters for the
night; and presently M. d'Agen and I were left alone
standing beside the lanthorn, which the man had hung on
a bush before his door. The brawling of the water as it
poured between the banks, a score of paces from us, and
the black darkness which hid everything beyond the little
ring of light in which we stood so that for all we could
see we were in a pit had the air of isolating us from all
the world.
I looked at the young man, who had not once lisped that
day ; and I plainly read in his attitude his disapproval of
my caution. Though he declined to meet my eye, he stood
THE CASTLE ON THE HILL 309
with his arms folded and his head thrown back, making no
attempt to disguise the scorn and ill-temper which his face
expressed. Hurt by the woman's taunts, and ^ssibly
shaken in my opinion, I grew restive under his silence, and
unwisely gave way to my feelings.
' You do not appear to approve of my decision, M.
d'Agen ? ' I said.
' It is yours to command, sir,' he answered proudly.
There are truisms which have more power to annoy than
the veriest reproaches. I should have borne in mind the
suspense and anxiety he was suffering, and which had so
changed him that I scarcely knew him for the gay young
spark on whose toe I had trodden. I should have remem-
bered that he was young arid I old, and that it behoved me
to be patient. But on my side also there was anxiety, and
responsibility as well ; and, above all, a rankling soreness,
to which I refrain from giving the name of jealousy, though
it came as near to that feeling as the difference in our ages
and personal advantages (whereof the balance was all on
his side) would permit. This, no doubt, it was which im-
pelled me to continue the argument.
'You would go on?' I said persistently.
1 It is idle to say what I would do/ he answered with a
flash of anger.
<I asked for your opinion, sir,' I rejoined stiffly.
' To what purpose ? ' he retorted, stroking his small mous-
tache haughtily. ' We look at the thing from opposite
points. You are going about your business, which appears
to be the rescuing of ladies who are may I venture to say
it ? so unfortunate as to entrust themselves to your charge.
I, M. de Marsac, am more deeply interested. More deeply
interested,' he repeated lamely. ' I in a word, I am pre-
pared, sir, to do what others only talk of and if I cannot/
follow otherwise, would follow on my feet ! '
' Whom ? ' I asked curtly, stung by this repetition of my
own words.
He laughed harshly and bitterly. ' Why explain ? or
;jnr A, GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
why quarrel?.' he replied cynically. ' God knows, if I could
afford to quarrel with you, I should ; have done so fifty hours
ago. 3"Ut I need your help ; and, needing iti, I am prepared 1
to do tM>t which must seem to a person of your calm pas-
nions and perfect judgment alike futile and incredible pay
<,he full price for it.'
' The full price for it ! ' I muttered, understanding noth-
ing, except that I did 'not understand.
' A;y , tlie full price for it ! ' he repeated. And as- he spoke
he looked at me with an expression of rage so fierce -that I'
recoiled a step.. That seemed to restore him in' some de->
gree to himself, for without giving me 'an opportunity of'
answering he turned hastily from me, and, striding away,
was in a moment lost in the darkness;
He left. me amazed ; beyond measure: I 1 stood repeating
his phrase about .-' the full price ' a* hundred times over, but'
&till found, it and his passion inexplicable. To cut the mat-
ter short, L could come to no other conclusion than that he
desired to insult me, and aware of my poverty and the
equivocal position in which I stood towards mademoiselle,
chose his words accordingly. This seemed a-thing unworthy
of one of whom I' had before thought highly ; but calmer
reflection enabling me to see 'something of youthful bombast
in the tirade he had delivered, I smiled a little sadly, and 1
determined to think no more -of the matter for the present,
but to persist firmly- in that which seemed tb me to be 'the
right' course.
Having settled this^ I ; was about to enter the house, wheni
Maignan stopped me, telling me that' the plague had 'killed
five people in it, leaving only the man we' had seen;
who had, indeed, been seized, but recovered. This ghastly
news had 1 scared my company to such a degree that they
had gone as far from the house as the level ground per--
mitted, and there lighted a fire, round' which they were
going 'to pass the night: Eanchette had taken up her quar-
ters in the stable, and the equerry announced that ; he had
kept 1 , a shed full of sweet hay for M". d'Agen and myself.
THE CASTLE ON THE HILL %n
1 assented to this arrangement, and after supping off soup
and black bread, which was all we could procure, bade the
peasant rouse us two hours before sunrise; and. so, being
too weary and old in service to remain awake -'thinking, I
fell asleep, and slept soundly till a little after four.
My first business on'rising was to see that the men before
mounting made a meal, for it is ill work fighting empty. I
went 'round also and saw that all had their arms, and that
such as carried pistols had them loaded and primed. M.
"Francois did not put in an appearance until this wor-k was
done, and then showed a very pale and gloomy countenance.
I took no heed of him, however, and with the first -streak
.of daylight we started in single file and at. a snail's pace up
the valley, the peasant, whom I placed in MaignanV charge,
going before to guide' us, and M. d'Agen.'and I ridingln the
rear. By the time the sun rose and warmed our chilled;and
shivering frames we'were over the ; worst of the; ground, and
were able to advance at some speed along, a track cut; through
a dense forest of oak-trees.
Though we had now risen out of the valley, the close-set
trunks and the undergrowth 'round 'them prevented our see-
ing in any direction. 'For a mile- ormore we rode: on blindly,
and presently started on 'finding 'ourselves on the brow of; a
hill, looking down into a valley, the nearer ' end of which
was clothed in woods, while the farther 'widened into green
; sloping pastures. From the midst, of "these a hill or: mount
rose sharply up, until it ended in walls of grey stone scarce
'to be distinguished. at that distance 'from the native rock
on which they stood.
' See ! ' cried- our guide. '/There is the^castle ! '
Bidding the men dismount in haste, that the chance of
our being seen by the enemy which was not great might
! be farther lessened, I 'began 'to inspect the position at leis-
ure.; my first feeling while doing -so .be ing one of thankful-
ness that I had not attempted a night attack, which must
inevitably hare 'miscarried, possibly with iloss . to: ourselves,
and certainly twith the 'result of informing the enemy- of tour
312 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
presence. The castle, of which we had a tolerable view, was
long and narrow in shape, consisting of two towers connected
by walls. The nearer tower, through which lay the en-
trance, was roofless, and in every way seemed to be more
ruinous than the inner one, which appeared to be perfect in
both its stories. This defect notwithstanding, the place was
so strong that my heart sank lower the longer I looked ; and
a glance at Maignan's face assured me that his experience
was also at fault. For M. d'Agen, I clearly saw, when I
turned to him, that he had never until this moment realised
what we had to expect, but, regarding our pursuit in the
light of a hunting-party, had looked to see it end in like
easy fashion. His blank, surprised face, as he stood eyeing
the stout grey walls, said as much as this.
* Arnidieu ! ' Maignan muttered, ' give me ten men, and I
would hold it against a hundred ! '
* Tut, man, there is more than one way to Borne ! ' I an-
swered oracularly, though I was far from feeling as confident
as I seemed. ' Come, let us descend and view this nut a little
nearer.'
We began to trail downwards in silence, ana as tne path
led us for a while out of sight of the castle, we were able
to proceed with less caution. We had nearly reached with-
out adventure the farther skirts of the wood, between which
and the ruin lay an interval of open ground, when we came
suddenly, at the edge of a little clearing, on an old hag ;
who was so intent upon tying up faggots that she did not
see us until Maignan's hand was on her shoulder. When
she did, she screamed out, and escaping from him with an
activity wonderful in a woman of her age, ran with great
swiftness to the side of an old man who lay at the foot of a
tree half a bowshot off; and whom we had not before seen.
Snatching up an axe, she put herself in a posture of defence
before him with gestures and in a manner as touching in
the eyes of some among us as they were ludicrous in those
of others ; who cried to Maignan that he had met his match at
last, with other gibes of the kind that pass current in camps.
THE CASTLE ON THE HILL 313
I called to him to let her be, and went forward myself to
the old man, who lay on a rude bed of leaves, and seemed
unable to rise. Appealing to me with a face of agony not
to hurt his wife, he bade her again and again lay down her
axe ; but she would not do this until I had assured her that
we meant him no harm, and that my men should molest
neither the one nor the other.
* We only want to know this,' I said, speaking slowly, in
fear lest my language should be little more intelligible to
them than their patois to me. ' There are a dozen horsemen
in the old castle there, are there not ? '
The man stilled his wife, who continued to chatter and
mow at us, and answered eagerly that there were ; adding,
with a trembling oath, that the robbers had beaten him,
robbed him of his small store of meal, and when he would
have protested, thrown him out, breaking his leg.
'Then how came you here ? ' I said.
'She brought me on her back,' he answered feebly.
Doubtless there were men in my train who would have
done all that these others had done ; but hearing the simple
story told, they stamped and swore great oaths of indigna-
nation ; and one, the roughest of the party, took out some
black bread and gave it to the woman, whom under other
circumstances he would not have hesitated to rob. Mai-
gnan, who knew all arts appertaining to war, examined the
man's leg and made a kind of cradle for it, while I ques-
tioned the woman.
' They are there still ? ' I said. ' I saw their horses
tethered under the walls.'
' Yes, God requite them ! ' she answered, trembling
violently.
' Tell me about the castle, my good woman,' I said. 'How
many roads into it are there ? '
' Only one.'
' Through the nearer tower ? '
She said yes, and finding that she understood me, and
was less dull of intellect than her wretched appearance led
314 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
me to expect,. ! put a series, of questions to her which it
wo.uld. be tedious to detail. Suffice it-, that L learned that it
was impossible to enter or leave the ruin except through
the nearer tower; that a rickety temporary, gate barred the
entrance, and that from this tower^, which was a mere shell
of four walls, a; narrow square-headed doorway without a
door led into the court, beyond, which rose the habitable
tower of two stories..
'Do. you know if they intend to stay there? ' I asked.
'Oh, ay, they bade me bring them faggots for their fire
this morning, and I should have a handful of my own: meal
back/, she answered bitterly;; and. fell thereon into a ,passion
of impotent rage, shaking both her 'clenched; hands in, the
direction of the. castle,. and; screaming frenzied: maledictions
in. her cracked- and: quavering voice..
I pondered: awhile over' what, she had said; liking very
little the thought of that: narrow squareJieaded doorway
through which we must, pass- before: we could; effect any-
thing. And the gate, tooy troubled me. It might not be ?
strong, one, .but. we had: neither powder, nor; guns, nor any.
siege implements, and, could not pull down stone walls with
our naked; hands.. By. seizing the horses we could: indeed
cut off. B mill's retreat.; but. he might still escape in the
night; and in any case our pains would only increase the
women's hardships while, adding fuel to his rage. We must
have some. other plan;
The sun was high by this time; the edge of the wood
scarcely a hundred paces from us. By advancing a . few
yards through the trees I could see the horses feeding
peacefully at the foot of the: sunny slope, and even follow
with my eyes the faint track which zigzagged up the hill to
the. closed gate. No one appeared- doubtless they were
sleeping off the fatigue of the journey and I drew no in*
spiration thence ; but as I turned to consult Maignan my
eye lit on the faggots, and I saw in a flash that here: was a
chance: of putting: into practice a stratagem as old; as : the
hills, yet ever fresh, and not seldom successful!.
THE. CASTLE QN THE HILL 315
It: was: no time for. over-refinenxent. My knaves were
beginning to stray forward out of curiosity, and: at any
moment one of our horses, scenting those of the enemy,
might neigh and give the alarm.. Hastily calling ML d'Agen
and Maignan to me, I laid my plan before them, and satis-
fied myself that it had their approval ; the fact that I had
reserved a special part for the former serving to thaw the
reserve which had succeeded to his outbreak, of the night
before. After some debate Maignan. persuaded me that the
old woman had not sufficient nerve to play the part L pro-
posed for her,, and named Fanchette ; who being called into
council, did' not belie the opinion we had formed of her
courage. In a few moments our preparations were com-
plete: I had donned the old charcoal-burner's outer rags>
Eanchette had assumed those of the woman, while M.
d'Agen, who was for a time' at. a lossy and betrayed less
taste for this part of- the plan than for any other, ended by
putting on the jerkin and hose of the man who had served
us as guide;.
When all was- ready I commended the troop to Maignan?s
discretion, charging him in the event of anything happening
to us to continue the most persistent efforts for mademoi--
selle's release, and on.no account to abandon her. Having
received his promise' to.' this effect, and being satisfied; that
lie would, keep it,, we took up each of us a great faggot,
which being borne on the head and: shoulders served to hide
the features very, effectually -, and thus disguised we boldly
left the shelter of the trees. Eanchette and I went first,
tottering in a most natural fashion under the weight of our
burdens, while M. d' Agen followed 1 a hundred yards behind
Lhad.given Maignan orders to make a dash for the gate the
moment he saw the last named start to run.
The perfect stillness of the valley, the clearness of the
air, and the absence of any sign of life in the castle before
us which might have been that? of the 1 Sleeping Princess,
so fairy-like: it :laokedi against: the; sky. with, the suspense
and excitement in our own breasts, which these peculiarities
316 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
seemed to increase a hundred-fold, made the tnne that i'ol-
lowed one of the strangest in my experience. It was nearly
ten o'clock, and the warm sunshine flooding everything
about us rendered the ascent, laden as we were, laborious
in the extreme. The crisp, short turf, which had scarcely
got its spring growth, was slippery and treacherous. We
dared not hasten, for we knew not what eyes Avere upon us,
and we dared as little after we had gone half-way lay
our faggots down, lest the action should disclose too much
of our features.
When we had reached a point within a hundred paces of
the gate, which still remained obstinately closed, we stood
to breathe ourselves, and balancing my bundle on my head,
I turned to make sure that all was right behind us. I found
that M. d'Agen, intent on keeping his distance, had chosen
the same moment for rest, and was sitting in a very natural
manner on his faggot, mopping his face with the sleeve of
his jerkin. I scanned the brown leafless wood, in which we
had left Maignan and our men ; but I could detect no glitter
among the trees nor any appearance likely to betray us.
Satisfied on these points, I muttered a few words of encour-
agement to Fanchette, whose face was sti-eaining with per-
spiration ; and together we turned and addressed ourselves
to our task, fatigue for we had had no practice in carrying
burdens on the head enabling us to counterfeit the decrepi-
tude of age almost to the life.
The same silence prevailing as we drew nearer inspired
me with not a few doubts and misgivings. Even the bleat
of a sheep would have been welcome in the midst of a still-
ness which seemed ominous. But no sheep bleated, no voice
hailed us. The gate, ill-hung and full of fissures, remained
closed. Step by step we staggered up to it, and at length
reached it. Afraid to speak lest my accent should betray
me, I struck the forepart of my faggot against it and waited :
doubting whether our whole stratagem had not been per-
ceived from the beginning, and a pistol-shot might not be
the retort.
THE CASTLE ON THE HILL 317
Nothing of the kind happened, however. The sound of
the blow, which echoed dully through the building, died
away, and the old silence resumed its sway. We knocked
again, but fully two minutes elapsed before a grumbling
voice, as of a man aroused from sleep, was heard drawing
near, and footsteps came slowly and heavily to the gate.
Probably the fellow inspected us through a loophole, for he
paused a moment, and my heart sank ; but the next, seeing
nothing suspicious, he unbarred the gate with a querulous
oath, and, pushing it open, bade vis enter and be quick
about it.
I stumbled forward into the cool, dark shadow, and the
woman followed me, while the man, stepping out with a
yawn, stood in the entrance, stretching himself in the sun-
shine. The roofless tower, which smelled dank and un-
wholesome, was empty, or cumbered only with rubbish and
heaps of stones ; but looking through the inner door I saw
in the courtyard a smouldering fire and half a dozen men in
the act of rousing themselves from sleep. I stood a second
balancing my faggot, as if in doubt where to lay it down ;
and then assuring myself by a swift glance that the man
who had let us in still had his back towards us, I dropped
it across the inner doorway. Fanchette, as she had been
instructed, plumped hers upon it, and at the same moment
I sprang to the door, and taking the man there by surprise,
dealt him a violent blow between the shoulders, which sent
him headlong down the slope.
A cry behind me, followed by an oath of alarm, told me
that the action was observed and that now was the pinch.
In a second I was back at the faggots, and drawing a pistol
from under my blouse was in time to meet the rush of the
nearest man, who, comprehending all, sprang up, and made
for me, with his sheathed sword. I shot him in the chest
as he cleared the faggots which, standing nearly as high
as a man's waist, formed a tolerable obstacle and he pitched
forward at my feet.
This balked his companions, who drew back ; but unfor-
3i8 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
tunately it was necessary for me to stoop to get my sword,
which was hidden in the faggot I had carried. The: fore-
most of the rascals took advantage of this. Rushing at me
with a long knife, he failed to stab me for I caught his
wrist but he succeeded in bringing me to the ground. J
thought /I was undone. I looked to have the others swarm
over upon us : and so it would doubtless. 'have happened had
not Fanchette, with rare courage, dealt the first who 'followed
alusty blow on the body with a great stick she snatched up.
The 'man collapsed on the faggots, and this 'hampered the
rest. The check was enough. It enabled M. d'Agen to
eome up, who, dashing in through the gate, shot 'down the
first he saw before him,; and running at the doorway with
his sword with incredible fury and the courage which I had
always known him to possess, cleared it in a twinkling. The
man with whom I was engaged on the ground, seeing what
had happened, wrested himself free with : the strength' of
despair, and dashing through the outer door, > narrowly es-
caped being ridden down by my followers as they swept up
to the gate at a gallop, and dismounted amid a whirlwind
of cries.
In a moment they ihronged in on us pell-mell, and. as
soon as I could 'lay ;my hand on imy -sword I led them
through the doorway -with a cheer, hoping to be;able to
.enter the farther tower with the enemy. <Butfthe latter had
taken the alarm .too early and too thoroughly. The court
was empty. We were barely/' in time to see the last man
dart up a flight of outside stairs, which led ;to the first
story, and disappear, closing a heavy door behind him. I
Crushed to the 'foot ; of 'the steps and would have ascended
also, hoping against hope :to find the door unsecured; but
a shot which .was fired through a loop hole and (narrowly
missed my head, and another which :brought down one idf
my men, made;me pause. Discerning all rfche advantage to
be on B ruhl's -side, since he could shoot us down '.from. his
cover, I cried a retreat; the issue of the matter leaving'. us
masters of 'the entrance-tower, -while :fchey retained the dnner
PESTILENCE AND FAMINE 319.
and stronger tower, the narrow court between the two being
neutral ground unsafe for 'either party:
Two of their men had : fled outwards and were gone, and
two lay dead; while, the loss on our side was- confined to
the man who was shot, and Fanohette, who had received a
blow on the head in the m&lee, and was found, when we
retreated, lying sick and dazed against the wall.
It surprised me much, when I came to 'think upon it, that
I had seen nothing of Brulil, though the skirmish had :
lasted two or three minutes from the first outcry, and been'
attended by an abundance of noise; Of Fresnoy, too, I
now remembered that I had caught a glimpse only. These
two facts seemed so strange that I 1 was beginning- to 'augur
the worst, though I scarcely know why, when my spirits
were marvellously raised and my fears relieved by a thing
which Maignan; who was the first to notice it, pointed' out
to me. This was the appearance at an upper window of a 1
white 'kerchief, which was waved several times towards us.
The window was little more than an arrow-slit, and so nar-
row and high besides that it was impossible to see who gave
the signal ; but my experience of mademoiselle's coolness
and resource left me in no doubt on the point. With high
hopes and a lighter heart than I had worn for some time I
bestirred myself to take every precaution, and began by
bidding Maignan select two men and ride round the hill,
to make sure that the enemy had no way of retreat open to
him.
CHAPTER XXIX.
PESTIEENCE AND FAMINE.
WHILE Maignan was : away about' this business I- de-
spatched two men to catoh our horses, which were 'running:
loose in the valley, and to remove those of Bruhl's party '
kr a safe distance from the castle. I also blocked up the-
320 A GENTLEMAN Of FRANCE
lower part of the door leading into the courtyard, and
named four men to remain under arms beside it, that we
might not be taken by surprise ; an event of which I had
the less fear, however, since the enemy were now reduced
to eight swords, and could only escape, as we could only
enter, through this doorway. I was still busied with these
arrangements when M. d ; Agen joined me, and I broke off
to compliment him oil his courage, acknowledging in par-
ticular the service he had done me personally. The heat
of the conflict had melted the young man's reserve, and
flushed his face with pride ; but as he listened to me he
gradually froze again, and when I ended he regarded me
with the same cold hostility.
' I am obliged to you/ he said, bowing. ' But may I ask
what next, M. de Marsac?'
' We have no choice,' I answered. ( We can dnly starve
them out.'
'But the ladies?' he said, starting slightly. 'What of
them?'
' They Avill suffer less than the men,' I replied. ' Trust
me, the latter will not bear starving long.'
He seemed surprised, but I explained that with our small
numbers we could not hope to storm the tower, and might
think ourselves fortunate that we now had the enemy
cooped up where he could not escape, and must eventually
surrender.
'Ay, but in the meantime how will you ensure the women
against violence?' he asked, with an air which showed he
was far from satisfied.
1 I will see to that when Maignan comes back,' I answered
pretty confidently.
The equerry appeared in a moment with the assurance
that egress from the farther side of the tower was impos-
sible. I bade him nevertheless keep a horseman moving
round the hill, that we might have intelligence of any
attempt. The order was scarcely given when a man one
of those I had left on guard at the door of the courtyard
PESTILENCE AND FAMINE 321
came to tell me that Fresnoy desired to speak with me on
behalf of M. de Bruhl.
' Where is he ? ' I asked.
' At the inner door with a flag of truce/ was the answer.
' Tell him, then,' I said, without ottering to move, ' that
I will communicate with no one except his leader, M. de
Bruhl. And add this, my friend,' I continued. ' Say it
aloud : that if the ladies whom he has in charge are injured
by so much as a hair, I will hang every man within these
walls, from M. de Bruhl to the youngest lackey.' And I
added a solemn oath to that effect.
The man nodded, and went on his errand, while I and M.
d'Agen, with Maignan, remained standing outside the gate,
looking idly over the valley and the brown woods through
which we had ridden in the early morning. My eyes rested
chiefly on the latter, Maignan's as it proved on the former.
Doubtless we all had our own thoughts. Certainly I had,
and for a while, in my satisfaction at the result of the
attack and the manner in which we had Bruhl confined, I
did not remark the gravity which was gradually overspread-
ing the equerry's countenance. When I did I took the
alarm, and asked him sharply what was the matter.
1 1 don't like that, your Excellency,' he answered, point-
Ing into the valley.
I looked anxiously, and looked, and saw nothing.
'What ? ' I said in astonishment.
'The blue mist,' he muttered, with a shiver. 'I have
been watching it this half-hour, your Excellency. It is
rising fast.'
I cried out on him for a maudlin fool, and M. d'Agen
swore impatiently; but for all that, and despite the con-
tempt I strove to exhibit, I felt a sudden chill at my heart
as I recognised in the valley below the same blue haze
which had attended us through yesterday's ride, and left us
only at nightfall. Involuntarily we both fell to watching
it as it rose slowly and more slowly, first enveloping the
lower woods, and then spreading itself abroad in the sun-
322 A GENTLEMAN - OF FRANCE
dhine. It is hard to witness -a bold 'man's terror and
remain unaff ected by it ; and I confess 'I 'trembled. Here,
in the moment of our seeming 'success, 'was something
which 'I 'had -not taken into account, something against
which T could not' guard either 'myself or others' !
'See!' Maignan whispered hoarsely, pointing: again with
his finger. 'It is the Angel of Death, your 'Excellency : !
Where he kills by ones and twos,' he is invisible. But when
he slays by-hundreds and 'by 'thousands, men see the shadow
of his wings ! '
'Chut, fool!' I retorte'd with anger, 1 which was secretlv
proportioned to the impression his weird saying made or
me. 'You "have -been in battles ! Did you ever see him
there ? or at a -sack'? A truce to this folly,' I continued.
1 And do you go and : inquire what food we have with us. It
may be necessary to send : for some.'
I watched him go doggedly' off, and 'knowing the stout
nature of the man and 'his devotion 'to his master, I had iu>
fear that he would fail us ; but there were others, almost as
necessary to us, in whom I could . not -place the same confi-
dence. And these had also taken the alarm. When I
turned I found groups 'ofpalerfaeed' men, standingly twos
and ; threes at 'my 'back j who, 'pointing anff muttering and
telling one another what Maignan had told us,'looked where
we had looked. As one spoke and another listened, I saw
the old panic revive in their eyes. Men who an hour or
two 'before had crossed 'the court under fire with 1 the utmost
resolution, and dared 'instant death without a thought, grew
pale, and looking from this side of the valley to that with
faltering eyes, seemed to be seeking, like hunted animals, a
place of refuge. Fear, once aroused, hung in the air. Men
talked 'in whispers of the 'abnormal heat, and, gazing at the
cloudless sky, fled from the sunshine to the shadow ; or,
looking over the expanse of woods, longed 'to be undercover
and away from 'this lofty eyrie, which to their morbid eyes
seemed a 'target 'for 'air the shafts of death.
I was not slow to perceive the peril with which these
PESTILENCE AND FAMINE 333
fears and. apprehensions, which rapidly became general^
threatened my plans. I strove to keep the mem employed,
and to occupy their thoughts as far as possible with: the
enemy and his proceedings; but I soon found that even
here a danger lurked ; : for Maignan, coining to me by-and-by
with a^ grave face, told me that, one of Bruhl's men had
ventured out, and was parleying with the guard on our side
of the court. I went, at once and broke the matter off,
threatening to shoot. the fellow if he was not under cover
before I counted ten.. But the scared, sulky faces he left
'behind- him told me that the. mischief was 'done, and I could
think of no better remedy for it than, to give M. d'Agen a
hint, and station- him at the outer gate 1 with; his pistols
ready.
The question o provisions, too, .threatened to become a
serious 7 one; I ; dared not leave to procure- them myself, nor
could;! trust any of' my men, with the mission; In fact, the
besiegers were rapidly becoming the besieged. Intent .on
the rising haze and their own terrors, they forgot all else.
Vigilance and caution were thrown to the winds. The still-
ness of the valley,, its- isolation; , the: distant, woods that
encircled us and hung quivering in the heated air, .all 'added
to the panic. Despite all my efforts and threats, the men
gradually left their posts, and getting, together, in little
parties, at the gate, worked themselves up to such . a pitch
of dread that by, two, hours after noon they were fit for any
folly; and at the mere cry of 'plague ! ' would, have rushed
to their horses, and ridden in every direction,
It was plain that; I could depend for useful service: on
myself and three others only of whom^to his credit be it
said, Simon Eleix was- one. Seeing this, I was. immensely
relieved when I presently, heard that Eresnoy was again
seeking to speak with . me. L was no longer, it will be
belie vedj, for standing- on .formalities; but glad to waive in
silence the punctilio on which, I had before insisted, and
anxious to jafford him. no opportunity of marking the slack-
ness which prevailed among my men, I hastened to meet
v2
324 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
him at the door of the courtyard, where Maignan had
detained him.
I might have spared my pains, however. I had no more
than saluted him and exchanged the merest preliminaries
before I saw that he was in a state of panic far exceeding
that of my following. His coarse face, which had never
been prepossessing, Avas mottled and bedabbled with sweat ;
his bloodshot eyes, when they met mine, wore the fierce yet
terrified expression of an animal caught in a trap. Though
his first word was an oath, sworn for the purpose of raising
his courage, the bully's bluster was gone. He spoke in a
low voice, and his hands shook; and for a penny-piece I
saw he would have bolted past me and taken his chance in
open flight.
I judged from his first words, uttered, as I have said, with
an oath, that he was aware of his state. 'M. de Marsac,'
he said, whining like a cur, 'you know me to be a man of
courage.'
I needed nothing after this to assure me that he meditated
something of the basest; and I took care how I answered
him. 'I have known you stiff enough upon occasions,' I
replied drily. ' And then, again, I have known you not so
stiff, M. Fresnoy.'
' Only when you were in question,' he muttered with an-
other oath. ' But flesh and blood cannot stand this. You
could not yourself. Between him and them I am fairly
worn out. Give me good terms good terms, you under-
stand, M. de Marsac ? ' he whispered eagerly, sinking his
voice still lower, ' and you shall have all you want.'
'Your lives, arid liberty to go where you please,' I an-
swered coldly. 'The two ladies to be first given up to me
uninjured. Those are the terms.'
' But for me ? ' he said anxiously.
' For you ? The same as the others,' I retorted. ' Or I
will make a distinction for old acquaintance sake, M. Fres-
noy; and if the ladies have aught to complain of, I will
hang you first.'
PESTILENCE AND FAMINE 325
He tried to bluster and hold out for a sum of money. 01
at least for his horse to be given up to him. But I had
made up my mind to reward my followers with a present of
a horse apiece ; and I was besides well aware that this was
only an afterthought on his part, and that he had fully
decided to yield. I stood fast, therefore. The result justi-
fied my firmness, for he presently agreed to surrender on
those terms.
1 Ay, but M. de Bruhl ? ' I said, desiring to learn clearly
whether he had authority to treat for all. ' What of him ? '
He looked at me impatiently. ' Come and see ! ' he said,
with an ugly sneer.
'No, no, my friend,' I answered, shaking my head warily.
'That is not according to rule. You are the surrendering
party, and it is for you to trust us. Bring out the ladies,
that I may have speech with them, and then I will draw off
my men.'
'Norn de Dieu ! ' he cried hoarsely, with so much fear and
rage in his face that I recoiled from him. 'That is just
what I cannot do.'
' You cannot ? ' I rejoined with a sudden thrill of horror.
'Why not ? why not, man ? ' And in the excitement of the
moment, conceiving the idea that the worst had happened
to the women, I pushed him back with so much fury that he
laid his hand on his sword.
' Confound you ! ' he stuttered, ' stand back ! It is not
that, I tell you ! Mademoiselle is safe and sound, and
madame, if she had her senses, would be sound too. It is
not our fault if she is not. But I have not got the key of
the rooms. It is in Bruhl's pocket, I tell you ! '
' Oh ! ' I made answer drily. ' And Bruhl ? '
'Hush, man,' Fresnoy replied, wiping the perspiration
from his brow, and bringing his pallid, ugly face, near to
mine, ' he has got the plague ! '
I stared at him for a moment in silence ; which he was
the first to break. ' Hush ! ' he muttered again, laying a
trembling hand on my arm, ' if the men knew it and not
seeing him they are beginniag to: suspect it they would
rise -.on us. .The* devil himself could not keep them here.
JBetween him and them J am on a razor's edge. Madame is
with him, iand .the door is locked. 'Mademoiselle is in a
room ; upstairs, and .the door is locked. And he has the
-keys. What can I do ? What can I do, .man?' he cried,
his voice hoarse with terror and dismay.
' Get the keys/ I said instinctively.
'What? Prom him?' he muttered, with an irrepressible
shudder, which shook his .bloated cheeks. 'God 'forbid . I
should, see him ! It takes stout . men infallibly . I should
be dead by night ! By God, I should ! ' he continued,
.whining. ; Now you are not stout, M. de Marsac. If you
"will come'with me I will draw off the men < from that part;
and you may go in and get the key from him.'
His terror, which surpassed air feigning, and' satisfied me
without doubt that he was in earnest, was so intense that
it could not fail to infect me. I : felt my sfaee, as I looked
into his, grow to the same hue. I trembled as he did and
grew sick. For if there is a word which blanches the: sol-
dier^ che^k and tries his heart more than another, it is the
.name of the disease which. travels in; the hot noonday, and,
tainting the strongest as he rides in his ; pride, leaves him
in a few hours a poor mass of corruption. .The stoutest
and the most reckless fear it ; nor could I, more than an-
other, boast myself indifferent to.it, or think of its 'presence
without shrinking. But the respect in which. a mantaf
;brjfth holds himself saves him from the unreasoning fear
/"which 'masters the vulgar; and .in a moment I .recovered
myself, and made: up my mind what it behoved me: to do.
'Wait awhile,' I -said 1 sternly, '. and I wilL come with you.'
Me waited accordingly, :though with .manifest! impatience,
'while:! sent for M. d'Agen, and eommunicated'to him, what
I was about to do. I did not think it 'necessary to enter
;into .details, or 'to mention 'Bruhl's state, :for some of !the
mien were .well in hearing. I Observed that the young gen-
tleman received nay directions with a gloomy and dissatis-
PESTILENCE AND FAMINE 327,
lied' air. But \ had become by this time so used to his-
moods, and found myself so much mistaken in Ms char-
acter, that I scarcely gave the matter a second thought; I
crossed the court with Fresnoy, and in a moment had 1
mounted the outside staircase and' passed through .the heavy^
doorway.
The moment I entered, I was forced 'to do Fresnoy the*
justice of admitting that he -had not : come to me before he
was obliged. The three men who were on guard inside
tossed down their weapons at sight of me, while a fourth,
who -was posted at a neighbouring window, hailed ; me with
a cry of relief. From the moment I crossed the threshold
the defence was practically at an end. I might, had I
chosen or found it consistent with honour, have called in
my following and secured the entrance. Without pausing,
however, I passed on to 'the foot of 'a gloomy stone staircase
winding up between 1 walls of rough masonry; and ! here
Fresnoy stood' on one side and stopped. He pointed 'up-
wards with a pale face and muttered, 1 'The door on the left.'
Leaving him there watching me as- 1 went upwards, L
mounted ; slowly to the- landing, and by the light of an
arrow-slit which dimly lifr the ruinous place found the door
he had described,' and tried' it with' my hand. It 1 was
lacked, but: I heard someone moan in the room, and a step
crossed the floor, as if he or another came to the door and
listened. I knocked, hearmg : iny heart beat in the silence.
At last a< voice quite strange to >me -cried, 'Who is it? '
'A friend,' I muttered, striving to dull my voice that'
they might not hear me 'below.
' A friend ! ' ' the bitter answer camev ' Go ! You have-
made a mistake I We 'have no friends- '
'It is I, M. de Marsac,' L rejoined,: knocking: more imper-
atively: <I would see M. de Bruhl; I must see him.'
The person inside, at whose identity I' could now make a
guess, uttered a- low exclamation, and -still seemed to hesjU
tate. But' on my repeating my demand I heard a rusty bolt
withdrawn, and Madame de- Bruhl, opening the door, a few
328 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
inches, showed her face in the gap. 'What do you want?'
she murmured jealously.
Prepared as I was to see her, I was shocked by the
change in her appearance, a change which even that im-
perfect light failed to hide. Her blue eyes had grown
larger and harder, and there were dark marks under them.
Her face, once so brilliant, was grey and pinched ; her hair
had lost its golden lustre. ' What do you want ? ' she re-
peated, eyeing me fiercely.
1 To see him,' I answered.
' You know ? ' she muttered. ' You know that he '
I nodded.
' And you still want to come in ? My God ! Swear you
will not hurt him ? '
' Heaven forbid ! ' I said ; and on that she held the door
open that I might enter. But I was not half-way across
the room before she had passed me, and was again between
me and the wretched makeshift pallet. ^STay, when I stood
and looked down at him, as he moaned and rolled in sense-
less agony, with livid face and distorted features (which
the cold grey light of that miserable room rendered doubly
appalling), she hung over him and fenced him from me : so
that looking on him and her, and remembering how he had
treated her, and why he came to be in this place, I. felt
unmanly tears rise to my eyes. The room was still a
prison, a prison with broken mortar covering the floor and
loopholes for windows ; but the captive was held by other
chains than those of force. When she might have gone
free, her woman's love surviving all that he had done to
kill it, chained her to his side with fetters which old wrongs
and present danger were powerless to break.
It was impossible that I could view a scene so strange
without feel ; ngs of admiration as well as pity ; or without
forgetting for a while, in my respect for Madame de Bruhl's
devotion, the risk which had seemed so great to me on the
stairs. I had come simply for a purpose of my own, and
with no thought of aiding him who lay here. But so great,
PESTILENCE AND FAMINE 329
as I have noticed on other occasions, is the power of a noble
example, that, before I knew it, I found myself wondering
what I could do to help this man, and how I could relieve
madaine in the discharge of offices which her husband had
as little right to expect at her hands as at mine. At the
mere sound of the word Plague I knew she would be de-
serted in this wilderness by all, or nearly all ; a reflection
which suggested to me that I should first remove mademoi-
selle to a distance, and then consider what help I could
afford here.
I was about to tell her the purpose with which I had
come when a paroxysm more than ordinarily violent, and
induced perhaps by the excitement of my presence though
he seemed beside himself seized him, and threatened to
tax her powers to the utmost. I could not look on and see
her spend herself in vain ; and almost before I knew what I
was doing I had laid my hands on him and after a brief
struggle thrust him back exhausted on the couch.
She looked at me so strangely after that that in the half-
light which the loopholes afforded I tried in vain to read
her meaning. ' Why did you come ? ' she cried at length,
breathing quickly. ' You, of all men ? Why did you
come ? He was no friend of yours, Heaven knows ! '
' No, madaine, nor I of his/ I answered bitterly, with a
sudden revulsion of feeling.
' Then why are you here ? ' she retorted.
I 1 could not send one of my men,' I answered. ' And I
want the key of the room above.'
At the mention of that the room above she flinched as
if I had struck her, and looked as strangely at Bruhl as she
had before looked at me. No doubt the reference to Made-
moiselle de la Vire recalled to her mind her husband's wild
passion for the girl, which for the moment she had forgot-
ten. Nevertheless she did not speak, though her face
turned very pale. She stooped over the couch, such as it
was, and searching his clothes, presently stood up, and
held out the key to me. 'Take it, and let her out,' she
A GENTLEMAN DF FRANCE
said -with a forced smile. 'Take it up yourself, and do -it,
You have done ;so much for her.it is right 'that you should
do this.'
I took the key, thanking her "with -more haste than
thought, and turned towards the door, intending to go
straight .up to the floor above and release mademoiselle.
iMy hand was already on the door, which ; madame, I found,
.had left ajar in the excitement df my \ entrance, when .1
heard .her step .behind me. .The next instant she touched
me on the shoulder. 'You fool!' she exclaimed, 'her eyes
'flashing, ' would -you, kill: her ? Would'you go from him to
her, and take the plague .to her? -God forgive me, it was
in .-my mind to send you. And men are such puppets you
would have gone ! '
I trembled with horror, as much at my stupidity as sat
her craft. ;Eor she was .right : . in. another moment I should
have gone, .and comprehension -and remorse would have
come too late. As lit was, in my longing at once to re-
.proach her:for her wickedness and to :thank her for her
timely repentance, il ifound no words ; but I -turned away in
silence and went out with a full heart.
CHAPTER XXX.
STBIO-KEN.
OUTSIDE the door, standing in the dimness* of the landing,
I found M. d'Agen. At any other time. I should have been
the first to ask him why .he had left 'the post which ! had
assigned to him. But at the (moment I was off my balance,
and his presence suggested nothing : more 'than that here was
the very person who could best execute my wishes. I held
out the key to him at arm's length, and bade him release
Mademoiselle de la Vire, who was in the: room above, and
escort her out of the castle. !Do not let her! linger; here, 'il
STRICKEN 331
continued urgently. 'Take her to the place where we found
the wood-cutters. You need fear no resistance.'
'But Bruhl? ' he said, as he took the key mechanically
from me.
'He is out of the question,' I answered in a low voice.
'We have done with him. He has the plague.'
He uttered a sharp exclamation. 'What of madame,
then ? ' he muttered.
'She is with him,' I said.
He cried out suddenly at that, sucking in his breath, as
I have known men do in pain. And but that I drew back
he would have laid his hand on my sleeve. 'With him? '
he stammered. 'How is that?'
'Why, man, where else should she be? ' I answered,
forgetting that the sight of those two together had at first
surprised me also, as well as moved me. 'Or who else
should be with him? He is her husband.'
He stared at me for a moment at that, and then he turned
slowly away and began to go up; while I looked after him,
gradually thinking out the clue to his conduct. Could it
be that it was not mademoiselle attracted him, but Madame
de Bruhl?
And with that hint I understood it all. I saw in a
moment the conclusion to which he had come on hearing
of the presence of madame in my room. In my room at
night ! The change had dated from that time ; instead of a
careless, light-spirited youth he had become in a moment
a morose and restive churl, as difficult to manage as an
unbroken colt. Quite clearly I saw now the meaning of
the change ; why he had shrunk from me, and why all in-
tercourse between us had been so difficult and so constrained.
I laughed to think how he had deceived himself, and how
nearly I had come to deceiving myself also. And what
more I might have thought I do not know, for my medita-
tions were cut short at this point by a loud outcry below,
which, beginning in one or two sharp cries of alarm and
warning, culminated quickly in a roar of anger and dismay.
332 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
Fancying I recognised Maignan's voice, I ran down the
stairs, seeking a loophole whence I could command the
scene; but rinding none, and becoming more and more
alarmed, I descended to the court, which 1 found, to my
great surprise, as empty and silent as an old battle-field.
Neither on the enemy's side nor on ours was a single man
to be seen. With growing dismay 1 sprang across the
court and darted through the outer tower, only to find that
and the gateway equally unguarded. Nor was it until 1
had passed through the latter, and stood on the brow of the
slope, which we had had to clamber with so much toil, that
I learned what was amiss.
Far below me a string of men, bounding and running at
speed, streamed down the hill towards the horses. Some
were shouting, some running silently, with their elbows at
their sides and their scabbards leaping against their calves.
The horses stood tethered in a ring near the edge of the
wood, and by some oversight had been left unguarded. The
foremost runner I made out to be Fresnoy; but a number
of his men were close upon him, and then after an inter-
val came Maignan, waving his blade and emitting frantic
threats with every stride. Comprehending at once that
Fresnoy and his following, rendered desperate by panic and
the prospective loss of their horses, had taken advantage of
my absence and given Maignan the slip, 1 saw 1 could do
nothing save watch the result of the struggle.
This was not long delayed. Maignan's threats, which
seemed to me mere waste of breath, were not without effect
on those he followed. There is nothing which demoralises
men like flight. Troopers who have stood charge after
charge while victory was possible will fly like sheep, and
like sheep allow themselves to be butchered, when they
have once turned the back. So it was here. Many of
Fresnoy's men were stout fellows, but having started to
run they had no stomach for fighting. Their fears caused
Maignan to appear near, while the horses seemed distant;
and one after another they turned aside and made like rab-
STRICKEN 333
bits for the \vuod. Only Fresnoy, who had taken care to
have the start of all, kept on, and, reaching the horses, cut
the rope which tethered the nearest, and vaulted nimbly
on. its back. Safely seated there, he tried to frighten the
others into breaking loose ; but not succeeding at the first
attempt, and seeing Maignan, breathing vengeance, coining
up with him, he started his horse, a bright bay, and rode
off laughing along the edge of the wood.
Fully content with the result for our carelessness, might
have cost us very dearly I was about to turn away when
I saw that Maignan had mounted and was preparing to
follow. I stayed accordingly to see the end, and from my
elevated position enjoyed a first-rate view of the race which
ensued. Both were heavy weights, and at first Maignan
gained no ground. But when a couple of hundred yards
had been covered Fresnoy had the ill-luck to blunder into
some heavy ground, and this enabling his pursuer, \rho had
time to avoid it, to get within two-score paces of him, the
race became as exciting as I could wish. Slowly and surely
Maignan, who had chosen the Cid, reduced the distance
between them to a score of paces to fifteen to ten. Then
Fresnoy, becoming alarmed, began to look over his shoul-
der and ride in earnest. He had no whip, and I saw him
raise his sheathed sword, and strike his beast on the flank.
It sprang forward, and appeared for a few strides to be
holding its own. Again he repeated the blow but this
time with a different result. While his hand was still in
the air, his horse stumbled, as it seemed to me, made a
desperate effort to recover itself, fell headlong and rolled
over and over.
Something in the fashion of the fall, which reminded me
of the mishap I had suffered on the way to Chize, led me
to look more particularly at the horse as it rose trembling
to its feet, and stood with drooping head. Sure enough, a
careful glance enabled me, even at that distance, to identify
it as Matthew's bay the trick-horse. Shading my eyes,
and gazing on the scene with increased interest, I saw
334 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE
Maignan, who had dismounted, stoop over something on the
ground, and again after an interval stand upright.
But Fresnoy did not rise. Nor was it without awe that,
guessing what had happened to him, I remembered how he
had used this very horse to befool me; how heartlessly he
had abandoned Matthew, its owner; and by what marvel-
lous haps which men call chances Providence had brought
it to this place, and put it in his heart to choose it out of a
score which stood ready to his hand!
I was right. The man's neck was broken. He was quite
dead. Maignan passed the word to one, and he to another,
and so it reached me on the hill. It did not fail to awaken
memories both grave and wholesome. I thought of St.
Jean d'Angely, of Chiz6, of the house in the Ruelle d'Arcy ;
then in the midst of these reflections I heard voices, and
turned to find mademoiselle, with M. d'Agen behind me.
Her hand was still bandaged, and her dress, which she
had not changed since leaving Blois, was torn and stained
with mud. Her hair was in disorder; she walked with a
limp. Fatigue and apprehension had stolen the colour
from her cheeks, and in a word she looked, when I turned,
so wan and miserable that for a moment I feared the plague
had seized her.
The instant, however, that she caught sight of me a wave
of colour invaded, not her cheeks only, but her brow and
neck. From her hair to the collar of her gown she was
all crimson. For a second she stood gazing at me, and
then, as I saluted her, she sprang forward. Had I not
stepped back she would have taken my hands.
My heart so overflowed with joy at this sight, that in
the certainty her blush gave me I was fain to toy with my
happiness. All jealousy of M. d'Agen Avas forgotten; only
I thought it well not to alarm her by telling her what I
knew of the Bruhls. 'Mademoiselle,' I said earnestly,
bowing, but retreating from her, 'I thank God for your
escape. One of your enemies lies helpless here, and
another is dead yonder.'
STRICKEN 335
^ is not of iny enemies I am thinking,' she answered
quickly, 'but of God, of whom you rightly remind me 5 and
then of iny friends. '
'Nevertheless,' I answered as quickly, 'I beg you will
not stay to thank them now, but go down to the wood with
M. d'Agen, who will do all that may be possible to make
you comfortable.'
'And you, sir?' she said, with a charming air of confu-
sion.
'I must stay here,' I answered, 'for a while.'
'Why? ' she asked with a slight frown.
I did not know how to tell her, and I began lamely.
'Someone must stop with madame,' I said without thought.
'Madame? ' she exclaimed. 'Does she require assistance?
I will stop.'
'God forbid!' I cried.
I do not know how she understood the words, but her
face, which had been full of softness, grew hard. She
moved quickly towards me; but, mindful of the danger I
carried about me, I drew farther back. 'No nearer, made-
moiselle,' I murmured, 'if you please.'
She looked puzzled, and finally angry, turning away with
a sarcastic bow. 'So be it, then, sir,' she said proudly,
'if you desire it. M. d'Agen, if you are not afraid of me,
will you lead me down? '
I stood and watched them go down the hill, comforting
myself with the reflection that to-morrow, or the next day,
or within a few days at most, all would be well. Scanning
her figure as she moved, I fancied that she went with less
spirit as the space increased between us. And I pleased
myself with the notion. A few days, a few hours, I
thought, and all would be well. The sunset which blazed
in the west was no more than a faint reflection of the glow
which for a few minutes pervaded my mind, long accus-
tomed to cold prospects and the chill of neglect.
A term was put to these pleasant imaginings by the arri-
val of Maignan ; who, panting: from the ascent of the hill,
336 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE
informed me with a shamefaced air that the tale of horses
was complete, but that four of our men were missing, and
had doubtless gone off with the fugitives. These proved
to be M. d'Agen's two lackeys and the two varlets M. de
Rambouillet had lent us. There remained besides Simon
Fleix only Maignan's three men from Rosny; but the state
in which our affairs now stood enabled us to make light of
this. I informed the equerry who visibly paled at the
news that M. de Bruhl lay ill of the plague, and like to
die ; and I bade him form a camp in the wood below, and,
sending for food to the house where we had slept the night
before, make mademoiselle as comfortable as circumstances
permitted.
He listened with surprise, and when I had done asked
with concern what I intended to do myself.
'Someone must remain with Madame de Bruhl,' I an-
swered. 'I have already been to the bedside to procure the
key of mademoiselle's room, and I run no farther risk.
All I ask is that you will remain in the neighbourhood, and
furnish us with supplies should it be necessary.'
He looked at me with emotion, which, strongly in con-
flict with his fears as it was, touched me not a little. 'But
morbleu! M. de Marsac, ' he said, 'you will take the plague
and die.'
'If God wills,' I answered, very lugubriously I confess,
for pale looks in one commonly so fearless could not but
depress me. 'But if not, I shall escape. Any way, my
friend,' I continued, 'I owe you a quittance. Simon Fleix
has an inkhorn and paper. Bid him bring them to this
stone and leave them, and I will write that Maignan, the
equerry of the Baron de Rosny, served me to the end as a
brave soldier and an honest friend. What, mon ami?' I
continued, for I saw that he was overcome by this, which
was, indeed, a happy thought of mine. 'Why not? It
is true, and will aquit you with the Baron. Do it, and go.
Advise M. d'Agen, and be to him what you have been
to me.'
STRICKEN 337
He swore two or three great oaths, such as men of his
kind use to hide an excess of feeling, and after some fur-
ther remonstrance went away to carry out my orders ; leav-
ing me to stand on the brow in a strange kind of solitude,
and watch horses and men withdraw to the wood, until the
whole valley seemed left to me and stillness and the grey
evening. For a time I stood in thought. Then reminding
myself, for a fillip to my spirits, that I had been far more
alone when I walked the streets of St. Jean friendless and
threadbare (than I was now), I turned, and swinging my
scabbard against my boots for company, stumbled through
the dark, silent courtyard, and mounted as cheerfully as I
could to madame's room.
To detail all that passed during the next five days would
be tedious and in indifferent taste, seeing that I am writing
this memoir for the perusal of men of honour; for though
I consider the offices which the whole can perform for the
sick to be worthy of the attention of every man, however
well born, who proposes to see service, they seem to be
more honourable in the doing than the telling. One epi-
sode, however, which marked those days filled me then, as
it does now, with the most lively pleasure; and that was
the unexpected devotion displayed by Simon Fleix, who,
coming to me, refused to leave, and showed himself at this
pinch to be possessed of such sterling qualities that I freely
forgave him the deceit he had formerly practised on me.
The fits of moody silence into which he still fell at times
and an occasional irascibility seemed to show that he had
not altogether conquered his insane fancy; but the mere
fact that he had come to me in a situation of hazard, and
voluntarily removed himself from mademoiselle's neigh-
bourhood, gave me good hope for the future.
M. de Bruhl died early on the morning of the second day,
and Simon and I buried him at noon. He was a man of
courage and address, lacking only principles. In spite of
madame's grief and prostration, which were as great as
though she had lost the best husband in the world, we r-
338 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
moved before night to a separate camp in the woods ; and
left with the utmost relief the grey ruin on the hill, in
which, it seemed to me, we had lived an age. In our new
bivouac, where, game being abundant, and the weather
warm, we lacked no comfort, except the society of our
friends, we remained four days longer. On the fifth morn-
ing we met the others of our company by appointment on
the north road, and commenced the return journey.
Thankful that we had escaped contagion, we nevertheless
still proposed to observe for a time such precautions in
regard to the others as seemed necessary; riding in the
rear and having no communication with them, though they
showed by signs the pleasure they felt at seeing us. From
the frequency with which mademoiselle turned and looked
behind her, I judged she had overcome her pique at my
strange conduct; which the others should by this time have
explained to her. Content, therefore, with the present,
and full of confidence in the future, I rode along in a rare
state of satisfaction ; at one moment planning what I would
do, and at another reviewing what I had done.
The brightness and softness of the day, and the beauty of
the woods, which in some places, I remember, were burst-
ing into leaf, contributed much to establish me in this
frame of mind. The hateful mist, which had so greatly
depressed us, had disappeared; leaving the face of the
country visible in all the brilliance of early spring. The
men who rode before us, cheered by the happy omen,
laughed and talked as they rode, or tried the paces of their
horses, where the trees grew sparsely; and their jests and
laughter coming pleasantly to our ears as we followed,
warmed even madame's sad face to a semblance of happi-
ness.
I was riding along in this state of contentment when a
feeling of fatigue, which the distance we had come did not
seem to justify, led me to spur the Cid into a brisker pace.
The sensation of lassitude still continued, however, and
indeed grew worse ; so that I wondered idly whether I had
UNDER THE GREENWOOD 339
over-eaten myself at my last meal. Then the thing passed
for a while from, my mind, which the descent of a steep
hill sufficiently occupied.
But a few minutes later, happening to turn in the saddle,
I experienced a strange and sudden dizziness; so excessive
as to force me to grasp the cantle, and cling to it, while
trees and hills appeared to dance round me. A quick, hot
pain in the side followed, almost before I recovered the
power of thought; and this increased so rapidly, and was
from the first so definite, that, with a dreadful apprehen-
sion already formed in my mind, I thrust my hand inside
my clothes, and found that swelling which is the most sure
and deadly symptom of the plague.
The horror of that moment in which I saw all those
things on the possession of which I had just been congratu-
lating myself, pass hopelessly from me, leaving me in
dreadful gloom I will not attempt to describe in this place.
Let it suffice that the world lost in a moment its joyous-
ness, the sunshine its warmth. The greenness and beauty
round me, which an instant before had filled me with
pleasure, seemed on a sudden no more than a grim and cruel
jest at my expense, and I an atom perishing unmarked
and unnoticed. Yes, an atom, a mote; the bitterness of
that feeling I well remember. Then, in no long time
being a soldier I recovered my coolness, and, retaining
the power to think, decided what it behoved me to do.
CHAPTER XXXI.
UNDER THE GREENWOOD.
To escape from my companions on some pretext, which
should enable me to ensure their safety without arousing
their fears, was the one thought which possessed me on
w2
340 A GENTLEMAN' OF FRANCE
the subsidence of my first alarm. Probably it answered to
that instinct in animals which bids them get away alone
when wounded or attacked by disease ; and with me it had
the fuller play as the pain prevailed rather by paroxysms
than in permanence, and, coming and going, allowed inter-
vals of ease, in which I was able to think clearly and con-
secutively, and even to sit firmly in the saddle.
The moment one of these intervals enabled me to control
myself, I used it to think where I might go without danger
to others ; and at once and naturally my thoughts turned to
the last place we had passed; which happened to be the
house in the gorge where we had received news of Bruhl's
divergence from the road. The man who lived there alone
had had the plague ; therefore he did not fear it. The place
itself was solitary, and I could reach it, riding slowly, in
half an hour. On the instant and without more delay I
determined on this course. I would return, and, commit-
ting myself to the fellow's good offices, bid him deny me
to others, and especially to my friends should they seek me.
Aware that I had no time to lose if I would put this plan
into execution before the pains returned to sap my courage,
I drew bridle at once, and muttered some excuse to madame ;
if I remember rightly, that I had dropped my gauntlet.
Whatever the pretext and my dread was great lest she
should observe any strangeness in my manner it passed
with her; by reason, chiefly, I think, of the grief which
monopolised her. She let me go, and before anyone else
could mark or miss me I was a hundred yards away on the
back-track, and already sheltered from observation by a
turn in the road.
The excitement of my evasion supported me for a while
after leaving her; and then for another while, a paroxysm
of pain deprived me of the power of thought. But when
this last was over, leaving me weak and shaken, yet clear
in my mind, the most miserable sadness and depression
that can be conceived came upon me; and, accompanying
me through the wood, filled its avenues (which doubtless
UNDER THE GREENWOOD 341
i
were fair enough to others' eyes) with the blackness of
despair. I saw but the charnel-house, and that every-
where. It was not only that the horrors of the first discov-
ery returned upon me and almost unmanned me; nor only
that regrets and memories, pictures of the past and plans
for the future, crowded thick upon my mind, so that I
could have wept at the thought of all ending here. But in
my weakness mademoiselle's face shone where the wood was
darkest, and, tempting and provoking me to return were
it only to tell her that, grim and dull as I seemed, I loved
her tried me with a subtle temptation almost beyond my
strength to resist. All that was mean in me rose in arms,
all that was selfish clamoured to know why I must die in
the ditch while others rode in the sunshine; why I must
go to the pit, while others loved and lived !
And so hard was I pressed that I think I should have
given way had the ride been longer or my horse less smooth
and nimble. But in the midst of my misery, which bodily
pain was beginning to augment to such a degree that I
could scarcely see, and had to ride gripping the saddle
with both hands, I reached the mill. My horse stopped of
its own accord. The man we had seen before came out. I
had just strength left to tell him what was the matter, and
what I wanted; and then a fresh attack came on, with
sickness, and overcome by vertigo I fell to the ground.
I have but an indistinct idea what happened after that;
until I found myself inside the house, clinging to the man's
arm. He pointed to a box-bed in one corner of the room
(which was, or seemed to my sick eyes, gloomy and dark-
some in the extreme), and would have had me lie down in
it. But something inside me revolted against the bed, and
despite the force he used, I broke away, and threw myself
on a heap of straw which I saw in another corner.
'Is not the bed good enough for you? ' he grumbled.
I strove to tell him it was not that.
'It should be good enough to die on,' he continued bru-
tally. 'There's five have died on that bed, I'd have you
342 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
know! My wife one, and my son another, and my daugh-
ter another; and then my son again, and a daughter again.
Five! Ay, five in that bed! '
Brooding in the gloom of the chimney-corner, where he
was busied about a black pot, he continued to mutter and
glance at me askance; but after a while I swooned away
with pain.
When I opened my eyes again the room was darker.
The man still sat where I had last seen him, but a noise,
the same, perhaps, which had roused me, drew him as I
looked to the unglazed window. A voice outside, the tones
of which I seemed to know, inquired if he had seen me;
and so carried away was I by the excitement of the moment
that I rose on my elbow to hear the answer. But the man
was staunch. I heard him deny all knowledge of me, and
presently the sound of retreating hoofs and the echo of
voices dying in the distance assured me I was left.
Then, at that instant, a doubt of the man on whose com-
passion I had thrown myself entered my mind. Plague-
stricken, hopeless as I was, it chilled me to the very heart;
staying in a moment the feeble tears I was about to shed,
and curing even the vertigo, which forced me to clutch at
the straw on which I lay. Whether the thought arose from
a sickly sense of my own impotence, or was based on the
fellow's morose air and the stealthy glances he continued
to cast at me, I am as unable to say as I am to decide
whether it was well-founded, or the fruit of my own fancy.
Possibly the gloom of the room and the man's surly words
inclined me to suspicion ; possibly his secret thoughts por-
trayed themselves in his hang-dog visage. Afterwards it
appeared that he had stripped me, while I lay, of every-
thing of value; but he may have done this in the belief
that I should die.
All I know is that I knew nothing certain, because the
fear died almost as soon as it was born. The man had
scarcely seated himself again, or I conceived the thought,
when a second alarm outside caused him to spring to his
UNDER THE GREENWOOD 343
feet. Scowling and muttering as he went, he hurried to
the window. But before he reached it the door was dashed
violently open, and Simon Fleix stood in the entrance.
There came in with him so blessed a rush of light and
life as in a moment dispelled the horror of the room, and
stripped me at one and the same time of fear and manhood.
For whether I would or no, at sight of the familiar face,
which I had fled so lately, I burst into tears ; and, stretch-
ing out my hands to him, as a frightened child might have
done, called on him by name. I suppose the plague was by
this time so plainly written on my face that all who looked
might read; for he stood at gaze, staring at me, and was
still so standing when a hand put him aside and a slighter,
smaller figure, pale-faced and hooded, stood for a moment
between me and the sunshine. It was mademoiselle !
That, I thank God, restored me to myself, or I had been
for ever shamed. I cried to them with all the voice I had
left to take her away; and calling out frantically again and
again that I had the plague and she would die, I bade the
man close the door. iSTay, regaining something of strength in
my fear for her, I rose up, half -dressed as I was, and would
have fled into some corner to avoid her, still calling out to
them to take her away, to take her away if a fresh par-
oxysm had not seized me, so that I fell blind and helpless
where I was.
For a time after that I knew nothing; until someone held
water to my lips, and I drank greedily, and presently awoke
to the fact that the entrance was dark with faces and fig-
ures all gazing at me as I lay. But I could not see her;
and I had sense enough to know and be thankful that she
was no longer among them. I would fain have bidden
Maignan begone too, for I read the consternation in his
face. But I could not muster strength or voice for the pur-
pose, and when I turned my head to see who held me
ah me ! it comes back to me still in dreams it was made-
moiselle's hair that swept my forehead and her hand that
ministered to me; while *ears she did not try to hide or
344 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
wipe away fell on my hot cheek. I could have pushed her
away even then, for she was slight and small; but the
pains came upon me, and with a sob choking my voice I
lost all knowledge.
I am told that I lay for more than a month between life
and death, now burning with fever and now in the cold fit ;
and that but for the tendance which never failed nor fal-
tered, nor could have been outdone had my malady been the
least infectious in the world, I must have died a hundred
times, as hundreds round me did die week by week in that
year. From the first they took me out of the house (where
I think I should have perished quickly, so impregnated was
it with the plague poison) and laid me under a screen of
boughs in the forest, with a vast quantity of cloaks and
horse-cloths cunningly disposed to windward. Here I ran
some risk from cold and exposure and the fall of heavy
dews ; but, on the other hand, had all the airs of heaven to
clear away the humours and expel the fever from my brain.
Hence it was that when the first feeble beginnings of
consciousness awoke in me again, they and the light stole
in on me through green leaves, and overhanging boughs,
and the freshness and verdure of the spring woods. The
sunshine which reached my watery eyes was softened by
its passage through great trees, which grew and expanded
as I gazed up into them, until each became a verdant world,
with all a world's diversity of life. Grown tired of this, I
had still long avenues of shade, carpeted with flowers, to
peer into; or a little wooded bottom where the ground
fell away on one side that blazed and burned with red-
thorn. Ay, and hence it was that the first sounds I heard,
when the fever left me at last, and I knew morning from
evening, and man from woman, were the songs of birds
calling to their mates.
Mademoiselle and Madame de Bruhl, with Fanchette and
Simon Fleix, lay all this time in such shelter as could be
raised for them where I lay; M. Franqois and three stout
fellows, whom Maignan left to guard us, living in a hut
UNDER THE GREENWOOD 345
within hail. Maignan himself, after seeing out a week of
my illness, had perforce returned to his master, and no
news had since been received from him. Thanks to the
timely move into the woods, no other of the party fell ill,
and by the time I was able to stand and speak the ravages of
the disease had so greatly decreased that fear was at an end.
I should waste words were I to try to describe how the
peace and quietude of the life we led in the forest during
the time of my recovery sank into my heart; which had
known, save by my mother's bedside, little of such joys.
To awake in the morning to sweet sounds and scents, to eat
with reviving appetite and feel the slow growth of strength,
to lie all day in shade or sunshine as it pleased me, and
hear women's voices and tinkling laughter, to have no
thought of the world and no knowledge of it, so that we
might have been, for anything we saw, in another sphere
these things might have sufficed for happiness without that
which added to each and every one of them a sweeter and
deeper and more lasting joy. Of which next.
I had not begun to take notice long before I saw that M.
Franqois and madame had come to an understanding; such
an one, at least, as permitted him to do all for her comfort
and entertainment without committing her to more than
was becoming at such a season. Naturally this left made-
moiselle much in my company; a circumstance which would
have ripened into passion the affection I before entertained
for her, had not gratitude and a nearer observance of her
merits already elevated the feeling into the most ardent
worship that even the youngest lover ever felt for his mis-
tress.
In proportion, however, as I and my love grew stronger,
and mademoiselle's presence grew more necessary to my
happiness so that were she away but an hour I fell
a-moping she began to draw off from me, and absenting
herself more and more on long walks in the woods, by-and-
by reduced me to such a pitch of misery as bid fair to com-
plete what the fever had left undone.
346 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
If this had happened in the world I think it likely that
I should have suffered in silence. But here, under the
greenwood, in common enjoyment of God's air and earth,
we seemed more nearly equal. She was scarce better
dressed than a sutler's wife; while recollections of her
wealth and station, though they assailed me nightly, lost
much of their point in presence of her youth and of that
fair and patient gentleness which forest life and the duties
of a nurse had fostered.
So it happened that one day, when she had been absent
longer than usual, I took my courage in my hand and went
to meet her as far as the stream which ran through the
bottom by the redthorn. Here, at a place where there
were three stepping-stones, I waited for her; first taking
away the stepping-stones, that she might have to pause, and,
being at a loss, might be glad to see me.
She came presently, tripping through an alley in the low
wood, with her eyes on the ground, and her whole carriage
full of a sweet pensiveness which it did me good to see.
I turned my back on the stream before she saw me, and
made a pretence of being taken up with something in an-
other direction. Doubtless she espied me soon, and before
she came very near ; but she made no sign until she reached
the brink, and found the stepping-stones were gone.
Then, whether she suspected me or not, she called out to
me, not once, but several times. For, partly to tantalise
her, as lovers will, and partly because it charmed me to
hear her use my name, I would not turn at once.
When I did, and discovered her standing with one small
foot dallying with the water, I cried out with well-affected
concern; and in a great hurry ran towards her, paying no
attention to her chiding or the pettish haughtiness with
which she spoke to me.
'The stepping-stones are all on your side,' she said im-
periously. 'Who has moved them? '
I looked about without answering, and at last pretended
to find them; while she stood watching me, tapping the
UNDER THE GREENWOOD 347
ground with one foot the while. Despite her impatience,
the stone which was nearest to her I took care to bring last
that she might not cross without my assistance. But
after all she stepped over so lightly and quickly that the
hand she placed in mine seemed scarcely to rest there a
second. Yet when she was over I managed to retain it;
nor did she resist, though her cheek, which had been red
before, turned crimson and her eyes fell, and bound to me
by the link of her little hand, she stood beside me with her
whole figure drooping.
'Mademoiselle,' I said gravely, summoning all my reso-
lution to my aid, 'do you know of what that stream with
its stepping-stones reminds me? '
She shook her head but did not answer.
'Of the stream which has flowed between us from the day
when I first saw you at St. Jean,' I said in a low voice.
'It has flowed between us, and it still does separating us.'
'What stream? ' she murmured, with her eyes cast down,
and her foot playing with the moss. 'You speak in rid-
dles, sir.'
'You understand this one only too well, mademoiselle,' I
answered. 'Are you not young and gay and beautiful,
while I am old, or almost old, and dull and grave? You
are rich and well-thought-of at Court, and I a soldier of
fortune, not too successful. What did you think of me
when you first saw me at St. Jean? What when I came to
Rosny? That, mademoiselle,' I continued with fervour,
'is the stream which flows between us and separates us;
and I know of but one stepping-stone that can bridge it.'
She looked aside, toying with a piece of thorn-blossom
she had picked. It was not redder than her cheeks.
'That one stepping-stone,' I said, after waiting vainly
for any word or sign from her, 'is Love. Many weeks ago,
mademoiselle, when I had little cause to like you, I loved
you; I loved you whether I would or not, and without
thought or hope of return. I should have been mad had I
spoken to you then. Mad, and worse than mad. But now,
348 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE
now that I owe you my life, now that I have drunk from
your hand in fever, and, awaking early and late, have
found you by my pillow now that, seeing you come in and
out in the midst of fear and hardship, I have learned to
regard you as a woman kind and gentle as my mother
now that I love you, so that to be with you is joy, and
away from you grief, is it presumption in me now, made-
moiselle, to think that that stream may be bridged? '
I stopped, out of breath, and saw that she was trembling.
But she spoke presently. 'You said one stepping-stone?'
she murmured.
'Yes, ' I answered hoarsely, trying in vain to look at her
face, which she kept averted from me.
'There should be two,' she said, almost in a whisper.
'Your love, sir, and and mine. You have said much of the
one, and nothing of the other. In that you are wrong, for
I am proud still. And I would not cross the stream you
speak of for any love of yours 1 '
'Ah! ' I cried in sharpest pain.
'But,' she continued, looking up at me on a sudden with
eyes that told me all, 'because I love you I am willing to
cross it to cross it once for ever, and live beyond it all my
life if I may live my life with you.'
I fell on my knee and kissed her hand again and again in
a rapture of joy and gratitude. By-and-by she pulled it
from me. 'If you will, sir,' she said, 'you may kiss my
lips. If you do not, no man ever will.'
After that, as may be guessed, we walked every day in
the forest, making longer and longer excursions as my
strength came back to me, and the nearer parts grew famil-
iar. From early dawn, when I brought my love a posy of
flowers, to late evening, when Fanchette hurried her from
me, our days were passed in a long round of delight; being
filled full of all beautiful things love, and sunshine, and
rippling streams, and green banks, on which we sat to-
gether under scented limes, telling one another all we had
ever thought, and especially all we had ever thought of
UNDER THE GREENWOOD 349
one another. Sometimes when the light was low in the
evening we spoke of my mother; and once but that was
in the sunshine, when the bees were humming and my
blood had begun to run strongly in my veins I spoke of
my great and distant kinsman, Rohan. But mademoiselle
would hear nothing of him, murmuring again and again in
my ear, 'I have crossed, my love, I have crossed.'
Truly the sands of that hour-glass were of gold. But in
time they ran out. First M. Francois, spurred by the rest-
lessness of youth, and convinced that madame would for a
while yield no farther, left us, and went back to the world.
Then news came of great events that could not fail to move
us. The King of France and the King of Navarre had met
at Tours, and embracing in the sight of an immense multi-
tude, had repulsed the League with slaughter in the suburb
of St. Symphorien. Fast on this followed the tidings of
their march northwards with an overwhelming army of
fifty-thousand men of both religions, bent, rumour had it,
on the signal punishment of Paris.
I grew shame that I should say it to think more and
more of these things ; until mademoiselle, reading the signs,
told me one day that we must go. 'Though never again,'
she added with a sigh, 'shall we be so happy.'
'Then why go? ' I asked foolishly.
'Because you are a man,' she answered with a wise
smile, 'as I would have you be, and you need something
besides love. To-morrow we will go.'
'Whither? ' I said in amazement.
'To the camp before Paris,' she answered. 'We will go
back in the light of day seeing that we have done noth-
ing of which to be ashamed and throw ourselves on the
justice of the King of Navarre. You shall place me with
Madame Catherine, who will not refuse to protect me; and
so, s.weet, you will have only yourself to think of. Come,
sir,' she continued, laying her little hand in mine, and
looking into my eyes, 'you are not afraid? '
'I am more afraid than ever I used to be, J I said trembling.
35 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
'So I would have it,' she whispered, hiding her face on
my shoulder. 'Nevertheless we Avill go.'
And go we did. The audacity of such a return in the
face of Turenne, who was doubtless in the King of Na-
varre's suite, almost took my breath away ; nevertheless, I
saw that it possessed one advantage which no other course
promised that, I mean, of setting us right in the eyes of
the world, and enabling me to meet in a straightforward
manner such as maligned us. After some considera-
tion I gave my assent, merely conditioning that until we
reached the Court we should ride masked, and shun as far
as possible encounters by the road.
CHAPTEE XXXII.
A TAVERN" BRAWL.
ON the following day, accordingly, we started. But the
news of the two kings' successes, and particularly the cer-
tainty which these had bred in many minds that nothing
short of a miracle could save Paris, had moved so many
gentlemen to take the road that we found the inns crowded
beyond example, and were frequently forced into meetings
which made the task of concealing our identity more difficult-
and hazardous than I had expected. Sometimes shelter
was not to be obtained on any terms, and then we had to lie
in the fields or in any convenient shed. Moreover, the pas-
sage of the army had swept the country so bare both of food
and forage, that these commanded astonishing prices; and
a long day's ride more than once brought us to our destina-
tion without securing for us the ample meal we had earned,
and required.
Under these circumstances, it was with joy little short of
transport that I recognised the marvellous change which
had come over my mistress. Bearing all without a rnur-
A TAVERN BRAWL
351
mur, or a frown, or so much as one complaining word, she
acted on numberless occasions so as to convince me that she
spoke truly albeit I scarcely dared to believe it when
she said that she had but one trouble in the world, and that
was the prospect of our coming separation.
For my part, and despite some gloomy moments, when
fear of the future overcame me, I rode in Paradise riding
by my mistress. It was her presence which glorified alike
'She first freshness of the morning, when we started with all
the day before us, and the coolness of the late evening, when
we rode hand-in-hand. Nor could I believe without an
effort that I was the same Gaston de Marsac whom she had
once spurned and disdained. God knows I was thankful for
her love. A thousand times, thinking of my grey hairs, I
asked her if she did not repent ; and a thousand times she
answered No, with so much happiness in her eyes that I
was fain to thank God again and believe her.
Notwithstanding the inconvenience of the practice, we
made it a rule to wear our masks whenever we appeared in
public ; and this rule we kept more strictly as we approached
Paris. It exposed us to some comment and more curiosity,
but led to no serious trouble until we reached Etampes,
twelve leagues from the capital ; where we found the prin-
cipal inn so noisy and crowded, and so much disturbed by
the constant coming and going of couriers, that it required
no experience to predicate the neighbourhood of the army.
The great courtyard seemed to be choked with a confused
mass of men and horses, through which we made our way
with difficulty. The windows of the house were all open,
and offered us a view of tables surrounded by men eating
and drinking hastily, as the manner of travellers is. The
gateway and the steps of the house were lined with troop-
ers and servants and sturdy rogues; who scanned all who
passed in or out, and not unfrequently followed them with
ribald jests and nicknames. Songs and oaths, brawling
and laughter, with the neighing of horses and the huzzas
of the beggars, who shouted whenever a fresh party arrived,
352 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
rose above all, and increased the reluctance with which I
assisted madame and mademoiselle to dismount
Simon was no match for such an occasion as this; but
the stalwart aspect of the three men whom Maignan had
left with me commanded respect, and attended by two of
these I made a way for the ladies not without some oppo-
sition and a few oaths to enter the house. The landlord,
whom we found crushed into a corner inside, and entirely
overborne by the crowd which had invaded his dwelling,
assured me that he had not the smallest garret he could
place at my disposal; but I presently succeeded in finding
a small room at the top, which I purchased from the four
men who had taken possession of it. As it was impossible
to get anything to eat there, I left a man on guard, and
myself descended with madame and mademoiselle to the
eating-room, a large chamber set with long boards, and
filled with a rough and noisy crew. Under a running fire
of observations we entered, and found with difficulty three
seats in an inner corner of the room.
I ran my eye over the company, and noticed among them,
besides a dozen travelling parties like our own, specimens
of all those classes which are to be found in the rear o^
an army. There were some officers and more horse-dealers;
half a dozen forage-agents and a few priests ; with a large
sprinkling of adventurers, bravos, and led-captains, and
here and there two or three whose dress and the deference
paid to them by their neighbours seemed to indicate a
higher rank. Conspicuous among these last were a party of
four who occupied a small table by the door. An attempt
had been made to secure some degree of privacy for them
by interposing a settle between them and the room; and
their attendants, who seemed to be numerous, did what
they could to add to this by filling the gap with their per-
sons. One of the four, a man of handsome dress and bear-
ing, who sat in the place of honour, was masked, as we were.
The gentleman at his right hand I could not see. The
others, whom I could see, were strangers to me.
A TAVERN BRAWL 353
Some time elapsed before our people succeeded in pro-
curing us any food, and during the interval we were exposed
to an amount of comment on the part of those round us
which I found very little to my liking. There were not
half a dozen women present, and this and our masks ren-
dered my companions unpleasantly conspicuous. Aware,
however, of the importance of avoiding an altercation which
might possibly detain us, and would be certain to add to
our notoriety, I remained quiet ; and presently the entrance
of a tall, dark-complexioned man, who carried himself with
a peculiar swagger, and seemed to be famous for something
or other, diverted the attention of the company from us.
The new-comer was somewhat of Maignan's figure. He
wore a back and breast over a green doublet, and had an
orange feather in his cap and an orange-lined cloak on his
shoulder. On entering he stood a moment in the doorway,
letting his bold black eyes rove round the room, the while
he talked in a loud braggart fashion to his companions.
There was a lack of breeding in the man's air, and some-
thing offensive in his look ; which I noticed produced wher-
ever it rested a momentary silence and constraint. When
he moved farther into the room I saw that he wore a
very long sword, the point of which trailed a foot behind
him.
He chose out for his first attentions the party of four
whom I have mentioned; going up to them and accosting
them with a ruffling air, directed especially to the gentle-
man in the mask. The latter lifted his head haughtily on
finding himself addressed by a stranger, but did not offer to
answer. Someone else did, however, for a sudden bellow
like that of an enraged bull proceeded from behind the
settle. The words were lost in noise, the unseen speaker's
anger seeming so overpowering that he could not articulate ;
but the tone and voice, which were in some way familiar
to me, proved enough for the bully, who, covering his
retreat with a profound bow, backed out rapidly, muttering
what was doubtless an apology. Cocking his hat more
354 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
fiercely to make up for this repulse, he next proceeded to
patrol the room, scowling from side to side as lie went, with
the evident intention of picking a quarrel with someone
less formidable.
By ill-chance his eye lit, as he turned, on our masks. He
said something to his companions; and encouraged, no
doubt, by the position of our seats at the board, which led
him to think us people of small consequence, he came to
a stop opposite us.
'What! more dukes here?' he cried scoffingly. 'Hallo,
you sir! ' he continued to me, 'will you not unmask and
drink a glass with me? '
I thanked him civilly, but declined.
His insolent eyes were busy, while I spoke, with madame's
fair hair and handsome figure, which her mask failed to
hide. 'Perhaps the ladies will have better taste, sir,' he
said rudely. 'Will they not honour us with a sight of their
pretty faces ? '
Knowing the importance of keeping my temper I put
constraint on myself, and answered, still with civility, that
they were greatly fatigued and were about to retire.
'Zounds! ' he cried, 'that is not to be borne. If we are
to lose them so soon, the more reason we should enjoy their
beaux yeux while we can. A short life and a merry one,
sir. This is not a nunnery, nor, I dare swear, are your
fair friends nuns.'
Though I longed to chastise him for this insult, I feigned
deafness, and went on witli my meal- as if I had not heard
him ; and the table being between us prevented him going
beyond words. After he had uttered one or two coarse
jests of a similar character, which cost us less as we were
masked, and our emotions could only be guessed, the crowd
about us, seeing I took the thing quietly, began to applaud
him; but more as it seemed to me out of fear than love.
In this opinion I was presently confirmed on hearing from
Simon who whispered the information in my ear as he
handed a dish that the fellow was an Italian captain in
A TAVERN BRAWL 355
the king's pay, famous for his skill with the sword and the
many duels in which he had displayed it.
Mademoiselle, though she did not know this, bore with
his insolence with a patience which astonished me; while
madame appeared unconscious of it. Nevertheless, I was
glad when he retired and left us in peace. I seized the
moment of his absence to escort the ladies through the
room and upstairs to their apartment, the door of which
I saw locked and secured. That done I breathed more
freely; and feeling thankful that I had been able to keep
my temper, took the episode to be at an end.
But in this I was mistaken, as I found when I returned
to the room in which we had supped, my intention being
to go through it to the stables. I had not taken two paces
across the floor before I found my road blocked by the
Italian, and read alike in his eyes and in the faces of the
company of whom many hastened to climb the tables to
see what passed that the meeting was premeditated. The
man's face was flushed with wine; proud of his many
victories, he eyed me with a boastful contempt my patience
had perhaps given him the right to feel.
'Ha! well met, sir,' he said, sweeping the floor with his
cap in an exaggeration of respect, 'now, perhaps, your high-
mightiness will condescend to unmask? The table is no
longer between us, nor are your fair triends here to protect
their cher ami ! '
'If 1 still refuse, sir,' I said civilly, wavering between
anger and prudence, and hoping still to avoid a quarrel
which might endanger us all, 'be good enough to attribute
it to private motives, and to no desire to disoblige you.'
'No, I do not think you wish to disoblige me,' he an-
swered, laughing scornfully and a dozen voices echoed
the gibe. 'But for your private motives, the devil take
them! Is that plain enough, sir? '
'It is plain enough to show me that you are an ill-bred
man! ' I answered, choler getting the better of me. 'Let
me pass, sir.'
35 6 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
'Unmask! ' he retorted, moving so as still to detain me,
'or shall I call in the grooms to perform the office for you? '
Seeing at last that all my attempts to evade the man
only fed his vanity, and encouraged him to further ex-
cesses, and that the motley crowd, who filled the room and
already formed a circle round us, had made up their minds
to see sport, I would no longer balk them; I could no
longer do it, indeed, with honour. I looked round, there-
fore, for someone whom I might enlist as my second, but I
saw no one with whom I had the least acquaintance. The
room was lined from table to ceiling with mocking faces
and scornful eyes all turned to me.
My opponent saw the look, and misread it; being much
accustomed, I imagine, to a one-sided battle. He laughed
contemptuously. 'No, my friend, there is no way out of
it,' he said. 'Let me see your pretty face, or fight.'
'So be it,' I said quietly. 'If I have no other choice, I
will fight.'
'In your mask? ' he cried incredulously.
'Yes,' I said sternly, feeling every nerve tingle with long-
suppressed rage. 'I will fight as I am. Off with your
back and breast, if you are a man. And I will so deal with
you that if you see to-morrow's sun you shall need a mask
for the rest of your duys ! '
'Ho! ho! ' he answered, scowling at me in surprise, 'you
sing in a different key now. But I will put a term to it.
There is space enough between these tables, if you can use
your weapon; and much more than you will need to-
morrow. '
'To-morrow will show,' I retorted.
Without more ado he unfastened the buckles of his breast-
piece, and relieving himself of it, stepped back a pace.
Those of the bystanders who occupied the part of the room
he indicated a space bounded by four tables, and not unfit
for the purpose, though somewhat confined hastened to
get out of it, and seize instead upon neighbouring posts of
'vantage. The man's reputation was such, and his fame so
A TAVERN BRAWL 357
great, that on all sides I heard naught but wagers offered
against nie at odds; but this circumstance, which might
have flurried a younger man and numbed his arm, served
only to set me on making the most of such -openings as the
fellow's presumption and certainty of success would be sure
to afford.
The news of the challenge running through the house had
brought together by this time so many people as to fill the
room from end to end, and even to obscure the light, which
was beginning to wane. At the last moment, when we were
on the point of engaging, a slight commotion marked the
admission to the front of three or four persons, whose con-
sequence or attendants gained them this advantage. I
believed them to be the party of four I have mentioned,
but at the time I could not be certain.
In the few seconds of waiting while this went forward I
examined our relative positions with the fullest intention
of killing the man whose glittering eyes and fierce smile
filled me with a loathing which was very nearly hatred
if I could. The line of windows lay to my right and his
left. The evening light fell across us, whitening the row
of faces on my left, but leaving those on my right in
shadow. It occurred to me on the instant that my mask
was actually an advantage, seeing that it protected my
sight from the side-light, and enabled me to watch his eyes
and point with more concentration.
'You will be the twenty -third man I have killed!' he
said boastfully, as we crossed swords and stood an instant
on guard.
'Take care!' I answered. 'You have twenty -three
against you ! '
A swift lunge was his only answer. I parried it, and
thrust, and we fell to work. We had not exchanged half
a dozen blows, however, before I saw that I should need all
the advantage which my mask and greater caution gave me.
I had met my match, and it might be something more; but
that for a time it was impossible to tell. He had the longer
358 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
weapon, and I the longer reach. He preferred the point,
after the new Italian fashion, and I the blade. He was
somewhat flushed with wine, while my arm had scarcely
recovered the strength of which illness had deprived me.
On the other hand, excited at the first by the cries of his
backers, he played rather wildly; while I held myself pre-
pared, and keeping up a strong guard, waited cautiously
for any opening or mistake on his part.
The crowd round us, which had hailed our first passes
with noisy cries of derision and triumph, fell silent after
a while, surprised and taken aback by their champion's
failure to spit me at the first onslaught. My reluctance to
engage had led them to predict a short fight and an easy
victory.
Convinced of the contrary, they began to watch each
stroke with bated breath; or now and again, muttering
the name of Jarnac, broke into brief exclamations as a blo\v
more savage than usual drew sparks from our blades, and
made the rafters ring with the harsh grinding of steel on steel.
The surprise of the crowd, however, was a small thing
compared with that of my adversary. Impatience, disgust,
rage, and doubt chased one another in turn across his
flushed features. Apprised that he had to do with a
swordsman, he put forth all his power. With spite in his
eyes he laboured blow on blow, he tried one form of attack
after another, he found me equal, if barely equal, to all.
And then at last there came a change. The perspiration
gathered on his brow, the silence disconcerted him; he felt
his strength failing under the strain, and suddenly, I think,
the possibility of defeat and death, unthought of before,
burst upon him. I heard him groan, and for a moment he
fenced wildly. Then he again recovered himself. But
now I read terror in his eyes, and knew that the moment
of retribution was at hand. With his back to the table,
and my point threatening his breast, he knew at last what
those others had felt!
He would fain have stopped to breathe, but I would not
A TAVERN BRAWL 359
let him though my blows also were growing feeble, and my
guard weaker; for I knew that if I gave him time to re-
cover himself he would have recourse to other tricks, and
might out-manoeuvre me in the end. As it was, my black
unchanging mask, which always confronted him, which hid
all emotions and veiled even fatigue, had grown to be full
of terror to him full of blank, passionless menace. He
could not tell how I fared, or what I thought, or how
my strength stood. A superstitious dread was on him,
and threatened to overpower him. Ignorant who I was or
whence I came, he feared and doubted, grappling with mon-
strous suspicions, which the fading light encouraged. His
face broke out in blotches, his breath came and went in
gasps, his eyes began to protrude. Once or twice they
quitted mine for a part of a second to steal a despairing
glance at the rows of onlookers that ran to right and left of
us. But he read no pity there.
At last the end came more suddenly than I had looked
for it, but I think he was unnerved. His hand lost its grip
of the hilt, and a parry which I dealt a little more briskly
than usual sent the weapon flying among the crowd, as
much to my astonishment as to that of the spectators. A
volley of oaths and exclamations hailed the event; and for
a moment I stood at gaze, eyeing him watchfully. He
shrank back ; then he made for a moment as if he would
fling himself upon me dagger in hand. But seeing my
point steady, he recoiled a second time, his face distorted
with rage and fear.
'Go!' I said sternly.' 'Begone! Follow your sword!
But spare the next man you conquer. '
He stared at me, fingering his dagger as if he did not
understand, or as if in the bitterness of his shame at being
so defeated even life were unwelcome. I was about to re-
peat my words when a heavy hand fell on my shoulder.
'Fool!' a harsh growling voice muttered in my ear. 'Do
you want him to serve you as Achon served Matas? This
is the way to deal with him. '
360 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
And before I knew who spoke or what to expect a man
vaulted over the table beside me. Seizing the Italian by
the neck and waist, he flung him bodily without paying
the least regard to his dagger into the crowd. 'There! '
the new-comer cried, stretching his arms as if the effort
had relieved him, 'so much for him! And do you breathe
yourself. Breathe yourself, my friend, ' he continued with
a vain-glorious air of generosity. 'When you are rested
and ready, you and I will have a bout. Mon dieu ! what a
thing it is to see a man ! And by my faith you are a man ! '
'But, sir,' I said, staring at him in the utmost bewilder-
ment, 'we have no quarrel.'
'Quarrel? ' he cried in his loud, ringing voice. 'Heaven
forbid! Why should we? I love a man, however, and
when I see one I say to him, " I am Crillon ! Fight me ! "
But I see you are not yet rested. Patience ! There is no
hurry. Berthon de Crillon is proud to wait your conven-
ience. In the meantime, gentlemen,' he continued, turn-
ing with a grand air to the spectators, who viewed this
sudden bouleversement with unbounded surprise, 'let us do
what we can. Take the word from me, and cry all, " Vive
le Roi, et vive Vlnconnu!"
Like people awaking from a dream so great was their
astonishment the company complied and with the utmost
heartiness. When the shout died away, someone cried
in turn, 'Vive Crillon!' and this was honoured with a
fervour which brought the tears to the eyes of that remark-
able man, in whom bombast was so strangely combined
with the firmest and most reckless courage. He bowed
again and again, turning himself about in the small space
between the tables, while his face shone with pleasure
and enthusiasm. Meanwhile I viewed him with per-
plexity. I comprehended that it was his voice I had heard
behind the settle; but I had neither the desire to fight
him nor so great a reserve of strength after my illness
as to be able to enter on a fresh contest with equanimity.
W r hen he turned to me, therefore, and again asked, 'Well,
A TAVERN BRAWL 361
sir, are you ready? ' I could think of no better answer than
that I had already made to him, 'But, sir, I have no quarrel
with you.'
'Tut, tut! ' he answered querulously, 'if that is all, let
us engage.'
'That is not all, however,' I said, resolutely putting up
my sword. 'I have not only no quarrel with M. de Cril-
lon, but I received at his hands when I last saw him a
considerable service. '
'Then now is the time to return it,' he answered briskly,
and as if that settled the matter.
I could not refrain from laughing. 'Nay, but I have
still an excuse,' I said. 'I am barely recovered from an
illness, and am weak. Even so, I should be loth to decline
a combat with some ; but a better man than I may give the
wall to M. de Crillon and suffer no disgrace.'
'Oh, if you put it that way enough said,' he answered
in a tone of disappointment. 'And, to be sure, the light
is almost gone. That is a comfort. But you will not
refuse to drink a cup of wine with me? Your voice I
remember, though I cannot say who you are or what ser-
vice I did you. For the future, however, count on me. I
love a man who is brave as well as modest, and know no
better friend than a stout swordsman.'
I was answering him in fitting terms while the fickle
crowd, which a few minutes earlier had been ready to tear
me, viewed us from a distance with respectful homage
when the masked gentleman who had before been in his
company drew near and saluted me with much stateliness.
'I congratulate you, sir,' he said, in the easy tone of a
great man condescending. ' You use the sword as few use it,
and fight with your head as well as your hands. Should you
need a friend or employment, you will honour me by remem-
bering that you are known to the Vicomte de Turenne. '
I bowed low to hide the start which the mention of his
name caused me. For had I tried, ay, and possessed to aid
me all the wit of M. de Brantome, I could have imagined
362 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
nothing more fantastic than this meeting; or more enter-
taining than that I, masked, should talk with the Vicomte
de Turenrie masked, and hear in place of reproaches and
threats of vengeance a civil offer of protection. Scarcely
knowing whether I should laugh or tremble, or which
should occupy me more, the diverting thing that had.
happened or the peril we had barely escaped, I made shift
to answer him, craving his indulgence if I still preserved
my incognito. Even while I spoke a fresh fear assailed
me: lest M. de Crillon, recognising my voice or figure,
should cry my name on the spot, and explode in a moment
the mine on which we stood.
This rendered me extremely impatient to be gone. But
M. le Vicomte had still something to say, and I could not
withdraw myself without rudeness.
'You are travelling north like everyone else?' he said,
gazing at me curiously. 'May I ask whether you are for
Meudori, where the King of Navarre lies, or for the Court
at St. Cloud? '
I muttered, moving restlessly under his keen eyes, that
I was for Meudon.
'Then, if you care to travel with a larger company,' he
rejoined, bowing with negligent courtesy, 'pray command
me. I am for Meudon also, and shall leave here three
hours before noon.'
Fortunately he took my assent to his gracious invitation
for granted, and turned away before I had well begun to
thank him. From Crillon I found it more difficult to
escape. He apppeared to have conceived a great fancy for
me, and felt also, I imagine, some curiosity as to my iden-
tity. But I did even this at last, and, evading the obse-
quious offers which were made me on all sides, escaped to
the stables, where I sought out the Cid's stall, and lying
down in the straw beside him, began to review the past,
and plan the future. Under cover of the darkness sleep
soon came to me ; my last waking thoughts being divided
between thankfulness for my escape and a steady purpose
AT MEUDON 363
to reach Meudon before the Vicomte, so that I might make
good my tale in his absence. For that seemed to be
my only chance of evading the dangers I had chosen to
encounter.
CHAPTEE XXXIII.
AT MEUDON.
MAKING so early a start from Etampes that the inn, which
had continued in an uproar till long after midnight, lay
sunk in sleep when we rode out of the yard, we reached
Meudon about noon next day. I should be tedious were I
to detail what thoughts my mistress and I had during that
day's journey the last, it might be, which we should take
together; or what assurances we gave one another, or how
often we repented the impatience which had impelled us to
put all to the touch. Madame, with kindly forethought,
detached herself from us, and rode the greater part of the
distance with Fanchette; but the opportunities she gave us
went for little; for, to be plain, the separation we dreaded
seemed to overshadow us already. We uttered iew words,
though those few were to the purpose, but riding hand-in-
hand, with full hearts, and eyes which seldom quitted one
another, looked forward to Meudon and its perils with such
gloomy forebodings as our love and my precarious position
suggested.
Long before we reached the town, or could see more of it
than the Chateau, over which the Lilies of France and the
broad white banner of the Bourbons floated in company,
we found ourselves swept into the whirlpool which sur-
rounds an army. Crowds stood at all the cross-roads,
wagons and sumpter-mules encumbered the bridges; each
moment a horseman passed us at a gallop, or a troop of
disorderly rogues, soldiers only in name, reeled, shouting
and singing, along the road. Here and there, for a warn-
364 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
ing to the latter sort, a man dangled on a rude gallows;
under which sportsmen returning from the chase and ladies
who had been for an airing rode laughing on their way.
Amid the multitude entering the town we passed unno-
ticed. A little way within the walls we halted to inquire
where the Princess of Navarre had her lodging. Hearing
that she occupied a house in the town, while her brother
had his quarters in the Chateau, and the King of France
at St. Cloud, I stayed my party in a by-road, a hundred
paces farther on, and, springing from the Cid, went to my
mistress's knee.
'Mademoiselle,' I said formally, and so loudly that all
my men might hear, 'the time is come. I dare not go
farther with you. I beg you, therefore, to bear me witness
that as I took you so I have brought you back, and both
with your good-will. I beg that you will give me this
quittance, for it may serve me.'
She bowed her head and laid her ungloved hand on mine,
which I had placed on the pommel of her saddle. 'Sir,'
she answered in a broken voice, 'I will not give you this
quittance, nor any quittance from me while I live.' With
that she took off her mask before them all, and I saw the
tears running down her white face. 'May God protect you,
M. de Marsac,' she continued, stooping until her face
almost touched mine, 'and bring you to the thing you
desire. If not, sir, and you pay too dearly for what you
have done for me, I will live a maiden all my days. And,
if I do not, these men may shame me ! '
My heart was too full for words, but I took the glove
she held out to me, and kissed her hand with my knee
bent. Then I waved for I could not speak to madame
to proceed; and with Simon Fleix and Maignan's men to
guard them they went on their way. Mademoiselle's white
face looked back to me until a bend in the road hid them,
and I saw them no more.
I turned when all were gone, and going heavily to where
my Sard stood with his head drooping, I climbed to the
AT MEUDON 365
saddle, and rode at a foot-pace towards the Chateau. The
way was short and easy, for the next turning showed me
the open gateway and a crowd about it. A vast number of
people were entering and leaving, while others rested in the
shade of the wall, and a dozen grooms led horses up and
down. The sunshine fell hotly on the road and the court-
yard, and flashed back by the cuirasses of the men on guard,
seized the eye and dazzled it with gleams of infinite bright-
ness. I was advancing alone, gazing at all this with a
species of dull indifference which masked for the moment
the suspense I felt at heart, when a man, coming on foot
along the street, crossed quickly to me and looked me in
the face.
I returned his look, and seeing he was a stranger to me,
was for passing on without pausing. But he wheeled be-
side me and uttered my name in a low voice.
I checked the Cid and looked down at him. 'Yes,' I
said mechanically, 'I am M. de Marsac. But I do not
know you.'
'Nevertheless I have been watching for you for three
days,' he replied. 'M. de Eosny received your message.
This is for you. '
He handed me a scrap of paper. 'From whom?' Tasked.
'Maignan,' he answered briefly. And with that, and a
stealthy look round, he left me, and went the way he had
been going before.
I tore open the note, and knowing that Maignan could
not write, was not surprised to find that it lacked any signa-
ture. The brevity of its contents vied with the curtness of
its bearer. ' In Heaven's name go back and wait,' it ran.
'Your enemy is here, and those who wish you well are
powerless.'
A warning so explicit, and delivered under such circum-
stances, might have been expected to make me pause even
then. But I read the message with the same dull indiffer-
ence, the same dogged resolve with which the sight of the
crowded gateway before me had inspired me. I had not
366 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
come so far and baffled Turenne by an hour to fail in my
purpose at the last; nor given such pledges to another to
prove false to myself. Moreover, the distant rattle of
musketry, which went to show that a skirmish was taking
place on the farther side of the Castle, seemed an invitation
to me to proceed; for now, if ever, my sword might earn
protection and a pardon. Only in regard to M. de Rosny,
from whom I had no doubt that the message came, I resolved
to act with prudence ; neither making any appeal to him in
public nor mentioning his name to others in private.
The Cid had borne me by this time into the middle of
the throng about the gateway, who, wondering to see a
stranger of my appearance arrive without attendants, eyed
me with a mixture of civility and forwardness. I recog-
nised more than one man whom I had seen about the Court
at St. Jean d'Angely six months before; but so great is the
disguising power of handsome clothes and equipments that
none of these knew me. I beckoned to the nearest, and
asked him if the King of Navarre was in the Chateau.
'He has gone to see the King of France at St. Cloud,' the
man answered, with something of wonder that anyone
should be ignorant of so important a fact. 'He is expected
here in an hour.'
I thanked him, and calculating that I should still have
time and to spare before the arrival of M. de Turenne, I
dismounted, and taking the rein over my arm, began to
walk up and down in the shade of the wall. Meanwhile
the loiterers increased in numbers as the minutes passed.
Men of better standing rode up, and, leaving their horses
in charge of their lackeys, went into the Chateau. Officers
in shining corslets, or with boots and scabbards dulled with
dust, arrived and clattered in through the gates. A mes-
senger galloped up with letters, and was instantly sur-
rounded by a curious throng of questioners; who left him
only to gather about the next comers, a knot of townsfolk,
whose downcast visages and glances of apprehension seemed
to betoken no pleasant or easy mission.
AT MEUDOK 367
Watching many of these enter and disappear, while only
the humbler sort remained to swell the crowd at the gate,
I began to experience the discomfort and impatience which
are the lot of the man who finds himself placed in a false
position. I foresaw with clearness the injury I was about
to do my cause by presenting myself to the king among the
common herd; and yet I had no choice saveo do this, for I
dared not run the risk of entering, lest I should be required
to give my name, and fail to see the King of Navarre at all.
As it was I came very near to being foiled in this way;
for I presently recognised, and was recognised in turn, by
a gentleman who rode up to the gates and, throwing his
reins to a groom, dismounted with an air of immense
gravity. This was M. Forget, the king's secretary, and the
person to whom I had on a former occasion presented a
petition. He looked at me with eyes of profound astonish-
ment, and saluting me stiffly from a distance, seemed in
two minds whether he should pass in or speak to me. On
second thoughts, however, he came towards me, and again
saluted me with a peculiarly dry and austere aspect.
'I believe, sir, I am speaking to M. de Marsac?' he said
in a low voice, but not impolitely.
I replied in the affirmative.
'And that, I conclude, is your horse?' he continued,
raising his cane, and pointing to the Cid, which I had fas-
tened to a hook in the wall.
I replied again in the affirmative.
'Then take a word of advice,' he answered, screwing up
his features, and speaking in a dry sort of way. 'Get upon
its back without an instant's delay, and put as many
leagues between yourself and Meudon as horse and man
may.'
'I am obliged to you,' I said, though I was greatly
startled by his words. 'And what if I do not take your
advice? '
He shrugged his shoulders. 'In that case look to your-
self ! ' he retorted. 'But you will look in vain ! '
368 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
He turned on his heel as he spoke, and in a moment was
gone. I watched him enter the Chateau, and in the uncer-
tainty which possessed me whether he was not gone after
salving his conscience by giving me warning to order my
instant arrest, I felt, and I doubt not I looked, as ill at
ease for the time being as the group of trembling townsfolk
who stood near me. Reflecting that he should know his
master's mind, I recalled with depressing clearness the
repeated warnings the King of Navarre had given me that
I must not look to him for reward or protection. I be-
thought me that I was here against his express orders:
presuming on those very services which he had given me
notice he should repudiate. I remembered that Eosny had
always been in the same tale. And in fine I began to see
that mademoiselle and I had together decided on a step
which I should never have presumed to take on my own
motion.
I had barely arrived at this conclusion when the tramp-
ling of hoofs and a sudden closing in of the crowd round
the gate announced the King of Navarre's approach. With
a sick heart I drew nearer, feeling that the crisis was at
hand; and in a moment he came in sight, riding beside an
elderly man, plainly dressed and mounted, with whom he
was carrying on an earnest conversation. A train of nobles
and gentlemen, whose martial air and equipments made up
for the absence of the gewgaws and glitter, to which my
eyes had become accustomed at Blois, followed close on his
heels. Henry himself wore a suit of white velvet, frayed
in places and soiled by his armour; but his quick eye and
eager, almost fierce, countenance could not fail to win and
keep the attention of the least observant. He kept glan-
cing from side to side as he came on; and that with so
cheerful an air and a carriage so full at once of dignity and
good-humour that no one could look on him and fail to see
that here was a leader and a prince of men, temperate in
victory and unsurpassed in defeat.
The crowd raising a cry of ' Vive Navarre I ' as he drew
AT MEUDON 369
near, he bowed, with a sparkle in his eye. But when a
few by the gate cried ' Vivent les Rois ! ' he held up his
hand for silence, and said in a loud, clear voice, 'Not that,
my friends. There is but one king in France. Let us say
instead, "Vive leEoi!"'
The spokesman of the little group of townsfolk, who,
I learned, were from Arcueil, and had come to complain of
the excessive number of troops quartered upon them, took
advantage of the pause to approach him. Henry received
the old man with a kindly look, and bent from his saddle
to hear what he had to say. While they were talking I
pressed forward, the emotion I felt on my own account
heightened by my recognition of the man who rode by the
King of Navarre who was no other than M. de la Noue.
No Huguenot worthy of the name could look on the veteran
who had done and suffered more for the cause than any
living man without catching something of his stern enthu-
siasm; and the sight, while it shamed me, who a moment
before had been inclined to prefer my safety to the assist-
ance I owed my country, gave me courage to step to the
king's rein, so that I heard his last words to the men of
Arcueil.
'Patience, my friends,' he said kindly. 'The burden is
heavy, but the journey is a short one. The Seine is ours;
the circle is complete. In a week Paris must surrender.
The king, my cousin, will enter, and you will be rid of us.
For France's sake one week, my friends.'
The men fell back with low obeisances, charmed by his
good-nature, and Henry, looking up, saw me before him.
On the instant his jaw fell. His brow, suddenly contract-
ing above eyes, which flashed with surprise and displeasure,
altered in a moment the whole aspect of his face; which
grew dark and stern as night. His first impulse was to pass
by me; but seeing that I held my ground, he hesitated, so
completely chagrined by my appearance that he did not
know how to act, or in what way to deal with me. I seized
the occasion, and bending my knee with as much respect
370 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
as I had ever used to the King of France, begged to bring
myself to his notice, and to crave his protection and
favour.
'This is no time to trouble me, sir,' he retorted, eyeing
me with an angry side-glance. 'I do not know you. You
are unknown to me, sir. You must go to M. de Rosny.'
'It would be useless sire,' I answered, in desperate per-
sistence.
'Then I can do nothing for you/ he rejoined peevishly.
'Stand on one side, sir.'
But I was desperate. I knew that I had risked all on
the event, and must establish my footing before M. de
Turenne's return, or run the risk of certain recognition
and vengeance. I cried out, caring nothing who heard,
that I was M. de Marsac, that I had come back to meet
whatever my enemies could allege against me.
' Venire Saint Gris ! ' Henry exclaimed, starting in his
saddle with well-feigned surprise. 'Are you that man? '
'I am, sire,' I answered.
' Then you must be mad ! ' he retorted, appealing to those
behind him. 'Stark, staring mad to show your face here!
Ventre Saint Gris ! Are we to have all the ravishers and
plunderers in the country come to us? '
'I am neither the one nor the other! ' I answered, looking
with indignation from him to the gaping train behind him.
'That you will have to settle with M. de Turenne! ' he
retorted, frowning down at me with his whole face turned
gloomy and fierce. 'I know you well, sir, now. Com-
plaint has been made that you abducted a lady from his
Castle of Chize some time back.'
'The lady, sire, is now in charge of the Princess of
Navarre. '
'She is? ' he exclaimed, quite taken aback.
'And if she has aught of complaint against me,' I con-
tinued with pride, 'I will submit to whatever punishment
you order or M. de Turenne demands. But if she has no
complaint to make, and vows that she accompanied me of
AT MEUDON 371
her own free-will and accord, and has suffered neither
wrong nor displeasure at my hands, then, sire, I claim that
this is a private matter between myself and M. de Turenne.'
'Even so I think you will have your hands full,' he an-
swered grimly. At the same time he stopped by a gesture
those who would have cried out upon me, and looked at me
himself with an altered countenance. 'Do I understand
that you assert that the lady went of her own accord? ' he
asked.
'She went and has returned, sire,' I answered.
'Strange! ' he ejaculated. 'Have you married her? '
'No, sire,' I answered. 'I desire leave to do so.'
'Mon dieu! she is M. de Turenne's ward,' he rejoined,
almost dumbfounded by my audacity.
'I do not despair of obtaining his assent, sire,' I said
patiently.
' Saint Gris! the man is mad!' he cried, wheeling his
horse and facing his train with a gesture of the utmost
wonder. . 'It is the strangest story I ever heard.'
'But somewhat more to the gentleman's credit than the
lady's ! ' one said with a smirk and a smile.
'A lie! ' I cried, springing forward on the instant with a
boldness which astonished myself. 'She is as pure as your
Highness's sister! I swear it. That man lies in his teeth,
and I will maintain it.'
'Sir!' the King of Navarre cried, turning on me with
the utmost sternness, 'you forget yourself in my presence!
Silence, and beware another time how you let your tongue
run on those above you. You have enough trouble, let me
tell you, on your hands already.'
'Yet the man lies!' I answered doggedly, remembering
Crillon and his ways. 'And if he will do me the honour
of stepping aside with me, I will convince him of it ! '
' Venire Saint Gris ! ' Henry replied, frowning, and dwell-
ing on each syllable of his favourite oath. 'Will you be
silent, sir, and let me think? Or must I order your instant
artrest? '
372 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
'Surely that at least, sire,' a suave voice interjected.
And with that a gentleman pressed forward from the rest,
and gaming a place of 'vantage by the King's side, shot at
me a look of extreme malevolence. 'My lord of Turenne
will expect no less at your Highness's hands,' he contin-
ued warmly. 'I beg you will give the order on the spot,
and hold this person to answer for his misdeeds. M. de
Turenne returns to-day. He should be here now. I say
again, sire, he will expect no less than this.'
The king, gazing at me with gloomy eyes, tugged at his
moustaches. Someone had motioned the common herd to
stand back out of hearing; at the same time the suite had
moved up out of curiosity and formed a half-circle ; in the
midst of which I stood fronting the king, who had La Noiie
and the last speaker on either hand. Perplexity and an-
noyance struggled for the mastery in his face as he looked
darkly down at me, his teeth showing through his beard.
Profoundly angered by my appearance, which he had taken
at first to be the prelude to disclosures which must detach
Turenne at a time when union was all-important, he had
now ceased to fear for himself; and perhaps saw some-
thing in the attitude I adopted which appealed to hii
nature and sympathies.
'If the girl is really back,' he said at last, 'M. d'Arem-
burg, I do not see any reason why I should interfere. At
present, at any rate.
'I think, sire, M. de Turenne will see reason,' the gentle-
man answered drily.
The king coloured. 'M. de Turenne,' he began,
'Has made many sacrifices at your request, sire,' the
other said with meaning. 'And buried some wrongs, or
fancied wrongs, in connection with this very matter. This
person has outraged him in the grossest manner, and in M.
le Vicomte's name I ask, nay I press upon you, that he be
instantly arrested, and held to answer for it. '
'I am ready to answer for it now! ' I retorted, looking
from face to face for sympathy, and finding none save in M.
AT MEUDON 373
de la Nou'e's, who appeared to regard me with grave ap-
probation. 'To the Vicomte de Turenne, or the person he
may appoint to represent him.'
'Enough! ' Henry said, raising his hand and speaking in
the tone of authority he knew so well how to adopt. ' For
you, M. d'Aremburg, I thank you. Turenne is happy in
his friend. But this gentleman came to me of his own free
will and I do not think it consistent with my honour to de-
tain him without warning given. I grant him an hour to
remove himself from my neighbourhood. If he be found
after that time has elapsed,' he continued solemnly, 'his
fate be on his own head. Gentlemen, we are late already.
Let us on.'
I looked at him as he pronounced this sentence, and
strove to find words in which to make a final appeal to him.
But no words came ; and when he bade me stand aside, I
did so mechanically, remaining with my head bared to the
sunshine while the troop rode by. Some looked back at
me with curiosity, as at a man of whom they had heard a
tale, and some with a jeer on their lips ; a few with dark
looks of menace. When they were all gone, and the ser-
vants who followed them had disappeared also, and I was
left to the inquisitive glances of the rabble who stood gap-
ing after the sight, I turned and went to the Cid, and
loosed the horse with a feeling of bitter disappointment.
The plan which mademoiselle had proposed and I had
adopted in the forest by St. Gaultier when it seemed
to us that our long absence and the great events of
which we heard must have changed the world and
opened a path for our return had failed utterly. Things
were as they had been ; the strong were still strong,
and friendship under bond to fear. Plainly we should
have shewn ourselves wiser had we taken the lowlier
course, and, obeying the warnings given us, waited the
King of Navarre's pleasure or the tardy recollection of
Eosny. I had not then stood, as I now stood, in instant
jeopardy, nor felt the keen, pangs of a separation which
374 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
bade fair to be lasting. She ,vas safe, and that was much;
but I, after long service and brief happiness, must go out
again alone, with only memories to comfort me.
It was Simon Fleix's voice which awakened me from
this unworthy lethargy as selfish as it was useless and,
recalling me to myself, reminded me that precious time
was passing while I stood inactive. To get at me he had
forced his way through the curious crowd, and his face was
flushed. He plucked me by the sleeve, regarding the
varlets round him with a mixture of anger and fear.
'Norn de Dieu! do they take you for a rope-dancer?' he
muttered in my ear. 'Mount, sir, and come. There is
not a moment to be lost. '
'You left her at Madame Catherine's? ' I said.
'To be sure,' he answered impatiently. 'Trouble not
about her. Save yourself, M. de Marsac. That is the
thing to be done now.'
I mounted mechanically, and felt my courage return as
the horse moved under me. I trotted through the crowd,
and without thought took the road by which we had come.
When we had ridden a hundred yards, however, I pulled
up. 'An hour is a short start, ' I said sullenly. 'Whither? '
'To St. Cloud,' he answered promptly. 'The protection
of the King of France may avail for a day or two. After
that, there will still be the League, if Paris have not fallen. '
I saw there was nothing else for it, and assented, and we
set off. The distance which separates Meudon from St.
Cloud we might have ridden under the hour, but the direct
road runs across the Scholars' Meadow, a wide plain north
of Meudon. This lay exposed to the enemy's fire, and was,
besides, the scene of hoiirly conflicts between the horse of
both parties, so that to cross it without an adequate force
was impossible. Driven to make a circuit, we took longer
to reach our destination, yet did so without mishap; find-
ing the little town, when we came in sight of it, given up
to all the bustle and commotion which properly belong to
the Court and camp.
"T/S AN ILL WIND^ 375
It was, indeed, as full as it could be, for the surrender of
Paris being momentarily expected, St. Cloud had become
the rendezvous as well of the few who had long followed a
principle as of the many who wait upon success. The'
streets, crowded in every part, shone with glancing colours,
with steel and velvet, the garb of fashion and the plumes
of war. Long lines of flags obscured the eaves and broke
the sunshine, while, above all, the bells of half a dozen
churches rang merry answer to the distant crash of guns.
Everywhere on flag and arch and streamer I read the motto,
'Vive le Hoi!' words written, God knew then, and we
know now, in what a mockery of doom !
CHAPTER XXXir
"TIS AN ILL WIND.*
WE had made our way slowly and with much jostling as
far as the principal street, finding the press increase as we
advanced, when I heard, as I turned a corner, my name
called, and, looking up, saw at a window the face of which
I was in search. After that half a minute sufficed to bring
M. d' Agen flying to my side, when nothing, as I had expected,
would do but I must dismount where I was and share his
lodging. He made no secret of his joy and surprise at sight
of me, but pausing only to tell Simon where the stable was,
haled me through the crowd and up his stairs with a fervour
and heartiness which brought the tears to my eyes, and
served to impress the company whom I found above with a
more than sufficient sense of my importance.
Seeing him again in the highest feather and in the full
employment of all those little arts and graces which served
as a foil to his real worth, I took it as a great honour that
he laid them aside for the nonce ; and introduced me to the
seat of honour and gaade me known to his companions with
376 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
a boyish directness and a simple thought for my comfort
which infinitely pleased me. He bade his landlord, without
a moment's delay, bring wine and meat and everything which
could refresh a traveller, and was himself up and down a
hundred times in a minute, calling to his servants for this
or that, or railing at them for their failure to bring me a
score of things I did not need. I hastened to make my
excuses to the company for interrupting them in the midst
of their talk ; and these they were kind enough to accept
in good part. At the same time, reading clearly in M.
d'Agen's excited face and shining eyes that he longed to be
alone with me, they took the hint, and presently left us
together.
' Well,' he said, coming back from the door, to which he
had conducted them, ' what have you to tell me, my friend ?
She is not with you ? '
1 She is with Mademoiselle de la Vire at Meudon,' I an-
swered, smiling. ' And for the rest, she is well and in better
spirits.'
' She sent me some message ? ' he asked.
I shook my head. ' She did not know I should see you,'
I answered.
' But she she has spoken of me lately ? ' he continued,
his face falling.
' I do not think she has named your name for a fortnight,'
I answered, laughing. ' There's for you ! Why, man/ I
continued, adopting a different tone, and laying my hand on.
his shoulder in a manner which reassured him at least as
much as my words, 'are you so young a lover as to be igno-
rant that a woman says least of that of which she thinks
most ? Pluck up courage ! Unless I am mistaken, you have
little to be afraid of except the past. Only have patience.'
' You think so ? ' he said gratefully.
I assured him that I had no doubt of it ; and on that he
fell into a reverie, and I to watching him. Alas for the
littleness of our natures ! He had received me with open
arms, yet at sight of the happiness which took possession of
"77.9 AN ILL WIND' 377
his handsome face I gave way to the pettiest feeling which
can harbour in a man's breast. I looked at him with eyes
of envy, bitterly comparing my lot with that which fate had
reserved for him. He had fortune, good looks, and success
on his side, great relations, and high hopes ; I stood in
instant jeopardy, my future dark, and every path which
presented itself so hazardous that I knew not which to
adopt. He was young, and I past my prime ; he in favour,
and I a fugitive.
To such reflections he put an end in a way which made
me blush for my churlishness. For, suddenly awaking out
of his pleasant dream, he asked me about myself and my
fortunes, inquiring eagerly how I came to be in St. Cloud,
and listening to the story of my adventures with a generous
anxiety which endeared him to me more and more. When
I had done and by that time Simon had joined us, and was
waiting at the lower end of the room he pronounced that
I must see the king.
' "^here is nothing else for it,' he said.
( t have come to see him,' I answered.
' Mon dieu, yes ! ' he continued, rising from his seat and
looking at me with a face of concern. ' No one else can
help you.'
I nodded.
' Turenne has four thousand men here. You can do noth-
ing against so many? '
'Nothing,' I said. 'The question is, Will the king protect
me?'
' It is he or no one,' M. d'Agen answered warmly. ' You
cannot see him to-night : he has a Council. To-morrow at
daybreak you may. You must lie here to-night, and I will
set my fellows to watch, and I think you will be safe. I
will away now and see if my uncle will help. Can you
think of anyone else who would speak for you ? '
I 'considered, and was about to answer in the negative,
when Simon, who had listened with a scared face, suggested
M. de Crillon.
378 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
'Yes, if he would,' M. d'Agen exclaimed, looking at the
lad with approbation. ' He has weight with the king.'
' I think he might,' I replied slowly. ' I had a curious
encounter with him last night.' And with that I told M.
d'Agen of the duel I fought at the inn.
1 Good ! ' he said, his eyes sparkling. ( I wish I had been
there to see. At any rate we will try him. Crillon fears
no one, not even the king.'
So it was settled. For that night I was to keep close in
my friend's lodging, showing not even my nose at the
window.
When he had gone on his errand, and I found myself
alone in the room, I am fain to confess that I fell very low
in my spirits. M. d'Agen's travelling equipment lay about
the apartment, but failed to give any but an untidy air to
its roomy bareness. The light was beginning to wane, the
sun was gone. Outside, the ringing of bells and the distant
muttering of guns, with the tumult of sounds which rose
from the crowded street, seemed to tell of joyous life and
freedom, and all the hopes and ambitions from which I was
cut off.
Having no other employment, I watched the street, and
keeping myself well retired from the window, saw knots of
gay riders pass this way and that through the crowd, their
corslets shining and their voices high. Monks and ladies,
a cardinal and an ambassador, passed under my eyes these
and an endless procession of townsmen and beggars, sol-
diers and courtiers, Gascons, Normans and Picards. Never
had I seen such a sight or so many people gathered to-
gether. It seemed as if half Paris had come out to make
submission, so that while my gorge rose against my own
imprisonment, the sight gradually diverted my mind from
my private distresses, by bidding ine find compensation for.
them in the speedy and glorious triumph of the cause.
Even when the light failed the pageant did not cease,-but,
torches and lanthorns springing into life, turned night into
day. From every side came sounds of revelry or strife. The
"77S AN ILL WIND^ 379
crowd continued to perambulate the streets until a late hour,
with cries of ' Vive le Roi ! ' and ' Vive Navarre ! ' while now
and again the passage of a great noble with his suite called
forth a fresh outburst of enthusiasm. Nothing seemed more
certain, more inevitable, more clearly predestinated than that
twenty-four hours must see the fall of Paris.
Yet Paris did not fall.
When M. d'Agen returned a little before midnight, he
found me still sitting in the dark looking from the window.
I heard him call roughly for lights, and apprised by the
sound of his voice that something was wrong, I rose to meet
him. He stood silent awhile, twirling his small moustaches,
and then broke into a passionate tirade, from which I was
not slow to gather that M. de Rambouillet declined to serve
me.
' Well,' I said, feeling for the young man's distress and
embarrassment, ' perhaps he is right.'
' He says that word respecting you came this evening',
my friend answered, his cheeks red with shame, ' and that
to countenance you after that would only be to court cer-
tain humiliation. I did not let him off too easily, I assure
you,' M. d'Agen continued, turning away to evade my gaze;
' but I got no satisfaction. He said you had his good-will,
and that to help you he would risk something, but that
to do so under these circumstances would be only to injure
himself.'
1 There is still Crillon,' I said, with as much cheerfulness
as I could assume. ' Pray Heaven he be there early ! Did
M. de Kambouillet say anything else ? '
' That your only chance was to fly as quickly and secretly
as possible.'
' He thought my situation desperate, then ? '
My friend nodded; and scarcely less depressed on my
account than ashamed on his own, evinced so much feeling
that it was all I could do to comfort him ; which I succeeded
in doing only when I diverted the conversation to Madame
de Bruhl. We passed the short night together, sharing the
380 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
same room and the same bed, and talking more than we
slept of madame and mademoiselle, the castle on the hill,
and the camp in the woods, of all old days in fine, but little
of the future. Soon after dawn Simon, who lay on a pallet
across the threshold, roused me from a fitful sleep into
which I had just fallen, and a few minutes later I stood up
dressed and armed, ready to try the last chance left to me.
M. d'Agen had dressed stage for stage with me, and I had
kept silence. But when he took up his cap, and showed
clearly that he had it in his mind to go with me, I withstood
him. ' No/ I said, ' you can lo me little good, and may do
yourself much harm.'
' You shall not go without one friend,' he cried fiercely.
< Tut, tut ! ' I said. ' 1 shall have Simon.'
But Simon, when I turned to speak to him, was gone.
Few men are at their bravest in the early hours of the day,
and it did not surprise me that the lad's courage had failed
him. The defection only strengthened, however, the reso-
lution I had formed that I would not injure M. d'Agen;
though it was some time before I could persuade him that
I was in earnest, and would go alone or not at all. In the
end he had to content himself with lending me his back and
breast, which I gladly put on, thinking it likely enough that
I might be set upon before I reached the castle. And then,
the time being about seven, I parted from him with many
embraces and kindly words, and went into the street with
my sword under my cloak.
The town, late in rising after its orgy, lay very still and
quiet. The morning was grey and warm, with a cloudy sky.
The flags, which had made so gay a show yesterday, hung
close to the poles, or flapped idly and fell dead again. I
walked slowly along beneath them, keeping a sharp look-out
on every side ; but there were few persons moving in the
streets, and I reached the Castle gates without misadven-
ture. Here was something of life ; a bustle of officers and
soldiers passing in and out, of courtiers whose office made
their presence necessary, of beggars who had flocked hither
AN ILL WIND 381
in the night for company. In the middle of these I recog-
nised on a sudden and with great surprise Simon Fleix walk-
ing my horse up and down. On seeing me he handed it to
a boy, and came up to speak to me with a red face, muttering
that four legs were better than two. I did not say much to
him, my heart being full and my thoughts occupied with
the presence chamber and what I should say there ; but I
nodded kindly to him, and he fell in behind me as the sen-
tries challenged me. I answered them that I sought M. de
Crillon, and so getting by, fell into the rear of a party of
three who seemed bent on the same errand as myself.
One of these was a Jacobin monk, whose black and white
robes, by reminding me of Father Antoine, sent a chill to
my heart. The second, whose eye I avoided, I knew to be
M. la Guesle, the king's Solicitor-General. The third was a
stranger to me. Enabled by M. la Guesle's presence to pass
the main guards without challenge, the party proceeded
through a maze of passages and corridors, conversing to-
gether in a low tone ; while I, keeping in their train with
my face cunningly muffled, got as far by this means as the
ante-chamber, which I found almost empty. Here I inquired
of the usher for M. de Crillou, and learned with the utmost
consternation that he was not present.
This blow, which almost stunned me, opened my eyes to
the precarious nature of my position, which only the early
hour and small attendance rendered possible for a moment.
At any minute I might be recognised and questioned, or my
name be required ; while the guarded doors of the chamber
shut me off as effectually from the king's face and grace as
though I were in Paris, or a hundred leagues away. Endeav-
ouring to the best of my power to conceal the chagrin and
alarm, which possessed me as this conviction took hold of
me, I walked to the window ; and to hide my face more
completely and at the same time gain a moment to collect
my thoughts, affected to be engaged in looking through it.
Nothing which passed in the room, however, escaped me.
I marked everything and everyone, though all my thought
382 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
was how I might get to the king. The barber came out of
the chamber with a silver basin, and stood a moment, and
went in again with an air of vast importance. The guards
yawned, and an officer entered, looked round, and retired.
M. la Guesle, who had gone in to the presence, came out
again and stood near me talking with the Jacobin, whose
pale nervous face and hasty movements reminded me some-
how of Simon Fleix. The monk held a letter or petition
in his hand, and appeared to be getting it by heart, for his
lips moved continually. The light which fell on his face
from the window showed it to be of a peculiar sweaty pal-
lor, and distorted besides. But supposing him to be de-
voted, like many of his kind, to an unwholesome life, I
thought nothing of this ; though I liked him little, and
would have shifted my place but for the convenience of his
neighbourhood.
Presently, while I was cudgelling my brains, a person
came out and spoke to La Guesle ; who called in his turn
to the monk, and started hastily towards the door. The
Jacobin followed. The third person who had entered in
their company had his attention directed elsewhere at the
moment ; and though La Guesle called to him, took no heed.
On the instant I grasped the situation. Taking my courage
in my hands, I crossed the floor behind the monk; who, hear-
ing me, or feeling his robe come in contact with me, presently
started and looked round suspiciously, his face wearing a
scowl so black and ugly that I almost recoiled from him,
dreaming for a moment that I saw before me the very spirit
of Father Antoine. But as the man said nothing, and the
next instant averted his gaze, I hardened my heart and
pushed on behind him, and passing the usher, found myself
as by magic in the presence which had seemed a while ago as
unattainable by my wits as it was necessary to my safety.
It was not this success alone, however, which caused my
heart to beat more hopefully. The king was speaking as I
entered, and the gay tones of his voice seemed to promise
a favourable reception. His Majesty sat half-dressed on a
"TYS AN ILL WIND^ 383
stool at the farther end of the apartment, surrounded by five
or six noblemen, while as many attendants, among whom
I hastened to mingle, waited near the door.
La Guesle made as if he would advance, and then, seeing
the king's attention was not on him, held back. But in a
moment the king saw him and called to him. ' Ha, Guesle ! '
he said with good-temper, ' is it you ? Is your friend with
you?'
The Solicitor went forward with the monk at his elbow,
and I had leisure to remark the favourable change which
had taken place in the king, who spoke more strongly and
seemed in better health than of old. His face looked less
cadaverous under the paint, his form a trifle less emaciated.
That which struck me more than anything, however, was
the improvement in his spirits. His eyes sparkled from
time to time, and he laughed continually, so that I could
scarcely believe that he was the same man whom I had seen
overwhelmed with despair and tortured by his conscience.
Letting his attention slip from La Guesle, he began tc
bandy words with the nobleman who stood nearest to him ;
looking up at him with a roguish eye, and making bets or.
the fall of Paris.
' Morbleu ! ' I heard him cry gaily, ' I would give a thous-
and pounds to see the Montpensier this morning! She may
keep her third crown for herself. Or, peste ! we might put
her in a convent. That would be a fine vengeance ! '
' The veil for the tonsure,' the nobleman said with a
smirk.
' Ay. Why not ? She would have made a monk of me,'
the king rejoined smartly. 'She must be ready to hang
herself with her garters this morning, if she is not dead of
^pite already. Or, stay, I had forgotten her golden scissors.
Let her open a vein with them. Well, what does your
friend want, La Guesle ? '
I did not hear the answer, but it was apparently satis-
factory, for in a minute all except the Jacobin fell back,
leaving the monk standing before the king ; who, stretching
384 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
out his hand, took from him a letter. The Jacobin, trem-
bling visibly, seemed scarcely able to support the honour
done him, and the king, seeing this, said in a voice audible
to all, ' Stand up, man. You are welcome. I love a cowl
as some love a lady's hood. And now, what is this ? '
He read a part of the letter and rose. As he did so the
monk leaned forward as though to receive the paper back
again, and then so swiftly, so suddenly, with so unexpected
a movement that no one stirred until all was over, struck
the king in the body with a knife ! As the blade flashed
and was hidden, and His Majesty with a deep sob fell back on
the stool, then, and not till then, I knew that I had missed
a providential chance of earning pardon and protection.
For had I only marked the Jacobin as we passed the door
together, and read his evil face aright, a word, one word,
had done for me more than the pleading of a score of
Crillons !
Too late a dozen sprang forward to the king's assistance ;
but before they reached him he had himself drawn the
knife from, the wound and struck the assassin with it on
the head. While some, with cries of grief, ran to support
Henry, from whose body the blood was already flowing fast,
others seized and struck down the wretched monk. As
they gathered round him I saw him raise himself for a
moment on his knees and look upward ; the blood which
ran down his face, no less than the mingled triumph and
horror of his features, impressed the sight on my recollec-
tion. The next instant three swords were plunged into his
breast, and his writhing body, plucked up from the floor
amid a transport of curses, was forced headlong through
the casement and flung down to make sport for the grooms
and scullions who stood below.
A scene of indescribable confusion followed, some crying
that the king was dead, while others called for a doctor, and
some by name for Dortoman. I expected to see the doors
closed and all within secured, that if the man had confeder-
ates they might be taken. But there was no one to give the
"775" AN ILL WIND^ 385
order. Instead, many who had neither the entr&e nor any-
business in the chamber forced their way in, and by their
cries and pressure rendered the hub-bub and tumult a
hundred times worse. In the midst of this, while I stood
stunned and dumbfounded, my own risks and concerns
forgotten, I felt my sleeve furiously plucked, and, looking
round, found Simon at my elbow. The lad's face was
crimson, his eyes seemed starting from his head.
' Come,' he muttered, seizing my arm. ' Come ! ' And
without further ceremony or explanation he dragged me
towards the door, while his face and manner evinced as much
heat and impatience as if he had been himself the assassin.
'Come, there is not a moment to be lost/ he panted, continu-
ing his exertions without the least intermission.
< Whither ? ' I said, in amazement, as I reluctantly per-
mitted him to force me along the passage and through the
gaping crowd on the stairs. ' Whither, man ? '
1 Mount and ride ! ' was the answer he hissed in my ear.
' Bide for your life to the' King of Navarre to the King of
France it may be ! Ride as you have never ridden before,
and tell him the news, and bid him look to himself ! Be
the firs,t, and, Heaven helping us, Turenne may do his
worst ! '
I felt every nerve in my body tingle as I awoke to his
meaning. Without a word I left his arm, and flung myself
into the crowd which filled the lower passage to suffocation.
As I struggled fiercely with them Simon aided me by crying
1 A doctor ! a doctor ! make way there ! ' and this induced
many to give place to me under the idea that I was an
accredited messenger. Eventually I succeeded in forcing
my way through and reaching the courtyard; being, as it
turned out, the first person to issue from the Chateau. A
dozen people sprang towards me with anxious eyes and ques-
tions on their lips, but I ran past them and, catching the
Cid, which was fortunately at hand, by the rein, bounded
into the saddle.
As I turned the horse to the gate I heard Simon cry after
386 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
me, ' The Scholars' Meadow ! Go that way ! ' and then I
heard no more. I was out of the yard and galloping bare-
headed down the pitched street, while women snatched their
infants up and ran aside, and men came startled to the
doors, crying that the League was upon us. As the good
horse flung up his head and bounded forward, hurling the
gravel behind him with hoofs which slid and clattered on
the pavement, as the wind began to whistle by me, and I
seized the reins in a shorter grip, I felt my heart bound with
exultation. I experienced such a blessed relief and elation
as the prisoner long fettered and confined feels when restored
to the air of heaven.
Down one street and through a narrow lane we thundered,
until a broken gateway stopped with fascines through
which the Cid blundered and stumbled brought us at a
bound into the Scholars' Meadow just as the tardy sun broke
through the clouds and flooded the low, wide plain with
brightness. Half a league in front of us the towers of
Meudon rose to view on a hill. In the distance, to the left,
lay the walls of Paris, and nearer, on the same side, a dozen
forts and batteries ; while here and there, in that quarter, a
shining clump of spears or a dense mass of infantry betrayed
the enemy's presence.
I heeded none of these things, however, nor anything
except the towers of Meudon, setting the Cid's head straight
for these and riding on at the top of his speed. Swiftly
ditch and dyke came into view before us and flashed away
beneath us. Men lying in pits rose up and aimed at us ; or
ran with cries to intercept us. A cannon-shot fired from
the fort by Issy tore up the earth to one side ; a knot of
lancers sped from the shelter of an earthwork in the same
quarter, and raced us for half a mile, with frantic shouts
and threats of vengeance. But all such efforts were vanity.
The Cid, fired by this sudden call upon his speed, and feeling
himself loosed rarest of events to do his best, shook the
foam from his bit, and opening his blood-red nostrils to
the wind, crouched lower and lower: until his long neck,
"775" AN ILL WIND 11 387
stretched out before him, seemed, as the sward swept by,
like the point of an arrow speeding resistless to its aim.
God knows, as the air rushed by me and the sun shone in
my face, I cried aloud like a boy, and though I sat still and
stirred neither hand nor foot, last I should break the good
Sard's stride, I prayed wildly that the horse which I had
groomed with my own hands and fed with my last crown
might hold on unfaltering to the end. For I dreamed that
the fate of a nation rode in my saddle ; and mindful alike
of Simon's words, ' Bid him look to himself,' and of my own
notion that the League would not be so foolish as to remove
one enemy to exalt another, I thought nothing more likely
than that, with all my fury, I should arrive too late, and
find the King of Navarre as I had left the King of France.
In this strenuous haste I covered a mile as a mile has
seldom been covered before ; and I was growing -under the
influence of the breeze which whipped my temples some-
what more cool and hopeful, when I saw on a' sudden right
before me, and between me and Meudon, a handful of men
engaged in a m&l6e. There were red and white jackets in
it Leaguers and Huguenots and the red coats seemed to
be having the wornt of it. Still, while I watched, they
came off in order, and unfortunately in such a way and at
such a speed that I saw they must meet me face to face
whether I tried to avoid the encounter or not. I had
barely time to take in the danger and its nearness, and
discern beyond both parties the main-guard of the Hugue-
nots, enlivened by a score of pennons, when the Leaguers
were upon me.
I suppose they knew that no friend would ride for Meu-
don at that pace, for they dashed at me six abreast with a
shout of triumph ; and before I could count a score we met.
The Cid was still running strongly, and I had not thought
to stay him, so that I had no time to use my pistols. My
sword I had out, but the sun dazzled me and the men wore
corslets, and I made but poor play with it ; though I
struck out savagely, as we crashed together, in my rage at
388 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
this sudden crossing of my hopes when all seemed done and
gained. The Cid faced them bravely I heard the distant
huzza of the Huguenots and I put aside one point which
threatened my throat. But the sun was in my eyes and
something struck me on the head. Another second, and a
blow in the breast forced me fairly from the saddle. Grip-
ping furiously at the air I went down, stunned and dizzy,
my last thought as I struck the ground being of mademoi-
selle, and the little brook with the stepping-stones.
CHAPTER XXXV.
*LE EOI EST MOBT! '
IT was M. d'Agen's breastpiece saved my life by ward-
ing off the point of the varlet's sword, so that the worst
injury I got was the loss of my breath for five minutes,
with a swimming in the head and a kind of syncope.
These being past, I found myself on my back on the ground,
with a man's knee on my breast and a dozen horsemen
standing round me. The sky reeled dizzily before my eyes
and the men's figures loomed gigantic; yet I had sense
enough to know what had happened to me, and that matters
might well be worse.
Resigning myself to the prospect of captivity, I prepared
to ask for quarter ; which I did not doubt I should receive,
since they had taken me in an open skirmish, and honestly,
and in the daylight. But the man whose knee already
incommoded me sufficiently, seeing me about to speak,
squeezed me on a sudden so fiercely, bidding me at the
same time in a gruff whisper be silent, that I thought 1
could not do better than obey.
Accordingly I lay still, and as in a dream, for my brain
was still clouded, heard someone say, 'Dead! Is he? I
*LE ROI EST MORT\"> 389
hoped we had come in time. Well, he deserved a better
fate. Who is he, Rosny? '
'Do you know him, Maignan?' said a voice which
sounded strangely familiar.
The man who knelt upon me answered, 'No, my lord.
He is a stranger to me. He has the look of a Norman.'
'Like enough!' replied a high-pitched voice I had not
heard before. 'For he rode a good horse. Give me a hun-
dred like it, and a hundred men to ride as straight, and I
would not envy the King of France.'
'Much less his poor cousin of Navarre,' the first speaker
rejoined in a laughing tone, 'without a whole shirt to his
back or a doublet that is decently new. Come, Turenne,
acknowledge that you are not so badly off after all ! '
At that word the cloud which had darkened my faculties
swept on a sudden aside. I saw that the men into whose
hands I had fallen wore white favours, their leader a white
plume; and comprehended without more that the King of
Navarre had come to my rescue, and beaten off the Leaguers
who had dismounted me. At the same moment the remem-
brance of all that had gone before, and especially of the
scene I had witnessed in the king's chamber, rushed upon
my mind with such overwhelming force that I fell into a
fury of impatience at the thought of the time I had wasted ;
and rising up suddenly I threw off Maignan with all my
force, crying out that I was alive that I was alive, and
had news.
The equerry did his best to restrain me, cursing me under
his breath for a fool, and almost squeezing the life out of
me. But in vain, for the King of Navarre, riding nearer,
saw me struggling. 'Hallo! hallo! 'tis a strange dead
man,' he cried, interposing. 'What is the meaning of this?
Let him go! Do you hear, sirrah? Let him go! '
The equerry obeyed and stood back sullenly, and I stag-
gered to my feet, and looked round with eyes which still
swam and watered. On the instant a cry of recognition
greeted me, with a hundred exclamations of astonishment.
390 A GENTLEMAN OF FR4NCE
While I heard my name uttered on every side in a dozen
different tones, I remarked that M. de Kosny, upon whom
my eyes first fell, alone stood silent, regarding me with a
face of sorrowful surprise.
'By heavens, sir, I knew nothing of this!' I heard the
King of Navarre declare, addressing himself to the
Vicomte de Turenne. 'The man is here by no connivance
of mine. Interrogate him yourself, if you will. Or I will.
Speak, sir,' he continued, turning to me with his counte-
nance hard and forbidding. 'You heard me yesterday,
what I promised you? Why, in God's name, are you here
to-day? '
I tried to answer, but Maignan had so handled me that I
had not breath enough, and stood panting.
'Your Highness's clemency in this matter,' M. de Tu-
renne said, with a sneer, 'has been so great he trusted to its
continuance. And doubtless he thought to find you alone.
I fear I am in the way.'
I knew him by his figure and his grand air, which in any
other company would have marked him for master; and
forgetting the impatience which a moment before had
consumed me doubtless I was still light-headed I an-
swered him. 'Yet I had once the promise of your lord-
ship's protection,' I gasped.
'My protection, sir? ' he exclaimed, his eyes gleaming
angrily.
'Even so, ' I answered. 'At the inn at Etampes, where M.
de Crillon would have fought me.'
He was visibly taken aback. 'Are you that man?' he cried.
'I am. But I am not here to prate of myself,' I replied.
And with that the remembrance of my neglected errand
flashing on me again I staggered to the King of Navarre's
side, and, falling on my knees, seized his stirrup. 'Sire,
I bring you news! great news! dreadful news!' I cried,
clinging to it. 'His Majesty was but a quarter of an hour
ago stabbed in the body in his chamber by a villain monk.
And is dying, or, it may be, dead. '
'LE ROI EST MORTr 39 1
'Dead? The King! ' Turenne cried with an oatu. 'Im-
possible ! '
Vaguely I heard others crying, some this, some that, as
surprise and consternation, or anger, or incredulity moved
them. But I did not answer them, for Henry, remaining
silent, held me spellbound and awed by the marvellous
change which I saw fall on his face. His eyes became
on a sudden suffused with blood, and seemed to retreat
under his heavy brows; his cheeks turned of a brick-red
colour; his half -open lips showed his teeth gleaming through
his beard; while his great nose, which seemed to curve and
curve until it well-nigh met his chin, gave to his mobile
countenance an aspect as strange as it was terrifying.
Withal he uttered for a time no word, though I saw his
hand grip the riding-whip he held in a convulsive grasp,
as though his thought were "Tis mine! Mine! Wrest it
away who dares ! '
'Bethink you, sir,' he said at last, fixing his piercing eyes
on me, and speaking in a harsh, low tone, like the growling of
a great dog, 'this is no jesting- time. Nor will you save your
skin by a ruse. Tell me, on your peril, is this a trick? '
'Heaven forbid, sire! ' I answered with passion. 'I was
iii the chamber, and saw it with my own eyes. I mounted
on the instant, and rode hither by the shortest route to
warn your Highness to look to yourself. Monks are many,
and the Holy Union is not apt to stop half-way.'
I saw he believed me, for his face relaxed. His breath
seemed to come and go again, and for the tenth part of a
second his eyes sought M. de Rosny's. Then he looked at
me again. 'I thank you, sir,' he said, bowing gravely and
courteously, 'for your care for me not for your tidings,
which are of the sorriest. God grant my good cousin and
king may be hurt only. Now tell us exactly for these
gentlemen are equally interested with myself had a sur-
geon seen him?'
I replied in the negative, but added that the wound was
in the groin, and bled much.
392 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
'You said a few minutes ago, "dying or already dead! " *
the King of Navarre rejoined. 'Why? '
'His Majesty's face was sunken,' I stammered.
He nodded. 'You may be mistaken,' he said. 'I pray
that you are. But here comes Mornay. He may know
more.'
In a moment I was abandoned, even by M. de Turenne,
so great was the anxiety which possessed all to learn the
truth. Maignan alone, under pretence of adjusting a stir-
rup, remained beside me, and entreated me in a low voice
to begone. 'Take this horse, M. de Marsac, if you will, '
he urged, 'and ride back the way you came. You have
done what you came to do. Go back, and be thankful.'
'Chut! ' I said, 'there is no danger.'
'You will see,' he replied darkly, 'if you stay here.
Come, come, take my advice and the horse,' he persisted,
'and begone! Believe me, it will be for the best.'
I laughed outright at his earnestness and his face of per-
plexity. 'I see you have M. de Rosny's orders to get rid
of me,' I said. 'But I am not going, my friend. He must
find some other way out of his embarrassment, for here I
stay. '
'Well, your blood be on your own head,' Maignan re-
torted, swinging himself into the saddle with a gloomy face.
'I have done my best to save you! '
'And your master!' I answered, laughing.
For flight was the last thing I had in my mind. I had
ridden this ride with a clear perception that the one thing I
needed was a footing at Court. By the special kindness of
Providence I had now gained this ; and I was not the man to
resign it because it proved to be scanty and perilous. It was
something that I had spoken to the great Vicomte face to
face and not been consumed, that I had given him look for
look and still survived, that I had put in practice Crillon's
lessons and come to no harm.
Nor was this all. I had never in the worst times blamed
the King of Navarre for ^is denial of me. I had been fool-
<LE ROI EST MORTr 393
ish, indeed, seeing that it was in the bargain, had I done
so; nor had I ever doubted his good-will or his readiness to
reward me should occasion arise. Now, I flattered myself,
I had given him that which he needed, and had hitherto
lacked an excuse, I mean, for interference in my behalf.
Whether I was right or wrong in this notion I was soon
to learn, for at this moment Henry's cavalcade, which had
left me a hundred paces behind, came to a stop, and while
some of the number waved to me to come on, one spurred
back to summon me to the king. I hastened to obey the
order as fast as I could, but I saw on approaching that
though all was at a standstill till I came up, neither the
King of Navarre nor M. de Turenne was thinking princi-
pally of me. Every face, from Henry's to that of his least
important courtier, wore an air of grave preoccupation;
which I had no difficulty in ascribing to the doubt present
in every mind, and outweighing every interest, whether the
King of France was dead, or dying, or merely wounded.
'Quick, sir!' Henry said with impatience, as soon as I
came within hearing. 'Do not detain me with your affairs
longer than is necessary. M. de Turenne presses me to
carry into effect the order I gave yesterday. But as you
have placed yourself in jeopardy on my account I feel that
something is due to you. You will be good enough, there-
fore, to present yourself at once at M. la Varenne's lodg-
ing, and give me your parole to remain there without
stirring abroad until your affair is concluded. '
Aware that I owed this respite, which at once secured
my present safety and promised well for the future, to the
great event that, even in M. de Turenne 's mind, had over-
shadowed all others, I bowed in silence. Henry, however,
was not content with this. 'Come, sir,' he said sharply,
and with every appearance of anger, 'do you agree to that? '
I replied humbly that I thanked him for his clemency.
'There is no need of thanks,' he replied coldly. 'What I
have done is without prejudice to M. de Turjenne's com-
plaint. He must have justice.'
394 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
I bowed again, and in a moment the troop were gone at
a gallop towards Meudon, whence, as I afterwards learned,
the King of Navarre, attended by a select body of hve-and-
twenty horsemen, wearing private arms, rode on at full
speed to St. Cloud to present himself at His Majesty's bed-
side. A groom who had caught the Cid, which had escaped
into the town with no other injury than a slight wound in
the shoulder, by-and-by met me with the horse ; and in this
way I was enabled to render myself with some decency at
Varenne's lodging, a small house at the foot of the hill,
not far from the Castle-gate.
Here I found myself under no greater constraint than
that which my own parole laid upon me; and my room
having the conveniency of a window looking upon the pub-
lic street, I was enabled from hour to hour to comprehend
and enter into the various alarms and surprises which made
that day remarkable. The manifold reports which flew
from mouth to mouth on the occasion, as well as the over-
mastering excitement which seized all, are so well remem-
bered, however, that I forbear to dwell upon them, though
they served to distract my mind from my own position.
Suffice it that at one moment we heard that His Majesty
was dead, at another that the wound was skin deep, and
again that we might expect him at Meudon before sunset.
The rumour that the Duchess de Montpensier had taken
poison was no sooner believed than we were asked to listen
to the guns of Paris firing feux de joie in honour of the
King's death.
The streets were so closely packed with persons telling
and hearing these tales that I seemed from my window to
be looking on a fair. Xor was all my amusement without -
doors ; for a number of the gentlemen of the Court, hearing
that I had been at St. Cloud in the morning, and in the
very chamber, a thing which made me for the moment the
most desirable companion in the world, remembered on a
sudden that they had a slight acquaintance with me, and
honoured me by calling upon me and sitting a great part ol
'LE ROf EST MORTr
395
the day with me. From which circumstance I confess 1
derived as much hope as they di version ; knowing that
courtiers are the best weather-prophets in the world, who
hate nothing so much as to be discovered in the company
of those on whom the sun does not shine.
The return of the King of Navarre, which happened about
the middle of the afternoon, while it dissipated the fears of
some and dashed the hopes of others, put an end to this
state of uncertainty by confirming, to the surprise of many,
that His Majesty was in no danger. We learned with
varying emotions that the first appearances, which had de-
ceived, not myself only, but experienced leeches, had been
themselves belied by subsequent conditions; and that, in a
word, Paris had as much to fear, and loyal men as much to
hope, as before this wicked and audacious attempt.
I had no more than stomached this surprising informa-
tion, which was less welcome to me, I confess, than it
should have been, when the arrival of M. d'Agen, who
greeted me with the affection which he never failed to show
me, distracted my thoughts for a time. Immediately on
learning where I was and the strange adventures which had
befallen me he had ridden off; stopping only once, when
he had nearly reached me, for the purpose of waiting on
Madame de Bruhl. I asked him how she had received hire-
'Like herself,' he replied with an ingenuous blush.
'More kindly than. I had a right to expect, if not as warmly
as I had the courage to hope.'
'That will come with time,' I said, laughing. 'And
Mademoiselle de la Vire? '
'I did not see her,' he answered, *but I heard she was
well. And a hundred fathoms deeper in love/ he added,
eyeing me roguishly, 'than when I saw her last.'
It was my turn to colour now, and I did so, feeling all
the pleasure and delight such a statement was calculated
to afford me. Picturing mademoiselle as I had seen her
last, leaning from her horse with love written so plainly
on her weeping face that all wlio ran might read, I sank
396 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
into so delicious a reverie that M. la Varenne, entering
suddenly, surprised us both before another word passed on
either side.
His look and tone were as abrupt as it was in his nature,
which was soft and compliant, to make them. 'M. de
Marsac,' he said, 'I am sorry to put any constraint upon
you, but I am directed to forbid you to your friends. And
I must request this gentleman to withdraw.'
'But all day my friends have come in and out/ I said
with surprise. 'Is this a new order? '
'A written order, which reached me no farther back than
two minutes ago,' he answered plainly. 'I am also directed
to remove you to a room at the back of the house, that you
may not overlook the street.'
'But my parole was taken,' I cried, with a natural feel-
ing of indignation.
He shrugged his shoulders. 'I am sorry to say that I have
nothing to do with that,' he answered. 'I can only obey
orders. I must ask this gentleman, therefore, to withdraw.'
Of course M. d'Agen had no option but to leave me;
which he did, I could see, notwithstanding his easy and
confident expressions, with a good deal of mistrust and
apprehension. When he was gone, La Varenne lost no
time in carrying out the remainder of his orders. As a
consequence I found myself confined to a small and gloomy
apartment which looked, at a distance of three paces, upon
the smooth face of the rock on which the Castle stood. This
change, from a window which commanded all the life of
the town, and intercepted every breath of popular fancy, to
a closet whither no sounds penetrated, and where the very
transition from noon to evening scarcely made itself known,
could not fail to depress my spirits sensibly ; the more as
I took it to be significant of a change in my fortunes fully
as grave. Reflecting that I must now appear to the King of
Navarre in the light of a bearer of false tidings, I associated
the order to confine me more closely Avith his return from
St. Cloud; and comprehending that M. de Turenne was once
<LE ROI EST MORTr 397
more at liberty to attend to my affairs, I began to
about me with forebodings which were none the less pain-
ful because the parole I had given debarred me from any
attempt to escape.
Sleep and habit enabled me, nevertheless, to pass the
night in comfort. Very early in the morning a great firing
of guns, which made itself heard even in my quarters, led
me to suppose that Paris had surrendered; but the servant
who brought me my breakfast declined in a surly fashion
to give me any information. In the end, I spent the whole
day alone, my thoughts divided between my mistress and
my own prospects, which seemed to grow more and more
gloomy as the hours succeeded one another. No one came
near me, no step broke the silence of the house ; and for a
while I thought my guardians had forgotten even that I
needed food. This omission, it is true, was made good
about sunset, but still M. la Varenne did not appear, the
servant seemed to be dumb, and I heard no sounds in the
house.
I had finished my meal an hour or more, and the room
was growing dark, when the silence was at last broken by
quick steps passing along the entrance. They paused, and
seemed to hesitate at the foot of the stairs, but the next
moment they came on again, and stopped at my door. I
rose from my seat on hearing the key turned in the lock,
and my astonishment may be conceived when I saw no
other than M. de Turenne enter, and close the door behind
him.
He saluted me in a haughty manner as he advanced to
the table, raising his cap for an instant and then replacing
it. This done he stood looking at me, and I at him, in a
silence which on my side was the result of pure astonish-
ment; on his, of contempt and a kind of wonder. The
evening light, which was fast failing, lent a sombre white-
ness to his face, causing it to stand out from the shadows
behind him in a way which was not without its influence
on me.
398 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
'Well! * he said at last, speaking slowly and with un-
imaginable insolence, *I am here to look at you. I 5
I felt my anger rise, and gave him back look for look.
'At your will,' I said, shrugging my shoulders,
'And to solve a question,. 3 he continued in the same tone.
'To learn whether the man who was mad enough to insult
and defy me was the old penniless dullard some called him,
or the dare-devil others painted him,*
'You are satisfied now? ' I said.
He eyed me for a moment closely; then with sudden
heat he cried, 'Curse me if I am! Nor whether I have to
do with a man very deep or very shallow, a fool or a
knave! '
'You may say what you please to a prisoner,' I retorted
coldly.
'Turenne commonly does to whom he pleases ! ' he an-
swered. The next moment he made me start by saying, as
he drew out a comfit -box and opened it, 'I am just from
the little fool you have bewitched. If she were in my
power I would have her whipped and put on bread and
water till she came to her senses.. As she is not, I must
take another way. Have you any idea, may I ask, ' he con-
tinued in his cynical tone, 'what is going to become of you,
M. de Marsac? '
I replied, my heart inexpressibly lightened by what he
had said of mademoiselle, that I placed the fullest confi-
dence in the justice of the King of Navarre.
He repeated the name in a tone I did not understand.
'Yes, sir, the King of Navarre,' I answered firmly.
'Well, I daresay you have good reason to do so,' he res-
joined with a sneer. 'Unless I am mistaken he knew a
little more of this affair than he acknowledges.'
'Indeed? The King of Navarre?' I said, staring- stolidly
at him.
'Yes, indeed, indeed, the King of Navarre ! ' he retorted,
mimicking me, with a nearer approach to anger than I had
yet witnessed in him. 'But let him be a moment, sirrah! '
*LE ROI EST MORTr
399
he continued, 'and do you listen to me. Or first look at
that. Seeing is believing.'
He drew out as lie spoke a paper, or, to speak more
correctly, a parchment, vvhich he thrust with a kind of
savage scorn into my hand. Repressing tor the moment
the surprise I felt, I took it to the window, and reading it
with difficulty, found it to be a royal patent drawn, as far
as I could judge, in due form, and appointing some person
unknown for the name was left blank to the post of
Lieutenant-Governor of the Armagnac, with a salary of
twelve thousand livres a year !
'Well, sir?' he said impatiently.
'Well?' I answered mechanically. For my brain reeled ;
die exhibition of such a paper in such a way raised ex-
traordinary thoughts in my mind.
'Can you read it? ' he asked.
'Certainly,' I answered, telling myself that he wo-uld
fain play a trick on me.
'Very well,' he replied, 'then listen. I am going to con-
descend ; to make you an offer, M. de Marsac. I will pro-
cure you your freedom, and fill up the blank, which you
see there, with your name upon one condition. '
I stared at him with all the astonishment it was natural
for me to feel in the face of such a proposition, 'You will
confer this office on me? ' I muttered incredulously.
'The king having placed it at my disposal,' lie answered,
'I will. But first let me remind you,' he went on proudly,
'that the affair has another side. On the one hand I offer
you such employment, M. de Marsac, as should satisfy your
highest ambition. On the other, I warn you that my
power to avenge myself is no less to-day than it was yester-
day,; and that if I condescend to buy you, it is because that
course commends itself to me for reasons, not because it is
the only one open.'
I bowed, 'The condition, M. le Vicomte?' I said
huskily, beginning to understand him.
'That you give up all claim and suit to the ihand of my
400 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
kinswoman,' he answered lightly. 'That is all. It is a
simple and easy condition.'
I looked at him in renewed astonishment, in wonder, in
stupefaction; asking myself a hundred questions. Why
did he stoop to bargain, who could command? Why did
he condescend to treat, who held me at his mercy? Why
did he gravely discuss my aspirations, to whom they must
seem the rankest presumption? Why? but I could not
follow it. I stood looking at him in silence; in perplexity
as great as if he had offered me the Crown of France; in
amazement and doubt and suspicion that knew no bounds.
'Well!' he said at last, misreading the emotion which
appeared in my face. 'You consent, sir?'
'Never! ' I answered firmly.
He started. ' I think I cannot have heard you aright, ' he
said, speaking slowly and almost courteously. 'I offer you
a great place and my patronage, M. de Marsac. Do I un-
derstand that you prefer a prison and my enmity? '
'On those conditions,' I answered.
'Think, think! ' he said harshly.
'I have thought,' I answered.
'Ay, but have you thought where you are?' he retorted.
'Have you thought how many obstacles lie between you and
this little fool? How many persons you must win over,
how many friends you must gain? Have you thought what
it will be to have me against you in this, or which of us is
more likely to win in the end? '
'I have thought,' I rejoined.
But my voice shook, my lips were dry. The room had
grown dark. The rock outside, intercepting the light,
gave it already the air of a dungeon. Though I did not
dream of yielding to him, though I even felt that in this
interview he had descended to my level, and I had had the
better of him, I felt my heart sink. For I remembered how
men immured in prisons drag out their lives always petition-
ing, always forgotten; how wearily the days go, that to
free men are bright with hope and ambition. And I saw in
'VIVE LE ROIl"* 401
a flash what it would be to remain here, or in some such
place; never to cross horse again, or breathe the free air of
heaven, never to hear the clink of sword against stirrup, or
the rich tones of M. d'Agen's voice calling for his friend!
I expected M. de Turenne to go when I had made my an-
swer, or else to fall into such a rage as opposition is apt to
cause in those who seldom encounter it. To my surprise,
however, he restrained himself. 'Come,' he said, with pa-
tience which fairly astonished me, and so much the more as
chagrin was clearly marked in his voice, 'I know where you
put your trust. You think the King of Navarre will pro-
tect you. Well, I pledge you the honour of Turenne that
he will not; that the King of Navarre will do nothing to
save you. Now, what do you say? '
'As I said before,' I answered doggedly.
He took up the parchment from the table with a grim
laugh. 'So much the worse for you then! ' he said, shrug-
ging his shoulders. 'So much the worse for you! I took
you for a rogue! It seems you are a fool! '
CHAPTER XXXVI.
'VIVE LE KOI! '
HE took his leave with those words. But his departure,
which I should have hailed a few minutes before with joy,
as a relief from embarrassment and humiliation, found me
indifferent. The statement to which he had solemnly
pledged himself in regard to the King of Navarre, that I
could expect no further help from him, had prostrated me ;
dashing my hopes and spirits so completely that I remained
rooted to the spot long after his step had ceased to sound
on the stairs. If what he said was true, in the gloom
which darkened alike my room and my prospects I could
descry no glimmer of light. I knew His Majesty's weak-
402 A GENTLEMAN QF FRANCE
ness and vacillation too well to repose any confidence in
him; if the King of Navarre also abandoned me, I was
indeed without hope, as without resource.
I had stood some time with my mind painfully employed
upon this problem, which my knowledge of M. de Turenne's
strict honour in private matters did not allow me to dismiss
lightly, when I heard another step on the stairs, and in a
moment M. la Varenne opened the door. Finding me in
the dark he muttered an apology for the remissness of the
servants; which I accepted, seeing nothing else for it, in
good part.
'We have been at sixes-and-sevens all day, and you have
been forgotten/ he continued. 'But you will have no rea-
son to complain now. I am ordered to conduct you to His
Majesty without delay.'
'To St. Cloud ! 3 I exclaimed, greatly astonished.
'No, the king of France is here,' he answered.
'AtMeudon?*
'To be sure. Why not?'
I expressed my wonder at his Majesty's rapid recovery.
'Pooh! ' he answered roughly. 'He is as well as he ever
was. I will leave you my light. Be good enough to de-
scend as soon as you are ready, for it is ill work keeping
kings waiting. Oh! and I had forgotten one thing,' he
continued, returning when he had already reached the
door. 'My orders are to see that you do not hold converse
with anyone until you have seen the king, M. de Marsac.
You will kindly remember this if we are kept waiting in
the antechamber. 5
'Am I to be transported to other custody? ' I asked, my
mind full of apprehension.
He shrugged his shoulders. 'Possibly,' he replied. 'I
do not know. '
Of course there was nothing for it but to murmur that I
was at the king's disposition; after which La Varenne
retired, leaving me to put the best face on the matter I
could. Naturally I augured anything but well of an inter-
< VIVE LE ROIi ' 403
view weighted with such a condition ; and this contributed
still further to depress my spirits, already lowered by the
long solitude in which I had passed the day. Peaking
nothing, however, so much as suspense, I hastened to do
what I could to repair my costume, and then descended to
the foot of the stairs, where I found my custodian await-
ing me with a couple of servants, of whom one bore
a link.
We went out side by side, and having barely a hundred
yards to go, seemed in a moment to be passing through the
gate of the Castle. I noticed that the entrance was very
strongly guarded, but an instant's reflection served to re-
iniud me that this was not surprising after what had hap-
pened at St. Cloud. I remarked to M. la Varenne as we
crossed the courtyard that I supposed Paris had surren-
dered j but he replied in the negative so curtly, and with so
little consideration, that I forebore to ask any other ques-
tions ; and the Chateau being small, we found ourselves
almost at once in a long, narrow corridor, which appeared
to serve as the antechamber.
It was brilliantly lighted and crowded from end to end,
and almost from wall to wall, with a mob of courtiers;
whose silence, no less than feheir keen and anxious looks,
took me by surprise. Here and there two or three, who
had seized upon the embrasure of a window, talked to-
gether in a low tonej or a couple, who thought themselves
sufficiently important to pace the narrow passage between
the waiting lines, conversed in whispers as they walked.
But even these "were swift to take alarm, and continually
looked askance; while the general company stood at gaze,
starting and looking up eagerly whenever the door swung
open or a newcomer was announced. The strange silence
which prevailed reminded me of nothing so much as of the
Court at Blois on the night of the Duke of Mercosur's de-
sertion ; but that stillness had brooded over empty chambers,
this gave a peculiar air of strangeness to a room thronged
in every part.
404 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
M. la Varenne, who was received by those about the
door with silent politeness, drew me into the recess of a
window ; whence I was able to remark, among other things,
that the Huguenots present almost outnumbered the king's
immediate following. Still, among those who were walk-
ing up and down, I noticed M. de Eambouillet, to whom at
another time I should have hastened to pay my respects;
with Marshal d'Aumont, Sancy, and Humieres. Nor had
I more than noted the presence of these before the door of
the chamber opened and added to their number Marshal
Biron, who came out leaning on the arm of Crillon. The
sight of these old enemies in combination was sufficient of
itself to apprise me that some serious crisis was at hand;
particularly as their progress through the crowd was watched,
I observed, by a hundred curious and attentive eyes.
They disappeared at last through the outer door, and the
assemblage turned as with one accord to see who came
next. But nearly half an hour elapsed before the Chamber
door, which all watched so studiously, again opened. This
time it was to give passage to my late visitor, Turenne,
who came out smiling, and leaning, to my great surprise,
on the arm of M. de Rosny.
As the two walked down the room, greeting here and
there an obsequious friend, and followed in their progress
by all eyes, I felt my heart sink indeed; both at sight of
Turenne 's good-humour, and of the company in which I
found him. Aware that in proportion as he was pleased I
was like to, meet with displeasure, I still might have had
hope left had I had Rosny left. Losing him, however
and I could not doubt, seeing him as I saw him, that I had
lost him and counting the King of Navarre as gone already,
I felt such a failure of courage as I had never known before.
I told myself with shame that I was not made for Courts,
or for such scenes as these; and recalling with new and
keen mortification the poor figure I had cut in the King of
Navarre's antechamber at St. Jean, I experienced so strange
a gush of pity for my mistress that nothing could exceed
' VIVE LE ROI! ' 405
the tenderness I felt for her. I had won her under false
colours, I was not worthy of her. I felt that my mere
presence in her company in such a place as this, and among
these people, must cover her with shame and humiliation.
To my great relief, since I knew my face was on fire,
neither of the two, as they walked down the passage, looked
my way or seemed conscious of my neighbourhood. At
the door they stood a moment talking earnestly, and it
seemed as if M. de Eosny would have accompanied the
Vicomte farther. The latter would not suffer it, however,
but took his leave there; and this with so many polite ges-
tures that my last hope based on M. de Kosny vanished.
Nevertheless, that gentleman was not so wholly changed
that on his turning to re-traverse the room I did not see a
smile flicker for an instant on his features as the two lines
of bowing courtiers opened before him. The next moment
his look fell on me, and though his face scarcely altered,
he stopped opposite me.
'M. de Marsac is waiting to see His Majesty? ' he asked
aloud, speaking to M. la Varenne.
My companion remaining silent, I bowed.
'In five minutes,' M. de Eosny replied quietly, yet with
a distant air, which made me doubt whether I had not
dreamed all I remembered of this man. 'Ah! M. de Paul,
what can I do for you? ' he continued. And he bent his
head to listen to the application which a gentleman who
stood next me poured into his ear. 'I will see,' I heard
him answer. 'In any case you shall know to-morrow.'
'But you will be my friend?' M. Paul urged, detaining
him by the sleeve.
'I will put only one before you,' he answered.
My neighbour seemed to shrink into himself with disap-
pointment. 'Who is it? ' he murmured piteously.
'The king and his service, my friend,' M. de Rosny
replied drily. And with that he walked away. But half
a dozen times at least before he reached the upper end of
the room I saw the scene repeated.
406 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
I looked on at all this in the utmost astonishment, un-
able to guess or conceive what had happened to give M. de
Bosny so* much importance^ For it did not escape me that
the few words he had stopped to speak to me had invested
me with interest in the eyes of all who stood near. They
gave me more room and a wider breathing-space, and look-
ing at me askance, muttered my name in whispers. In my
uncertainty, however, what this portended I drew no com-
fort from it; and before I had found time to weigh it thor-
oughly the door through which Turenne and Rosiiy had
entered opened again. The pages and gentlemen who stood
about it hastened to range themselves, on either side.
An usher carrying a white wand came rapidly down the
room, here and there requesting the courtiers to stand back
where the passage was narrow. Then a loud voice with-
out cried, 'The King, gentlemen! the King!' and one in
every two of us stood a-tiptoe to see him enter.
But there came in only Henry of Navarre, wearing a
violet cloak and cap.
I turned to La Varenne and with my head full of confu-
sion, muttered impatiently, 'But the king, man! Where is
tide king?
He grinned at me, with his hand before his mouth.
'Hush!' he whispered. "Twas a jest we played on you!
His late Majesty died at daybreak this morning. This is
the king. '
'ThisF the King of Navarre?' I cried; so loudly that
some round ras called 'Silence! '
'No, the King of France, fool! ' he replied. 'Your sword
must be sharper than your wits, or I have been told some
lies ! '
I let the gibe pass and the jest, for my heart was beating
so fast and painfully that I could scarcely preserve my
outward composure. There was a mist before my eyes,
and a darkness which set the lights at defiance. It was in
vain I tried to think what this might mean to me. I
could not put two thoughts together, and while I still ques-
- VIVE LE ROI! ' 407
tioned what reception I might expect, and who in this new
state of things were my friejttls 3 the king stopped before
me.
'Ha, M. de Marsac! ' he cried cheerfully, signing to those
who stood before me to give place. 'You are the gentle-
man who rode so fast to warn me the other morning. I
hare spoken to M. de Turenne about you, and he is willing
to overlook the complaint he had against you. For the
rest,, go to my closet, my friend. Go!. Bosny knows my
will respecting you.'
I had sense enough left to kneel and kiss his hand; but
it was in silence, whieh he knew how to interpret. He had
moved on and was speaking to another before I recovered
the use of my tongue, or the wits which his gracious words
had scattered. Whea I did so, and got. on my feet again
I found myself the centre of so much observation and the
object of so many congratulations that I was: glad to act
upon the hint which La,"Vareane gave me,, and hurry away
to the closet.
Here, though I had now an inkling of what I had to ex-
pect, I found myself received with a kindness which bade
iair to overwhelm me.. Only M. de Eosny was in the
room, and he took me by both hands in a manner which told
me without a word that the Rosny of old days was back,
and that for the embarrassment I had caused him of late I
was more than forgiven. When I tried to thank him for
the good offices, which I knew he had done me with the
king he would have none of it; reminding me with a, smile
that he had eaten of my cheese when the choice lay between
that and Lisieux.
'And besides, my friend,' he continued, his eyes twin-
kling,. 'You have made me richer by five hundred crowns.'
'How sx>?' I asked, wondering more and more.
'I wagered that sum with Turenne that he could not
bribe you,' he answered,, smiling. 'And see,' he continued,
selecting from some on the table the same parchment I had
sieen before, 'here is the bribe. Take it; it is yours. I
408 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
have given a score to-day, but none with the same pleasure.
Let me be the first to congratulate the Lieutenant-Governor
of the Armagnac. '
For a while I could not believe that he was in earnest;
which pleased him mightily, I remember. When I was
brought at last to see that the king had meant this for me
from the first, and had merely lent the patent to Turenne
that the latter might make trial of me, my pleasure and
gratification were such that I could no more express them
then than I can now describe them. For they knew no
bounds. I stood before Rosny silent and confused, with
long-forgotten tears welling up to my eyes, and one regret
only in my heart that my dear mother had not lived to
see the fond illusions with which I had so often amused
her turned to sober fact. Not then, but afterwards, I
remarked that the salary of my office amounted to the exact
sum which I had been in the habit of naming to her ; and I
learned that Kosny had himself fixed it on information
given him by Mademoiselle de la Vire.
As my transports grew more moderate, and I found voice
to thank my benefactor, he had still an ansAver. 'Do not
deceive yourself, my friend,' he said gravely, 'or think
this an idle reward. My master is King of France, but he
is a king without a kingdom, and a captain without money.
To-day, to gain his rights, he has parted with half his
powers. Before he win all back there will be blows
blows, my friend. And to that end I have bought your
sword. '
I told him that if no other left its scabbard for the king,
mine should be drawn.
'I believe you,' he answered kindly, laying his hand on
my shoulder. 'Not by reason of your words Heaven
knows I have heard vows enough to-day! but because
I have proved you. And now, ' he continued, speaking in
an altered tone and looking at me with a queer smile, 'now
I suppose you are perfectly satisfied? You have nothing
more to wish for, my friend? '
1 VIVE LE ROI!^ 409
I looked aside in a guilty fashion, not daring to prefer
on the top of all his kindness a further petition. More-
over, His Majesty might have other views; or on this point
Turenne might have proved obstinate. In a word, there
was nothing in what had happened, or on M. de Kosny's
communication, to inform me whether the wish of my
heart was to be gratified or not.
But I should have known that great man better than to
suppose that he was one to promise without performing, or
to wound a friend when lie could not salve the. hurt. After
enjoying my confusion for a time he burst into a great
shout of laughter, and taking me familiarly by the shoul-
ders, turned me towards the door. 'There, go!' he said.
'Go up the passage. You will find a door on the right, and
a door on the left. You will know which to open. '
Forbidding me to utter a syllable, he put me out. In
the passage, where I fain would have stood awhile to col-
lect my thoughts, I was affrighted by sounds which warned
me that the king was returning that way. Fearing to be
surprised by him in such a state of perturbation, I hurried
to the end of the passage, where I discovered, as I had been
told, two doors.
They were both closed, and there was nothing about
either of them to direct my choice. But M. de Rosny was
correct in supposing that I had not forgotten the advice he
had offered me on the day when he gave me so fine a sur-
prise in his own house 'When you want a good wife, M.
de Marsac, turn to the right ! ' I remembered the words,
and without a moment's hesitation for the king and his
suite were already entering the passage I knocked boldly,
and scarcely waiting for an invitation, went in.
Fanchette was by the door, but stood aside with a grim
smile, which I was at liberty to accept as a welcome or not.
Mademoiselle, who had been seated on the farther side of
the table, rose as I entered, and we stood looking at one
another. Doubtless she waited for me to speak first ; while
I on my side was so greatly taken aback by the change
4io A GENTLEMAN GF FRANCE
wrought in her by the Court dress she was wearing and the
air of dignity with which she wore it, that I stood gasping.
I turned coward after all that had passed between us. This
was not the girl I had wooed in the greenwoods by St.
Gaultier; nor the pale-faced woman I had lifted to the
saddle a score of times in the journey Paris- wards. The
sense of unworthiness which I had experienced a few min-
utes before in the crowded antechamber returned in full
force in presence of her grace and beauty, and onoe more
I stood tongue-tied before her, as I had stood in the lodg-
ings at Blois. All the later time, all that had passed be-
tween us was forgotten.
She, for her part, looked at me wondering at my silence.
Her face, which had grown rosy red at my entrance, turned
pale again. Her eyes grew large with alarm; she began
to beat her foot on the floor in a manner I knew. 'Is any-
thing the matter, SIT? ' she muttered at last.
'On the contrary, mademoiselle,' I answered hoarsely,
looking every way, and grasping at the first thing I could
think of, ' I am just from M. de Eosny. '
'And he?'
'He has made me Lieutenant-Governor of the Ai-magnac. '
She curtseyed to me in a wonderful fashion. 'It pleases
me to congratulate you, sir,' she said, in a voice between
laughing and crying. 'It is not more than equal to your
deserts.'
I tried to thank her becomingly, feeling at the same time '
more foolish than I had ever ielt in my life 5 for I knew
that this was neither what I had come to tell nor she to
hear. Yet I could not muster up courage nor find words
to go farther, and stood by the table in a state of miserable
discomposure.
'Is that all, sir? ' she said at last, losing patience.
Certainly it was now or never, and I knew it. I made
the effort. ''Ho, mademoiselle/ I said in a low voice,
'Far from it. But I do not see here the lady to whom I
came to address myself, and whom I have seen a hundred
'VIVE LE ROI^ 411
times in far other garb than yours } wet and weary and dis-
hevelled, in danger and in flight. Her I have served and
loved; and for her I hare lived, I have had no thought
for months that has not been hers, nor care save for her.
I and all that I have by the king's bounty are hers, and I
came to lay them at her feet. But I do not see her here. '
'No, sir? 1 she answered in a whisper, with her face
averted.
'No, mademoiselle.'
With a sudden brightness and quickness which set my
heart beating she turned, and looked at me. 'Indeed! 3 she
said. 'I am sorry for that. It is a pity your love should
be given elsewhere, M. de Marsac since it is the king's
will that you should marry me.'
'Ah, mademoiselle 1 ' I cried, kneeling before her for she
had come round the table and stood beside me 'But you? '
'It is my will too, sir,' she answered, smiling through
her tears.
On the following day Mademoiselle de la Vire became
my wife; the king's retreat from Paris, which was rendered
necessary by the desertion of many who were ill-affected
'o the Huguenots, compelling the instant performance of
the marriage, if we would have it read by M. d'Amours.
This haste notwithstanding, I was enabled by the kindness
of M. d'Agen to make such an appearance, in respect both
of servants and equipment, as became rather my future
prospects than my past distresses. It is true that His
Majesty, out of a desire to do nothing which might offend
Turenne, did not honour us with his presence ; but Madame
Catherine attended on his behalf, and herself gave me my
bride. M. de Sully and M. Crillon, with the Marquis de
Rambouillet and his nephew, and my distant connection,
the Duke de Rohan, who first acknowledged me on that
day, were among those who earned my gratitude by attend-
ing me upon the occasion.
412 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
The marriage of M. Franqois d'Agen with the widow of
my old rival and opponent did not take place until some-
thing more than a year later, a delay which was less dis-
pleasing to me than to the bridegroom, inasmuch as it left
madame at liberty to bear my wife company during my
absence on the campaign of Arques and Ivry. In the latter
battle, which added vastly to the renown of M. de Rosny,
who captured the enemy's standard with his own hand, 1
had the misfortune to be wounded in the second of the two
charges led by the king; and being attacked by two foot
soldiers, as I lay entangled I must inevitably have perished
but for the aid afforded me by Simon Fleix, who flew to
the rescue with the courage of a veteran. His action was
observed by the king, who begged him from me, and
attaching him to his own person in the capacity of clerk,
started him so fairly on the road to fortune that he has
since risen beyond hope or expectation.
The means by which Henry won for a time the support of
Turenne (and incidentally procured his consent to my mar-
riage) are now too notorious to require explanation. Never-
theless, it was not until the Vicomte's union a year later
with Mademoiselle de la Marck, who brought him the
Duchy of Bouillon, that I thoroughly understood the mat-
ter; or the kindness peculiar to the king, my master, which
impelled that great monarch, in the arrangement of affairs
so vast, to remember the interests of the least of his
servants.
THE END.