Chapter 10

Chavernay saw her anger, but was not dismayed. He was familiar with the feigned rages of pretty country girls when it pleased great lords to make love to them. "Listen to me," he pleaded. "Ever since I first saw you I have adored you."

He meant to say more, but he was not given the time in which to say it, for Lagardere came forth from his shelter beside the caravan and interrupted him. At the sight of Lagardere, Gabrielle gave a little cry and closed the window. Lagardere advanced to Chavernay, who stared in astonishment at the presumption of the gypsy fellow--a gypsy fellow that carried a sword under his mantle.

"That young girl is under my care, little gentleman," Lagardere said, mockingly.

But Chavernay was not easily to be dashed from his habitual manner of genial insolence, and he answered, as mockingly as Lagardere: "Then I tell you what I told her: that I adore her."

Lagardere eyed him whimsically, grimly. He felt disagreeably conscious of the contrast between himself in his shabby habit and the gilded frippery of this brilliant young insolence. He speculated with melancholy as to the effect of this contrast on the young girl that witnessed it. "You imp, you deserve to be whipped!" he said, sharply.

Chavernay stared at him with eyes wide with astonishment, and explained himself, haughtily: "I am the Marquis de Chavernay, cousin of the Prince de Gonzague."

Lagardere changed his phrase: "Then you come of a bad house, and deserve to be hanged!"

In a second the little marquis dropped his daffing manner. "If you were a gentleman, sir," he cried, "and had a right to the sword you presume to carry, I would make you back your words!"

Lagardere smiled ironically. "If it eases your mind in any way," he said, quietly, "I can assure you that I am a gentleman, although a poor one, and have as good right to trail a sword as any kinsman of the Prince de Gonzague." He paused, and then added, not unpityingly: "I would rather beat you than kill you."

Chavernay was scarcely to be appeased in this fashion. Something in Lagardere's carriage, something in his voice, convinced the little marquis that his enemy was speaking the truth, and that he was, indeed, a gentleman. "Braggart!" he cried, and, drawing his sword, he struck Lagardere across the breast with the flat of his blade.

Lagardere was quite unmoved by the affront. Leisurely he drew his sword and leisurely fell into position, saying, "Very well, then."

The swords engaged for a moment--only for a moment. Then, to the surprise and rage of Chavernay, his hand and his sword parted company, and the sword, a glittering line of steel, leaped into the air and fell to earth many feet away from him. Even as this happened, Gabrielle, who had been watching with horror the quarrel from behind her curtains, came running down the Inn stairs and darted through the door into the open.

She turned to Lagardere, appealing: "Do not hurt him, Henri; he is but a child."

The little marquis frowned. He disliked to be regarded as a pitiable juvenile. "If the gentleman will return me my sword," he said, "I will not lose it again so lightly."

Lagardere looked at him with kind-hearted compassion. "If I returned you your sword twenty times," he said, "its fate would be twenty times the same. Take your sword and use it hereafter to defend women, not to insult them."

While he was speaking he had stepped to where Chavernay's blade lay on the sward, and had picked it up, and now, as he made an end of speaking, he handed Chavernay the rapier. Chavernay took it, and sent it home in its sheath half defiantly. "Fair lady, I ask your pardon," he said, bowing very reverentially to Gabrielle. "Let me call myself ever your servant." He turned and gave Lagardere a salutation that was more hostile than amiable, and then recrossed the bridge in his airiest manner as one that is a lord of fortune. Lagardere stood silent, almost gloomy, looking at the ground. Gabrielle regarded him for a moment timidly, and then, advancing, softly placed a hand upon his shoulder.

"You are not angry with me?" she whispered.

Lagardere turned to her and forced himself to smile cheerfully. "Angry--with you? How could that be possible?" He was silent for a moment, then he asked: "Do you know that gentleman?"

Gabrielle shook her head. "I saw him for the first time to-day, not very long ago, when I was speaking to Flora. I had come out for a moment when she called to me, and he came over the bridge and took us unawares."

Lagardere looked at her thoughtfully. "Could you love such a man as he?" he asked, gravely. "He is young, he is brave, he is witty; he might well win a girl's heart."

Gabrielle returned Lagardere's earnest look with a look of surprise. "He is a noble. I am a poor girl."

Lagardere smiled wistfully. "How if you were no longer to be a poor girl, Gabrielle? How if this visit to Paris were to change our fortunes?"

Gabrielle looked at him curiously. "Why have we come to Paris, Henri? I thought there was danger in Paris?"

"There was danger in Paris," Lagardere said, slowly--"grave danger. But I have seen a great man, and the danger has vanished, and you and I are coming to the end of our pilgrimage."

"The end of our pilgrimage?" echoed Gabrielle. "What is going to happen to us?"

"Wonderful things," Lagardere said, lightly--"beautiful things. You shall know all about them soon enough." To himself he whispered: "Too soon for me." Then he addressed the girl again, blithely: "When I took you to Madrid you saw the color of the court, you heard the music of festivals. Did you not feel that you were made for such a life?"

Gabrielle answered instantly: "Yes, for that life--or any life--with you."

Lagardere protested: "Ah, but without me."

Gabrielle's graceful being seemed to stiffen a little, and her words gave an absolute decision: "Nothing without you, Henri."

Lagardere seemed to tempt the girl with his next speech: "Those women you saw had palaces, had noble kinsfolk, had mothers--"

Gabrielle was not to be tempted from her faith. "A mother is the only treasure I envy them," she said, firmly.

Lagardere looked at her strangely, and again questioned her. "But suppose you had a mother, and suppose you had to choose between that mother and me?"

For a moment Gabrielle paused. The question seemed to have a distressing effect upon her. She echoed his last words: "Between my mother and you." Then she paused, and her lips trembled, but she spoke very steadily: "Henri, you are the first in the world for me."

Lagardere sighed. "You have never known a mother, but there are graver rivals to a friendship such as ours than a mother's love."

"What rivals can there be to our friendship?" Gabrielle asked.

Lagardere answered her sadly enough, though he seemed to smile: "A girl's love for a boy, a maid's love for a man. That pretty gentleman who was here but now, and swore he adored you--if you were noble, could you love such a man as he?"

Gabrielle began to laugh, as if all the agitations of the past instants had been dissipated into nothingness by the jest of such a question. "I swear to you, Henri," she said, softly, "that the man I could love would not be at all like Monsieur de Chavernay."

In spite of himself, Lagardere gave a sigh of relief. It was something, at least, to know whom Gabrielle de Nevers could not love. He essayed to laugh, too.

"What would he be like," he asked--"the wonder whom you would consent to love?"

He spoke very merrily, but it racked his heart to speak thus lightly of the love of Gabrielle. He wished that he were a little boy again, that he might hide behind some tree and cry out his grief in bitter tears. But being, as he reminded himself, a weather-beaten soldier of fortune, it was his duty to screen his misery with a grin and to salute his doom with amusement. As for Gabrielle, she came a little nearer to Lagardere, and her eyes were shining very brightly, and her lips trembled a little, and she seemed a little pale in the clear air.

"I will try to paint you a picture," she said, hesitatingly, "of the man I"--she paused for a second, and then continued, hurriedly--"of the man I could love. He would be about your height, as I should think, to the very littlest of an inch; and he would be built as you are built, Henri; and his hair would be of your color, and his eyes would have your fire; and his voice would have the sound of your voice, the sweetest sound in the world; and the sweetest sound of that most sweet voice would be when it whispered to me that it loved me."

Lagardere looked at her with haggard, happy eyes. He could not misunderstand, and he was happy; he dared not understand, and he was sad.

"Gabrielle," he said, softly, "when you were a little maid I used to tell you tales to entertain you. Will you let me spin you a fable now?"

The girl said nothing; only she nodded, and she looked at him very fixedly. Lagardere went on:

"There was once a man, a soldier of fortune, an adventurous rogue, into whose hands a jesting destiny confided a great trust. That trust was the life of a child, of a girl, of a woman, whom it was his glory to defend for a while with his sword against many enemies."

"I think he defended her very well," Gabrielle interrupted, gently. Lagardere held up a warning finger.

"Hush," he said. "What I am speaking of took place ages ago, when the world was ever so much younger, in the days of Charlemagne and Caesar and Achilles and other great princes long since withered, so you can know nothing at all about it. But this rogue of my story had a sacred duty to fulfil. He had to restore to this charge, this ward of his, the name, the greatness, that had been stolen from her. It was his mission to give her back the gifts which had been filched from her by treason. For seventeen years he had lived for this purpose, and only for this purpose, crushing all other thoughts, all other hopes, all other dreams. What would you say of such a man, so sternly dedicated to so great a faith, if he were to prove false to his trust, and to allow his own mad passion to blind him to the light of loyalty, to deafen him to the call of honor?"

He was looking away from her as he spoke, but the girl came close to him and caught his hands, and made him turn his face to her, and each saw that the other's eyes were wet. Gabrielle spoke steadily, eagerly:

"You say that what you speak of happened very long ago. But we are to-day as those were yesterday, and if I were the maid of your tale I would say to the man that love is the best thing a true man can give to a true woman, and that a woman who wore my body could lose no wealth, no kingdom, to compare with the rich treasure of her lover's heart."

There was no mistaking the meaning of the girl, the meaning ringing in her words, shining in her eyes, appealing in her out-stretched arms. To Lagardere it seemed as if the kingdom of the world were offered to him. He had but to keep silence, and his heart's desire was his. But he remembered the night in the moat of Caylus, he remembered the purpose of long years, he remembered his duty, he remembered his honor, and he grappled with the dragon of passion, with the dragon of desire. Very calmly he touched for a moment, with caressing hand, the hair of Gabrielle. Very quietly he spoke.

"We are taking my fairy tale too gravely," he said. "It all happened long ago, and has nothing to do with us. Our story is very different, and our story is coming to a wonderful conclusion. This day is your last day of doubt and ignorance, of solitude and poverty." He turned a little away from her and murmured to himself: "It is also my last day of youth and joy and hope."

Gabrielle pressed her hands against her breasts for a moment, like one in great dismay. The tears welled into her eyes. Then she gave a little moan of wonder and protest, and sprang towards him with out-stretched hands. "Do you not understand?" she cried. "Henri, Henri, I love you."

Lagardere grasped the out-stretched hands, and in another moment would have caught the girl in his arms, but a dry, crackling laugh arrested him. Gently restraining Gabrielle's advance, he turned his head and saw standing upon the bridge surveying him and Gabrielle a sinister figure. It was AEsop, returning from his stroll with Monsieur Peyrolles, who had paused on the bridge in cynical amusement of what he conceived to be a lovers' meeting between countryman and countrymaid, but whose face now flushed with a sudden interest as he recognized the face of the man in the gypsy habit.

Lagardere turned again to Gabrielle, and his face was calm and smiling. "Go in-doors," he said, pleasantly, "I will join you by-and-by."

Gabrielle, in her turn, had glanced at the sinister figure on the bridge, and, seeing the malevolence of its attitude, of its expression, had drawn back with a faint cry. "Henri," she said--"Henri, who is that watching us? He looks so evil."

Lagardere had recognized AEsop as instantly as AEsop had recognized Lagardere. AEsop now came slowly towards them, addressing them mockingly: "Do not let me disturb you. Life is brief, but love is briefer."

Lagardere again commanded Gabrielle: "Go in, child, at once."

"Are you in danger?" Gabrielle asked, fearfully.

Lagardere shook his head and repeated his command: "No. Go in at once. Wait in your room until I come for you."

AEsop looked at him with raised eyebrows and a wicked grin. "Why banish the lady? She might find my tale entertaining."

At an imperative signal from Lagardere, Gabrielle entered the Inn. Lagardere then advanced towards AEsop, who watched him with folded arms and his familiar malevolent smile. When they were quite close, AEsop greeted Lagardere:

"So the rat has come to the trap at last. Lagardere in Paris--ha, ha!"

Lagardere looked at him ponderingly. "The thought amuses you."

AEsop's grin deepened. "Very much. Before nightfall you will be in prison."

Lagardere seemed to deny him. "I think not. You carry a sword and can use it. You shall fight for your life, like your fellow-assassins."

AEsop looked about him. "I have but to raise my voice. There must be people within call even in this sleepy neighborhood."

Lagardere still smiled, and the smile was still provocative. "But if you raise your voice I shall be reluctantly compelled to stab you where you stand. Ah, coward, can you only fight in the dark when you are nine to one?"

AEsop gave his hilt a hitch. "You will serve my master's turn as well dead as alive. I wear the best sword in the world, and it longs for your life."

Lagardere pointed to the tranquil little Inn. "Behind yonder Inn there is a garden. To-day, when all the world is at the fair, that garden is as lonely as a cemetery. At the foot of the garden runs the river, a ready grave for the one who falls. There we can fight in quiet to our heart's content."

AEsop glared at Lagardere with a look of triumphant hatred. "I mean to kill you, Lagardere!" he said, and the tone of his voice was surety of his intention and his belief in his power to carry it out.

Lagardere only laughed as lightly as before. "I mean to kill you, Master AEsop. I have waited a long time for the pleasure of seeing you again."

Then the pair passed into the quiet Inn and out of the quiet Inn into the quiet Inn's quiet garden, and down the quiet garden to a quiet space hard by the quiet river.

XVII

IN THE GARDEN

Beyond the Inn there ran, or rather rambled, a long garden, the more neglected part of which was grown with flowers, while the better-attended portion was devoted to the cultivation of vegetables. Where the garden ceased a little orchard of apple-trees, pear-trees, and plum-trees began, and this orchard was followed by a small open space of grassed land which joined the river. Here a diminutive landing-stage had been built, which was now crazy enough with age and dilapidation, and attached to this stage were a couple of ancient rowing-boats, against whose gaunt ribs the ripples lapped. Sometimes this garden and orchard had their visitors: the landlord and his friends would often smoke their pipes and drink their wine under the shade of the trees, and even passing clients would occasionally indulge themselves with the privilege of a stroll in the untidy garden. But to-day the place was quite deserted--as desolate as a garden in a dream. Every one who could go had gone to the fair, and those travellers who paused to drink in passing took their liquor quickly and hurried on to share in the fair's festivity. The landlord was kept busy enough attending to those passers-by in the early part of the day, and, now that the stream had ceased and custom slackened, he was glad enough to take his ease in-doors and leave his garden to its loneliness.

When, therefore, Lagardere and AEsop entered the garden they found it as quiet and as uninhabited as any pair of swordsmen could desire. They walked in silence along the path between the flowers and the vegetables, Lagardere only pausing for a moment to pluck a wild rose which he proposed in the serenity of his confidence to present to Gabrielle, and while he paused AEsop eyed him maliciously and amused himself by kicking with his heel at a turnip and hacking it into fragments. Lagardere put his flower into the lapel of his coat, and the pair resumed their silent progress through the orchard till they came to a halt upon the river-bank.

Lagardere looked about him and seemed pleased with what he saw. There was no one in sight, either hard by or upon the opposite bank of the river, and he felt that it might be taken for granted that there was no one within hearing. He turned to AEsop and addressed him, very pleasantly: "This, I think, will serve our purpose as well as any place in the world."

AEsop grinned malignly. "It would suit my purpose," he said, "to get you out of the way in any place in the world."

Lagardere laughed softly and shook his head. "One or other of us has to be got out of the way," he said, quietly, "but I think, Master AEsop, that I am not the man. I have been waiting a long time for this chance; but I always felt sure that the time would bring the chance, and I mean to make an end of you."

AEsop scowled. "You talk very big, Little Parisian," he said, "but you will find that in me you deal with a fellow of another temper to those poor hirelings you have been lucky enough to kill. They were common rogues enough, that handled their swords like broom-handles. I was always a master, and my skill has grown more perfect since we last met at Caylus. I think you will regret this meeting, Captain Lagardere."

Now, Lagardere had been listening very patiently while AEsop spoke, and while he listened a thought came into his mind which at first seemed too fantastic for consideration, but which grew more tempting and more entertainable with every second. To thrust AEsop from his path was one thing, and a thing that must be done if Lagardere's life-purposes were to be accomplished. But to get rid of AEsop and yet to use him--at once to obliterate him and yet to recreate him, so that he should prove the most deadly enemy of the base cause that he was paid to serve--here was a scheme, a dream, that if it could be made a reality would be fruitful of good uses. It was therefore with a strange smile that he listened while AEsop menaced him with regret for the meeting, and it was with a strange smile that he spoke:

"I do not think so," he answered, maturing his plan even while he talked, and finding it the more feasible and the more pleasing. "You are a haggard rascal, Master AEsop, and the world should have no use for you. I believe that by what I am about to do I shall render the world and France and myself a service. You are nothing more than a rabid wild beast, and it is well to be quit of you." As he spoke he drew his sword and came on guard.

Something in the composed manner and the mocking speech of Lagardere seemed to bid AEsop pause. He let his weapon remain in its sheath and began to parley.

"Come, come, Captain Lagardere," he began, "is it necessary, after all, that we should quarrel? You have got Nevers's girl--there is no denying that--but we do not want her. We have a girl of our own. Now I know well enough, for I have not studied love books and read love books for nothing," and he grinned hideously as he spoke, "that you are in love with the girl you carry about with you. Well and good. How if we call a truce, make a peace? You shall keep your girl, and do as you please with her; we will produce our girl, and do as we please with her. You shall have as much money as you want, I can promise that for the Prince of Gonzague, and you can live in Madrid or where you please with your pretty minion. Make a bargain, man, and shake hands on it."

Lagardere eyed the hunchback with something of the compassion and curiosity of a surgeon about to deal with an ugly case. He saw now his enemy's hand and the strength of his enemy's cards and the cleverness of his enemy's plan, and was not in the least abashed by its audacity or his own isolation.

"Master AEsop," he said, briefly, "if it ever came to pass that I should find myself making terms or shaking hands with such as you, or the knave that uses you for his base purpose, I should very swiftly go and hang myself, I should be so ashamed of my own bad company. We have talked long enough; it is time for action." He saluted quickly as he spoke, according to the code of the fencing-schools.

And AEsop, in answer to the challenge, drew his own sword and answered the salutation. "Gallant captain," he sneered, "I have been in training for this chance these many years, and I think I will teach you to weep for your heroics." As he spoke he came on guard, and the blades met.

The place that had been chosen for the combat was suitable enough, quite apart from its solitude. The morning air was clear and even; the sun's height caused no diverting rays to disturb either adversary; the grass was smooth and supple to the feet; there was ample ground to break in all directions.

The moment that Lagardere's steel touched that of AEsop's, he knew that AEsop's boast had not been made in vain. Though it was a long time now since that afternoon in the frontier Inn when he and AEsop had joined blades before, he remembered the time well enough to appreciate the difference between the sword he then encountered and the sword he encountered now. Clearly AEsop had spoken the truth when he had talked of his daily practice and his steady advance towards perfection. But, and Lagardere smiled as he remembered this, AEsop had forgotten or overlooked the possibility that Lagardere's own sword-play would improve with time--that Lagardere's own sword-play was little likely to rust for lack of usage.

The few minutes that followed upon the encounter of the hostile steels were minutes of sheer enjoyment to Lagardere. AEsop was a worthy antagonist, that he frankly admitted from the first, and he wished, as he fought, that he could divide his personality and admire, as a spectator, the passage at arms between two such champions. Of the result, from the first, Lagardere had not the slightest doubt. He was honestly convinced, by his simple logic of steel, that it was his mission to avenge Nevers and to expiate his murder. He was, as it were, a kind of seventeenth century crusader, with a sealed and sacred mission to follow; and while, as a stout-hearted and honest soldier of fortune, he had no more hesitation about killing a venomous thing like AEsop than he would have had about killing a snake, he was in this special instance exulted by the belief that in killing one of the men of the moat of Caylus his sword was the sword of justice, his sword was the sword of God.