CHAPTER XV.

"HE IS MINE. MUST BE MINE NOW!"

Nevertheless he knew that it was necessary for him to be very careful.

For, to begin with, these men were doubtful allies--even if he wanted any such, which, after all, he was not sure about. Certainly he wanted none to help him slay De Bois-Vallée and thereby avenge Philip--but even as he so paused, endeavouring to think what was best to do, he observed the looks of consternation still on their faces at discovering he had overheard their remarks when outside. Yet, might not their assistance be of the greatest use to him in rescuing Marion Wyatt from evil at the Vicomte's hands? Might not they also be of the greatest service to him in helping to discover what evil it was that threatened the woman? Or, further and better, was it possible that they had some knowledge of what that evil was?

"Harm that may come to her through his fear of what I know, as he imagines; harm that may be averted perhaps by me if I can find her--or again find him?" he had asked Debrasques, he remembered; remembered also that from Debrasques' eyes had come the answer in the affirmative. And he had bidden Andrew go and avert the harm impending; now he was here, and it seemed that an opportunity had arisen which might assist him in thus averting it.

He must extract all that he could from these men; he must lose no chance. Indeed, his only regret was that his manner had not been more propitiatory from the outset, less rough with them, and he prayed that the big leather purse, and another which he had put carefully away, might be able to win their goodwill. If so they should have it all, even though he had to go without food until more money could be obtained from England.

They sprang up--or two of them did--as he uttered the words about the burning house and the flames whose reflection should be cast on the mountain tops, while the elder man cast an evil glance at him that would have augured badly for his safety in that lonely spot had he not been so big and strong. Then the first of these two men, whom he had heard called Jean, exclaimed, "You heard that--outside! And know that it was of him and of his house we spoke?"

"I know it now."

"And what will you do?" while as he spoke he bent forward with a sinister look on his face, and with his hand in his coarse brown blouse, "What will you do?"

"I will tell you," replied Andrew, "only, first, give me that," while as he answered he darted his own hand out like lightning, seized the fellow by the wrist, and drew his hand from out of his bosom. In it was a long knife.

"Let it fall to the floor," he said, compressing the man's wrist so that he winced, while Andrew turned as he did so and spoke to the other two (who had sprung up and were standing over him threateningly) in a marvellously quiet voice, yet one that had its effect.

"Make no interference," he said. "Be warned. Resume your seats or we shall all regret it. Do as I say," he continued, his voice sinking even lower as he fixed his eyes on them. "As I say. It will be best."

Whether it was his height or his broad chest, or, perhaps, the sight of the huge hand that compressed Jean's wrist, which forced them to obey, cannot be said. Suffice it that, after a look of indecision on the part of the well-favoured, dissolute-looking man, and a scowl on the part of the old one, they did as he said. Each returned to the settle, or stool, he had occupied, though not without murmuring and muttering.

Another squeeze from Andrew finished also Jean's affair; the fingers unloosed the knife, which clattered down on to the earth, and, at the same time, his wrist was released, scored with a red mark as though an iron vice had been screwed on it.

"Enough," said Andrew; "now we shall be very good friends. Listen, therefore, to what I have to say. But, first, find another bottle of wine."

Obedient to his orders--although it might be but for a time and until they could concert some joint attack on him--another dusty, cobwebby bottle was produced from the hole in the wall, and, when the one glass from which Andrew drank and the mugs of the others had been filled, the former spoke again, though with his eyes on all their faces and on their hands, too, to see if they threatened harm.

"I will tell you," he said, "what I shall do. Yet, first, let there be no mistake. The man of whom you speak as having come across these mountains, the man whose home you purpose to burn to the ground, is the Vicomte De Bois-Vallée. Nay," seeing the look that came on their countenances, "deny it not! There is but one who has so come from Turenne's camp, but one who has fled from the army, deserted his post. The man I seek and follow."

"Fled! Deserted!" they repeated, while the old man muttered incoherently.

"Ay, fled, deserted. Shall I tell you why? If I do, you will perhaps acknowledge that, for the present, at least, you may leave his house in peace."

"Tell us," all said together.

"He has fled," continued Andrew, "because thereby he imagines he can evade me--me, who have sworn to slay him. And I am resolved to slay him. See, listen. I am an Englishman, well-to-do now, though not long ago I had nought but that which I could earn with this," and he let his left hand fall on his sword hilt. "Well-to-do, I tell you, might live at home in my own land, run no greater danger than a man encounters in his own fields and gardens. Yet I am here. To slay him."

"To slay him!" the dissolute, good-looking peasant repeated. "To slay him! Camille De Bois-Vallée! To slay him!"

"Ay! From England to Paris I came, from Paris to Turenne's army, from that army here. To-morrow to Remiremont, to-morrow night, as it shall fall out, or in a week, or month, or year, to return to England with my sword left sticking through him. Say, shall I do that first, ere you burn his house down?"

"What is your wrong?" asked Laurent, the good-looking man. "What? _Pardie!_ a woman, I suppose."

"Ay, a woman. Yet from your words, your guess at that, it should seem I am not the only one. Has he wronged other men--through the women they love?"

"Yes," Laurent answered. "Yes. That way and others."

"That way and others. So, 'tis not I alone who seek to punish him. Yet from me the punishment shall come. And 'tis better so, is it not? If you, or others, destroy him, you are here to be punished in return, you are yourselves of the _pays_, as you tell me. But I--I am a stranger, and, that done which I must do, I shall be gone; none can harm me. Moreover, he will fall at my hands in honourable duello. I shall not spare him as I spared him before."

"What!" came from all their lips, while the old man thrust his horn spectacles up on his forehead, and leaned across the table to stare at him. "What you had him once, and you spared him?"

"Yes, to finish the work better next time. And it was not his murder I sought" Whereupon he rapidly told them of the fight in the glade behind the church, and of how the peasants would have slain De Bois-Vallée, had he not interfered for his protection.

"'Twas folly," Laurent said, "I would have left him there for them to do the work. Thereby, monsieur would have had his desire gratified at no cost to himself."

"Nay," replied Andrew, "'twas because I had not done the work that I saved him, as now I prevent you from wreaking your vengeance on him. 'Tis I who must do it. Also, there is something else to be done. Listen!"

And now, because he saw and knew that he could bind these men to him either through their hatred of his enemy or because of their cupidity--or through both combined--he told them that the woman who had been wronged by this man was, he believed, somewhere in his power, and that, before all--before his revenge, before theirs--she must be found and saved. "Could they," he asked, "help him to save her?"

"Where is she?" answered Laurent, who seemed to take the lead now amongst his companions. "Let us know that, and, since you desire it, we may be of service. Alas! that we could have saved other women!"

"That," replied Andrew, "is what I do not know. Is what, indeed, at present, I seek to learn. Further, I know not where his house is, nor how to find entrance. Though soon I shall."

Then, at once, spurred on as it seemed to Andrew by a desire for vengeance on the part of Laurent particularly, who, he could see, nourished a personal hatred against the man, and, on the part of the others, by a desire for gain, and by greed, they gave him some information which he did not doubt was true.

De Bois-Vallée, they told him, lived not in Remiremont itself, but, instead, some four or five miles this side of it, and at the foot of the very mountain which they were now on the summit of. It was a large property known as Bois-le-Vaux, they said, consisting of wood and forest with a mountain stream through it that afterwards joined the Meurthe, and, in the middle of this estate and backed up by the hills, was the house itself.

"Of what description?" asked Andrew.

"Oh! for that, old, very old. Dating back, some said, to the days of Le Duc Thierry," the old man, Gaspard, answered. "Built partly of stone, hewn out of these mountains, one should suppose; a house long and low, with, above the ground floor, much wood. Also outhouses and stables and a granary, all of wood. Therefore," he added, "it would burn well."

"But not yet," answered Andrew, "not yet. That is for after I am gone, by which time he will be dead. For which reason there may be no necessity to thus destroy it. Are there any as bad as he to come after, and have all who went before him been equally as bad?"

No, they answered, each telling the tale by little pieces; no, there were none to come after of whom they knew; he had neither brother nor sister, nor was he married.

"Wherefore," interjected Gaspard, who seemed the most anxious for the destruction by flames of the mansion of Bois-le-Vaux, "it may properly be burned down. All of this country hate it and him; after his death we desire no memorial of his race."

"And of those before him. Were they like him?" again asked Andrew.

"His mother was a saint on earth," the old man said; "I knew her. And his father was harmless. The old wolf-blood of his forerunners has come out in him."

"His mother!" exclaimed Andrew. "His mother!" and he clapped his hand to his pocket and drew out the medallion. "You knew her. Is this she?" and he showed them the portrait.

"Ay," exclaimed Gaspard, after he had brought the spectacles down from his forehead to their proper place again, "ay, 'tis. I knew her well. She was a saint--all loved her--'tis for the sake of her memory we have so long borne with the son."

"Enough," said Andrew. "I will return it to him."

"Wherefore?" asked Laurent, not understanding.

"As something which he dropped in fleeing from the army, from me. He can scarce refuse to take it, to come and take it from my hands; thus we shall be face to face again."

"And the woman?" one asked.

"Ah the woman. I had forgotten. No; first I must find out if she is here, below, in this gloomy mansion you speak of. Then--then--it will be time to decide what I must do. But it grows late; to-morrow I must see this house and reconnoitre. My friends, if you will be such, let us make terms. Will you place yourselves at my service?"

"As I told monsieur," said Gaspard, "we are very poor. We must live. And if monsieur desires vengeance on one whom we all hate we will serve him. Though I for one can do but little. I am old--yet I do not forget. Ah, Julie! Also he forced me from my cottage, raising the seigneurial rights month by month till I became an outcast, living here on no man's land."

"Curse him!" exclaimed Laurent. "All I desire is to see him dead. And as for payment--well, I have no money--I, too, am an outcast, he would send me to the galleys if he caught me. Curse him!" he cried again, "give me but the wherewithal to live, and I will help you. Either you or I shall slay him."

"He has wronged you deeply?" Andrew asked, noticing how the handsome features of this man were convulsed by his fury.

"Wronged me! Wronged me! My God! Listen. I married this man's daughter, Julie," and his hand shook as he beat it against Gaspard's shoulder, "and he took her from me, took her to that hell, Paris, and--and--left her to die there. Judge if he has wronged me."

"And you?" turning to the third, the man Jean. "Do you hate him, too?"

"I hate all aristocrats," he replied. "They grind us to the earth. And him I doubly hate. For--for--well, I have cause. Also," and he laughed now the harsh and reckless laugh which Andrew had heard as he approached the hut, "you saw how I loved him when, for fear that you might be here to help him, I drew that on you," and he pointed to the knife lying where it had fallen.

"'Tis well," said Andrew, "we understand one another. And, for earnest of my good faith, take this and do what you will with it"; whereon he drew forth once more the leathern bag and emptied its contents--a dozen good louis d'ors and as many écus and German dollars--on the table. As he did so he noticed to whom the spoils fell. Gaspard, with a greed often enough the accompaniment of old age, especially when that old age is surrounded by and steeped in poverty, thrust out his gnarled and knotty hands, endeavouring to cover all the pieces. Jean, with a laugh, clutched some ere the other could prevent him. Laurent alone was moderate. One gold coin rolled towards him, which he picked up and thrust under his blouse.

"'Twill suffice a long time for meat and drink," he said. "By the time 'tis spent--well!--what I desire more than money may be accomplished."

"You have left yourself without any," the old man said, turning to Andrew, almost with a look of shame on his withered face, yet still with his hands on all the coins that Jean had been unable to wrench from beneath them. "What will you do?"

"Nay! never fear. It is not my all. I have more--for myself and you. And, after that, can obtain still more. Serve me faithfully and you will find me a good paymaster."

Then, after they had vowed again and again that they would do so--Laurent alone wasting no words in protestation--Andrew remarked:

"He is mine. Must be mine now. Nothing can save him or prevent me bringing him to book. Even though we have to besiege him in his house! He is mine. And, even should he escape me for a time, he is a ruined man. To the army he can never return. His desertion prevents that. My friends," and he rose from his chair, "De Bois-Vallée will never harry you again. From this time forth we harry him."