CHAPTER XVI

RAISING THE DEVIL

The Black Musketeers on duty cleared a lane for the Regent at the door, and the lower orders, with whom, despite his bad character, a certain joviality of manner made him no small favourite, cheered vociferously as he passed. “The Débonnaire goes home early,” said one. “He has a child in the pot for supper,” shouted another. “I wish his Highness would ask me to eat with him!” exclaimed a third. “Or drink with him!” added a fourth. While a little hunchback, hideous and distorted, observed, in a dry, shrill voice, that made itself heard above all the clamour, “His Highness has a _rendezvous_, I tell you! Lads, where are your manners? Débonnaire! send me the bones to pick when you’ve done with them!”

A peal of laughter and a volley of cheers followed his state-coach as it rolled off at a slow, lumbering trot, with which a man on foot could easily keep up. Captain George had been directed to do so, and accompanied it to the entrance of a gloomy narrow street, where the tall cloaked figure of Bras-de-Fer was waiting, according to orders. Here it stopped, the Regent alighted rapidly, and signing to his coachman to drive on, dived into a gulf of darkness, closely attended by the Musketeer and his comrade.

A few paces brought them to an open _calèche_, drawn by a pair of English horses, driven from the saddle, and containing one solitary occupant, also enveloped in a cloak, who leaped out when he heard footsteps, and uncovered while he assisted the Regent to his place. He then seated himself opposite; Bras-de-Fer followed, his example; Captain George, at a signal from the Duke, placed himself by his Highness; and in a few minutes the whole party were across the Seine, beyond the barrier, which had been thrown back, and clattering along a paved road at a gallop through the open country.

The moon came out as they cleared Paris, and each man looked in the other’s face to read, according to their respective temperaments, signs of amusement, self-confidence, anxiety, or alarm. The Duke, though nervous, seemed strung to a certain pitch of resolution. Bras-de-Fer swelled with pride at the royal confidence thus reposed in him; and Captain George smiled quietly to mark the trepidation of their fourth companion, none other than Signor Stefano Bartoletti—chemist, philosopher, astrologer, professor of medicine, mathematics, and magic—black or white as required.

It is strange how the most effective impostors become so saturated, as it were, with their profession, that they cannot resist the influence of a vague enthusiasm which breeds artificial belief, fascinating, though transparently absurd, in the tricks they themselves practise. Perhaps there is something of the true artist in every man who succeeds, whatever be the nature of his enterprise; and the true artist can never place himself entirely apart from, or outside of, his art. Signor Bartoletti, who had engaged to raise the enemy of mankind for the Regent’s gratification, was unquestionably the most nervous of the whole party lest they should be taken at their word.

Captain George, to begin with, anticipated nothing but a trick, and took the matter, therefore, as coolly as he did everything else unconnected with Cerise de Montmirail. Bras-de-Fer, on the contrary, was persuaded he should be called on to confront the arch-fiend in person; but believing himself a good Catholic, while he knew he was an excellent swordsman, his courage rose, and he smiled grimly in his moustache at the thought of so distinguished an adversary. Even the devil, he argued, could not be much worse than Marlborough’s Grenadiers, and he had faced them many a time without getting the worst of the encounter. He even calculated whether he might not bring into play, with considerable effect, the thrust lately introduced into the corps by Beaudésir, but postponed further consideration of the point till he should know what kind of weapons were to be used in the field. The Regent, excited, credulous, impressible, loving the marvellous, and inclined to believe anything that was _not_ in the Bible, found his spirits rise with the anticipation of a new distraction; and being in that exalted state which those experience at rare intervals whose orgies are alternated with strong intellectual labour, found himself actually dreading a disappointment in the vision he anticipated.

Bartoletti felt how uncomfortably it would turn out, if, after all the pains of Malletort and himself to instruct the actress in her part, after all their care in scenery, decorations, and rehearsal, the original should take it into his head to assist at the performance in person!

Ere they were a league out of Paris his teeth began to chatter, though his breath smelt strong of the last suck of brandy that had comforted him before they started.

The English horses drew them swift as the wind. It seemed but a short half-hour ere they stopped at a gate opening into a wood, shadowy, dark, and dreadful, after the dusty road and level meadows glistening silver-white in the moonlight. The two Musketeers, accustomed to look about them, perceived at their feet a track of wheels, which had obviously preceded their carriage. Bras-de-Fer felt a little disappointed.

“_L’affaire commence!_” whispered the Regent, loosening his sword, as he prepared to follow Bartoletti through the wood. “Keep close to me, gentlemen, and look that we be not taken in rear!”

The path was narrow, winding, and exceedingly dark; but after a furlong or two the party emerged on an open space, and found their progress stopped by a level wall of rock, hewn perfectly smooth, and several yards in height. Bathed in a strong moonlight, every particle on its gritty surface glistened like crystal, and its crest of stunted trees and thick-growing shrubs cut clear and black against the cloudless sky.

Here the adept halted and looked round. “Highness,” he whispered, “we have reached our journey’s end; have you courage to enter the cave?”

The Duke’s face was pale, but he glanced at his two Musketeers, and answered, “After you, monsieur!”

Then the four, in Indian file, turned through an opening, or rather a mere hole in the rock, to follow a low, narrow passage, in which, ere they had advanced three paces, the darkness became impenetrable. They groped their way in silence, each listening to the hard breathing of his predecessor. Bras-de-Fer, who was last, fervently hoping their ghostly enemy might not attack them until, as he would have expressed it, they could “deploy into line.”

The corridor, however, as we may call it, grew wider and loftier at every step. Presently they marched upright, and two abreast. There was a constant drip from the damp stone that encircled them, and the hard smooth surface on which they trod felt cool and refreshing to their feet.

Bras-de-Fer could not restrain a sneeze. It resounded above their heads, and died away farther and fainter in a hundred whispering echoes.

Bartoletti started violently, and the Duke’s hand went to his sword. Then the magician halted, pulled a vial from his breast, and dipping a match in it, produced a strong rose-coloured flame, from which he lit the small lamp that hung at his belt.

Whilst the match flared and shone, they saw plainly for several yards in every direction. They were in a low vaulted cavern, hewn, to all appearance, by no mortal hands, out of the rock. They stood on a slightly-elevated platform, and at their feet lay a glistening sheet of black that could only be water. It was, however, a hasty examination, for the match soon spent itself, and Bartoletti’s lamp gave but light enough, as Bras-de-Fer observed, “to show how dark it was.”

“Are we on the banks of the Seine or the Styx?” asked the Regent, jestingly, yet with a slight tremor in his voice.

“Man knoweth not whither this dark stream may lead,” replied Bartoletti, solemnly, lighting at the same time a spare wick of his lamp, to embark it on a morsel of wood which he pushed into the current.

For several minutes, as it seemed to their watching eyes, the light floated farther and farther, till swallowed up by degrees in the black distance.

All were now somewhat impressed with the gloom and mysterious silence of the place. Bartoletti took courage, and informed the Regent he was about to begin.

“Not till you have drawn a pentacle!” objected the Duke, apprehensively. “Such a precaution should on no account be neglected.”

“It is unnecessary, Highness,” answered the other. “Against the lesser fiends, indeed, it forms an impregnable defence; but he who is approaching now, the very Prince of Darkness himself, cares no more for a pentacle than you do!”

The Regent would not be satisfied, however, till, under Malletort’s superintendence, he had drawn with the point of his sword a circle and triangle in magic union on the bare rock. Then he ensconced himself carefully within his lines, and bade the magician “go on.”

After a considerable display of mummery, and the repetition of many sentences, which, as they were couched in Latin, Bartoletti felt would be liable to little criticism from his listeners, he produced a small bundle of shavings from under his cloak, and piling these on the water’s edge, poured over the heap certain essences, ere he set the whole on fire. The cavern now became filled with a thick cloud of smoke, fragrant in smell, and though stupefying to the senses, not suffocating the lungs. Reflected in the black water beneath, as the flames waved and leaped and flickered, the unsteady light produced an effect of vast and shadowy distance on the dim recesses of the cavern, and prepared the minds of the spectators for some vague, uncertain, yet awful result.

Plunging it once more into his bundle, Bartoletti spread his hand over the embers. A blue lurid glare, that turned all their faces ashen white, now replaced the shifting wavering light of the flames.

“It is the death-fire!” whispered the Italian; and touching the Duke’s shoulder, he pointed to the roof of the cavern.

A gigantic arm and hand, with forefinger pointed downwards, were shadowed distinctly on its ribbed and slimy surface.

The Duke trembled, and sweat stood on his brow; Bartoletti, too, shivered, though with less reason. Captain George nodded approvingly, and Bras-de-Fer pulled the buckle of his sword-belt to the front.

“You may ask three questions,” whispered the shaking Italian. “Not another syllable, if you would leave the cave alive!”

The Duke cleared his throat to speak, and his voice came dry and husky, while he formed the words with effort, like a man using a foreign tongue.

“I adjure you, tell me truly, who is my chief enemy?”

Not one of them drew breath whilst they waited for the answer; and the questioner himself looked down to see that his feet were scrupulously within the pentacle.

It came sad, solemn, and as if from a distance, chanted in a full, mournful and melodious tone:—

“The foes a prince behoves to dread, that turn and tear their lord, Are those that haunt about his bed, and blush beside his board.”

Then the Regent, gaining courage, asked in a firmer voice, “Who is my best friend?”

The reply was more distinct, and its clear emphasis seemed to vouch for the speaker’s truth, Father of Lies though he might be called:—

“One friend is thine, whose silent kiss clings subtle, sure, and fast; When all shall fail, yet shall not this, the swiftest, though the last.”

Thus encouraged, the royal questioner gathered heart with every fresh answer, and it was in his customary unrestrained tone that he propounded his last inquiry, “Shall I live to wear the crown of France?”

This time, however, the phantom arm waved backwards and forwards, clenching its gigantic hand, while the demon’s voice seemed again to rise from distant and mysterious depths, as it replied:—

“When woman’s love can trust thy vows, when woman’s guileless glance Can thrill thy breast, bind on thy brows the diadem of France! Enough! For more I dare not tell. Glad life, and lusty reign! Predestined Prince, and fare thee well!—till we shall meet again!”

In five minutes all were once more in the open air. The Regent, grave and preoccupied, spoke not a word while they passed swiftly through the wood to gain their carriage; but Bras-de-Fer whispered in his comrade’s ear, “It seems the devil is like the rest, and had rather not come to close quarters with the Grey Musketeers.” To which professional remark Captain George replied, thoughtfully—

“He is an adversary for whom I would choose a weapon that kept me as far off him as possible!”