Chapter 7

"It seems I have exceeded my duty, monsieur, in coming here. Yet it turns out for the best, since Lucas is caught and M. de Grammont dead and you cleared of suspicion."

"What!" Yeux-gris cried. "What! you call me cleared!"

Vigo looked at him in surprise.

"You said you were innocent, M. le Comte."

M. le Comte stared, without a word to answer. The equery, all unaware of having said anything unexpected, turned to the guardsman Maurice:

"Well, is Lucas trussed? Have you searched him?"

Maurice displayed a poniard and a handful of small coins for sole booty, but Jules made haste to announce: "He has something else, though--a paper sewed up in his doublet. Shall I rip it out, M. Vigo?"

With Lucas's own knife the grinning Jules slashed his doublet from throat to thigh, to extract a folded paper the size of your palm. Vigo pondered the superscription slowly, not much at home with the work of a quill, save those that winged arrows. M. Étienne, coming forward, with a sharp exclamation snatched the packet.

"How came you by my letter?" he demanded of Lucas.

"M. le Comte was pleased to consign it for delivery to Martin."

"What purpose had you with it?"

"Rest assured, dear monsieur, I had a purpose."

The questions were stormily vehement, the answers so gentle as to be fairly caressing. It was waste of time and dignity to parley with the scoundrel till one could back one's queries with the boot. But M. Étienne's passion knew no waiting. Thrusting the letter into his breast ere I, who had edged up to him, could catch a glimpse of its address, he cried upon Lucas:

"Speak! You were ready enough to jeer at me for a dupe. Tell me what you would do with your dupe. You dared not open the plot to me--you did me the honour to know I would not kill my father. Then why use me blindfold? An awkward game, Lucas."

Lucas disagreed as politely as if exchanging pleasantries in a salon.

"A dexterous game, M. le Comte. Your best friends deemed you guilty. What would your enemies have said?"

"Ah-h," breathed M. Étienne.

"It dawns on you, monsieur? You are marvellous thick-witted, yet surely you must perceive. We had a dozen fellows ready to swear that your hand killed Monsieur."

"You would kill me for my father's murder?"

"Ma foi, no!" cried Lucas, airily. "Never in the world! We should have let you live, in the knowledge that whenever you displeased us we could send you to the gallows."

M. le Comte, silent, stared at him with wild eyes, like one who looks into the open roof of hell. Lucas fell to laughing.

"What! hang you and let our cousin Valère succeed? Mon dieu, no! M. de Valère is a man!"

With a blow the guardsman struck the words and the laughter from his lips. But I, who no more than Lucas knew how to hold my tongue, thought I saw a better way to punish this brazen knave. I cried out:

"You are the dupe, Lucas! Aye, and coward to boot, fleeing here from--nothing. I knew naught against you--you saw that. To slip out and warn Martin before Vigo got a chance at him--that was all you had to do. Yet you never thought of that but rushed away here, leaving Martin to betray you. Had you stuck to your post you had been now on the road to St. Denis, instead of the road to the Grève! Fool! fool! fool!"

He winced. He had not been ashamed to betray his benefactor, to bite the hand that fed him, to desert a wounded comrade; but he was ashamed to confront his own blunder. I had the satisfaction of pricking, not his conscience, for he had none, but his pride.

"I had to warn Grammont off," he retorted. "Could I believe St. Quentin such a lack-wit as to forgive these two because they were his kin? You did better than you knew when you shut the door on me. You tracked me, you marplot, you sneak! How came you into the coil?"

"By God's grace," M. le Comte answered. He laid a hand on my shoulder and leaned there heavily. Lucas grinned.

"Ah, waxing pious, is he? The prodigal prepares to return."

M. Étienne's hand clinched on my shoulder. Vigo commanded a gag for Lucas, saying, with the only touch of anger I ever knew him to show:

"He shall hang when the king comes in. And now to horse, lads, and out of the quarter; we have wasted too much time palavering. King Henry is not in Paris yet. We shall do well not to rouse Belin, though we can make him trouble if he troubles us. Come, monsieur. Men, guard your prisoner. I misjudge if he is not cropful of the devil still."

He did not look it. His figure was drooping; his face purple and contorted, for one of the troopers had crammed his scarf into the man's mouth, half strangling him. As he was led past us, with a sudden frantic effort, fit to dislocate his jaw, he disgorged the gag to cry out wildly:

"Oh, M. l'Écuyer, have mercy! Have pity upon me! For Christ's sake, pity!"

His bravado had broken down at last. He tried to fling himself at Vigo's feet. The guards relaxed their hold to see him grovel.

That was what he had hoped for. In a flash he was out of their grasp, flying down the alley.

"To Vigo! Vigo is attacked," we heard him shout.

It was so quick, we stood dumfounded. And then we dashed after, pell-mell, tumbling over one another in our stampede. In the alley we ran against three or four of the guard answering Lucas's cry. We lost precious seconds disentangling ourselves and shouting that it was a ruse and our prisoner escaped. When they comprehended, we all rushed together out of the passage, emerging among frightened horses and a great press of excited men.

XII

_The Comte de Mar._

"Which way went he?"

"The man who just came out?"

"This way!"

"No, yonder!"

"Nay, I saw him not."

"A man with bound hands, you say?"

"Here!"

"Down that way!"

"A man in black, was he? Here he is!"

"Fool, no; he went that way!"

M. Étienne, Vigo, I, and the guardsmen rushed hither and thither into the ever-thickening crowd, shouting after Lucas and exchanging rapid questions with every one we passed. But from the very first the search was hopeless. It was dark by this time and a mass of people blocked the street, surging this way and that, some eagerly joining in the chase, others, from ready sympathy with any rogue, doing their best to hinder and confuse us. There was no way to tell how he had gone. A needle in a haystack is easy found compared with him who loses himself in a Paris crowd by night.

M. Étienne plunged into the first opening he saw, elbowing his way manfully. I followed in his wake, his tall bright head making as good an oriflamme as the king's plume at Ivry, but when at length we came out far down the street we had seen no trace of Lucas.

"He is gone," said M. le Comte.

"Yes, monsieur. If it were day they might find him, but not now."

"No. Even Vigo will not find him. He is worsted for once. He has let slip the shrewdest knave in France. Well, he is gone," he repeated after a minute. "It cannot be mended by me. He is off, and so am I."

"Whither, monsieur?"

"That is my concern."

"But monsieur will see M. le Duc?"

He shook his head.

"But, monsieur--"

He broke in on me fiercely.

"Think you that I--I, smirched and sullied, reeking with plots of murder--am likely to betake myself to the noblest gentleman in France?"

"He will welcome M. le Comte."

"Nay; he believed me guilty."

"But, monsieur--"

"You may not say 'but' to me."

"Pardon, monsieur. Am I to tell Vigo monsieur is gone?"

"Yes, tell him." His lip quivered; he struggled hard for steadiness. "You will go to M. le Duc, Félix, and rise in his favour, for it was you saved his life. Then tell him this from me--that some day, when I have made me worthy to enter his presence, then will I go to him and beg his forgiveness on my knees. And now farewell."

He slipped away into the darkness.

I stood hesitating for a moment. Then I followed my lord.

He slackened his pace as he heard footsteps overtake him, and where a beam of light shone out from an open door he wheeled about, thinking me a footpad.

"You, Félix?"

"Yes, monsieur; I go with M. le Comte."

"I have not permitted you."

"Then must I go in despite. Monsieur is wounded; I cannot leave him to go unsquired."

"There are lackeys to hire. I bade you seek M. le Duc."

"Is not monsieur a thought unreasonable? I cannot be in two places at once. Monsieur can send a letter. The duke has Vigo and a household. I go with M. le Comte."

"Oh," he cried, "you are a faithful servant! We are ridden to death by our faithful servants, we St. Quentins. Myself, I prefer fleas!" He added, growing angrier, "Will you leave me?"

"No, monsieur," said I.

He glowered at me and I think he had some notion of chasing me away with his sword. But since his dignity could not so stoop, he growled:

"Come, then, if you choose to come unasked and most unwelcome!"

With this he walked on a yard ahead of me, never turning his head nor saying a word, I following meekly, wondering whither, and devoutly hoping it might be to supper. Presently I observed that we were in a better quarter of the town, and before long we came to a broad, well-lighted inn, whence proceeded a merry chatter and rattle of dice. M. Étienne with accustomed feet turned into the court at the side, and seizing upon a drawer who was crossing from door to door despatched him for the landlord. Mine host came, fat and smiling, unworried by the hard times, greeted Yeux-gris with acclaim as "this dear M. le Comte," wondered at his long absence and bloody shirt, and granted with all alacrity his three demands of a supper, a surgeon, and a bed. I stood back, ill at ease, aching at the mention of supper, and wondering whether I were to be driven off like an obtrusive puppy. But when M. le Comte, without glancing at me, said to the drawer, "Take care of my serving-man," I knew my stomach was safe.

That was the most I thought of then, I do confess, for, except for my sausage, I had not tasted food since morning. The barber came and bandaged M. le Comte and put him straight to bed, and I was left free to fall on the ample victuals set before me, and was so comfortable and happy that the Rue Coupejarrets seemed like an evil dream. Since that day I have been an easy mark for beggars if they could but manage to look starved.

Presently came a servant to say that my bed was spread in M. le Comte's room, and up-stairs ran I with an utterly happy heart, for I saw by this token that I was forgiven. Indeed, no sooner had I got fairly inside the door than my master raised himself on his sound elbow and called out:

"Ah, Félix, do you bear me malice for an ungrateful churl?"

"I bear malice?" I cried, flushing. "Monsieur is mocking me. I know monsieur cannot love me, since I attempted his life. Yet my wish is to be allowed to serve him so faithfully that he can forget it."

"Nay," he said; "I have forgotten it. And it was freely forgiven from the moment I saw Lucas at my cousin's side."

"For the second time," I said, "monsieur saved my life." And I dropped on my knees beside the bed to kiss his hand. But he snatched it away from me and flung his arm around my neck and kissed my cheek.

"Félix," he cried, "but for you my hands would be red with my father's blood. You rescued him from death and me from worse. If I have any shreds of honour left 'tis you have saved them to me."

"Monsieur," I stammered, "I did naught. I am your servant till I die."

"You deserve a better master. What am I? Lucas's puppet! Lucas's fool!"

"Monsieur, it was not Lucas alone. It was a plot. You know what he said--"

"Aye," he cried with bitter vehemence. "I shall remember for some time what he said. They would not kill me to make my cousin Valère duke! He was a man. But I--nom de dieu, I was not worth the killing."

"It is the League's scheming, monsieur."

"Oh, that does not need the saying. Secretaries don't plot against dukedoms on their own account. Some high man is behind Lucas--I dare swear his Grace of Mayenne himself. It is no secret now where Monsieur stands. Yet the king's party grows so strong and the mob so cheers Monsieur, the League dare not strike openly. So they put a spy in the house to choose time and way. And the spy would not stab, for he saw he could make me do his work for him. He saw I needed but a push to come to open breach with my father. He gave the push. Oh, he could make me pull his chestnuts from the fire well enough, burning my hands so that I could never strike a free blow again. I was to be their slave, their thrall forever!"

"Never that, monsieur; never that!"

"I am not so sure," he cried. "Had it not been for the advent of a stray boy from Picardie, I trow Lucas would have put his purpose through. I was blindfolded; I saw nothing. I knew my cousin Gervais to be morose and cruel; yet I had done him no harm; I had always stood his friend. I thought him shamefully used; I let myself be turned out of my father's house to champion him. I had no more notion he was plotting my ruin than a child playing with his dolls. I was their doll, mordieu! their toy, their crazy fool on a chain. But life is not over yet. To-morrow I go to pledge my sword to Henry of Navarre."

"Monsieur, if he comes to the faith--"

"Mordieu! faith is not all. Were he a pagan of the wilderness he were better than these Leaguers. He fights honestly and bravely and generously. He could have had the city before now, save that he will not starve us. He looks the other way, and the provision-trains come in. But the Leaguers, with all their regiments, dare not openly strike down one man,--one man who has come all alone into their country,--they put a spy into his house to eat his bread and betray him; they stir up his own kin to slay him, that it may not be called the League's work. And they are most Catholic and noble gentlemen! Nay, I am done with these pious plotters who would redden my hands with my father's blood and make me outcast and despised of all men. I have spent my playtime with the League; I will go work with Henry of Navarre!"

I caught his fire.

"By St. Quentin," I cried, "we will beat these Leaguers yet!"

He laughed, yet his eyes burned with determination.

"By St. Quentin, shall we! You and I, Félix, you and I alone will overturn the whole League! We will show them what we are made of. They think lightly of me. Why not? I never took part with my father. I lazed about in these gay Paris houses, bent on my pleasure, too shallow a fop even to take sides in the fight for a kingdom. What should they see in me but an empty-headed roisterer, frittering away his life in follies? But they will find I am something more. Well, enter there!"

He dropped back among the pillows, striving to look careless, as Maître Menard, the landlord, opened the door and stood shuffling on the threshold.

"Does M. le Comte sleep?" he asked me deferentially, though I think he could not but have heard M. Étienne's tirading half-way down the passage.

"Not yet," I answered. "What is it?"

"Why, a man came with a billet for M. le Comte and insisted it be sent in. I told him Monsieur was not to be disturbed; he had been wounded and was sleeping; I said it was not sense to wake him for a letter that would keep till morning. But he would have it 'twas of instant import, and so--"

"Oh, he is not asleep," I declared, eagerly ushering the maître in, my mind leaping to the conclusion, for no reason save my ardent wish, that Vigo had discovered our whereabouts.

"I dared not deny him further," added Maître Menard. "He wore the liveries of M. de Mayenne."

"Of Mayenne," I echoed, thinking of what M. Étienne had said. "Pardieu, it may be Lucas himself!" And snatching up my master's sword I dashed out of the door and was in the cabaret in three steps.

The room contained some score of men, but I, peering about by the uncertain candle-light, could find no one who in any wise resembled Lucas. A young gamester seated near the door, whom my sudden entrance had jostled, rose, demanding in the name of his outraged dignity to cross swords with me. On any other day I had deemed it impossible to say him nay, but now with a real vengeance, a quarrel à outrance on my hands, he seemed of no consequence at all. I brushed him aside as I demanded M. de Mayenne's man. They said he was gone. I ran out into the dark court and the darker street.

A tapster, lounging in the courtyard, had seen my man pass out, and he opined with much reason that I should not catch him. Yet I ran a hundred yards up street and a hundred yards down street, shouting on the name of Lucas, calling him coward and skulker, bidding him come forth and fight me. The whole neighbourhood became aware than I wanted one Lucas to fight: lights twinkled in windows; men, women, and children poured out of doors. But Lucas, if it were he, had for the second time vanished soft-footed into the night.

I returned with drooping tail to M. Étienne. He was alone, sitting up in bed awaiting me, his cheeks scarlet, his eyes blazing.

"He is gone," I panted. "I looked everywhere, but he was gone. Oh, if I caught Lucas--"

"You little fool!" he exclaimed. "This was not Lucas. Had you waited long enough to hear your name called, I had told you. This is no errand of Lucas but a very different matter."

He sat a moment, thinking, still with that glitter of excitement in his eyes. The next instant he threw off the bedclothes and started to rise.

"Get my clothes, Félix. I must go to the Hôtel de Lorraine."

But I flung myself upon him, pushing him back into bed and dragging the cover over him by main force.

"You can go nowhere, M. Étienne; it is madness. The surgeon said you must lie here for three days. You will get a fever in your wounds; you shall not go."

"Get off me, 'od rot you; you're smothering me," he gasped. Cautiously I relaxed my grip, still holding him down. He appealed: "Félix, I must go. So long as there is a spark of life left in me, I have no choice but to go."

"Monsieur, you said you were done with the Leaguers--with M. de Mayenne."

"Aye, so I did," he cried. "But this--but this is Lorance."

Then, at my look of mystification, he suddenly opened his hand and tossed me the letter he had held close in his palm.

I read:

_M. de Mar appears to consider himself of very little consequence, or of very great, since he is absent a whole month from the Hôtel de Lorraine. Does he think he is not missed? Or is he so sure of his standing that he fears no supplanting? In either case he is wrong. He is missed but he will not be missed forever. He may, if he will, be forgiven; or he may, if he will, be forgotten. If he would escape oblivion, let him come to-night, at the eleventh hour, to lay his apologies at the feet of_

LORANCE DE MONTLUC.

"And she--"

"Is cousin and ward to the Duke of Mayenne. Yes, and my heart's desire."

"Monsieur--"

"Aye, you begin to see it now," he cried vehemently. "You see why I have stuck to Paris these three years, why I could not follow my father into exile. It was more than a handful of pistoles caused the breach with Monsieur; more than a quarrel over Gervais de Grammont. That was the spark kindled the powder, but the train was laid."

"Then you, monsieur, were a Leaguer?"

"Nay, I was not!" he cried. "To my credit,--or my shame, as you choose,--I was not. I was neither one nor the other, neither fish nor flesh. My father thought me a Leaguer, but I was not. I was not disloyal, in deed at least, to the house that bore me. Monsieur reviled me for a skulker, a fainéant; nom de diable, he might have remembered his own three years of idleness!"

"Monsieur held out for his religion--"

"Mademoiselle is my religion," he cried, and then laughed, not merrily.

"Pardieu! for all my pains I have not won her. I have skulked and evaded and temporized--for nothing. I would not join the League and break my father's heart; would not stand out against it and lose Lorance. I have been trying these three years to please both the goat and the cabbage--with the usual ending. I have pleased nobody. I am out of Mayenne's books: he made me overtures and I refused him. I am out of my father's books: he thinks me a traitor and parricide. And I am out of mademoiselle's: she despises me for a laggard. Had I gone in with Mayenne I had won her. Had I gone with Monsieur I was sure of a command in King Henry's army. But I, wanting both, get neither. Between two stools, I fall miserably to the ground. I am but a dawdler, a do-nothing, the butt and laughing-stock of all brave men.

"But I am done with shilly-shally!" he added, catching his breath. "For once I shall do something. Mlle. de Montluc has given me a last chance. She has sent for me, and I go. If I fall dead on her threshold, I at least die looking at her."

"Monsieur, monsieur," I cried in despair, "you will not die looking at her, for you will die out here in the street, and that will profit neither you nor her, but only Lucas and his crew."

"That is as may be. At least I make the attempt. A month back I sent her a letter. I found it to-night in Lucas's doublet. She thinks me careless of her. I must go."

"Monsieur, you are mad," I cried. "You have said yourself Mayenne is likely to be behind Lucas. If you go you do but walk into the enemies' very jaws. It is a trap, a lure."

"Félix, beware what you say!" he interrupted with quick-blazing ire. "I do not permit such words to be spoken in connection with Mlle. de Montluc."

"But, monsieur--"

"Silence!" he commanded in a voice as sharp as crack of pistolet. The St. Quentins had ever the most abundant faith in those they loved. I remembered how Monsieur in just such a blaze of resentment had forbidden me to speak ill of his son. And I remembered, too, that Monsieur's faith had been justified and that my accusations were lies. Natheless, I liked not the look of this affair, and I attempted further warnings.

"Monsieur, in my opinion--"

"You are not here to hold opinions, Félix, but your tongue."

I did, at that, and stood back from the bed to let him do as it liked him. He rose and went over to the chair where his clothes lay, only to drop into it half swooning. I ran to the ewer and dashed half the water in it into his face.

"Peste, you need not drown me!" he cried testily. "I am well; it was but a moment's dizziness." He got up again at once, but was forced to seize my shoulder to keep from falling.

"It was that damnable potion he made me drink," he muttered. "I am all well else; I am not weak. Curse the room; it reels about like a ship at sea."

I put my arm about him and led him back to bed; nor did he argue about it but lay back with his eyes shut, so white against the white bed-linen I thought him fainted for sure. But before I could drench him again he raised his lids.

"Félix, will you go get a shutter? For I see clearly that I shall reach Mlle. de Montluc this night in no other way."

"Monsieur," I said, "I can go. I can tell your mistress you cannot walk across this room to-night. I can do my best for you, M. Étienne."

"My faith! I think I must e'en let you try. But what to bid you say to her--pardieu! I scarce know what I could say to her myself."

"I can tell her how sorely you are hurt--how you would come, but cannot."

"And make her believe it," he cried eagerly. "Do not let her think it a flimsy excuse. And yet I do think she will believe you," he added, with half a laugh. "There is something very trust-compelling about you, Félix. And assure her of my lifelong, never-failing service."

"But I thought monsieur was going to take service with Henry of Navarre."

"I was!" he cried. "I am! Oh, Félix, was ever a poor wight so harried and torn betwixt two as I? Whom Jupiter would destroy he first makes mad. I shall be gibbering in a cage before I have done with it."

"Monsieur will be gibbering in his bed unless he sleeps soon. I go now, monsieur."