XVTHE KING’S WORD
In a moment Lagardere enveloped himself in his gypsy’s cloak and flung himself on one of the benches of the Inn, where he lay as if wrapped in the heavy sleep which is the privilege of those that live in the open air and follow the stars with their feet. When the king, accompanied by Chavernay and followed by Bonnivet, crossed the bridge and paused before the Inn, nothing was to be noticed save the huddle of gray cloth which represented some tired wayfarer.
Louis of France looked about him curiously. "Is this the Inn of the Three Graces?" he asked.
He even allowed himself to laugh a small laugh.
The Marquis of Chavernay smiled a faint smile. "Yes, your majesty, and since I have been privileged to behold two of its three attendant graces in the flesh, and found them most commendable girls and goddesses, I think, without indiscretion, I could hazard a guess as to your reason for this visit."
The king looked at his impudent companion with the complaisant good-humor which, since his much-talked-of bereavement, he was prepared to extend to those most fortunate among his courtiers who could succeed in diverting his melancholy. He was familiar with Chavernay’s impertinences, for Chavernay had soon discovered that the witticisms which would have gained the frown of the cardinal earned the smiles of the king. "Truly," he said—"truly, I do come for an assignation, but it is with no woman. You boys think of nothing in the world but women."
Chavernay made the king a most sweeping reverence. "Your majesty would, if your majesty deigned to condescend so far, prove the most fatal rival of your most amorous subject."
Since the death of the cardinal, Louis liked it to be hinted that he was still the man of gallantry, irresistible when he pleased. So he smiled as he caught Chavernay’s ear and pinched it. "Imp, do you think you lads are the only gallants, and that we old soldiers must give way to you?"
Chavernay saluted him again. "You are our general, your majesty—we win our battles in your name."
Louis laughed and then looked grave, smiled again and then sighed. "My dear Chavernay, when you are my age you will think that one pretty woman is very like another pretty woman. But there is no pretty woman in this case."
Chavernay made a still more ironical bow. "Your majesty!" he said, with an air that implied: "Of course I must appear to believe you, but in reality I do not believe you at all." Chavernay was thinking to himself of the adorable creatures whom he had seen disappear within the walls of the Inn and the walls of the caravan, and he drew his conclusions accordingly, and drew them wrong. When the king answered him, he answered, gravely, as one who objects to have his word questioned even by a frivolous spirit like Chavernay.
"I come here," he said, "in reply to a letter I received two days ago—a letter which appeals to me by a name which compels me to consider the appeal. That is why I come here to-day. My correspondent makes it a condition that I come alone. Take Bonnivet with you. Keep within call, but out of sight."
Chavernay bowed very respectfully this time. The newest friends of Louis of France knew that they best pleased him by appearing to presume on his good-nature, but even the lightest and liveliest of them felt that there was a point beyond which he must not venture to presume. Chavernay felt instinctively that he had reached that point now, and his manner was a pattern to presentable courtiers.
"Yes, your majesty," he said, and turned to Bonnivet, and Bonnivet and he went over the bridge and out of sight among a little clump of trees on the roadside. From here they could see the king plainly enough, and hear him if he chose to raise his voice loud enough to call them, but here they were out of ear-shot of any private conversation. That their presence in the neighborhood was scarcely necessary they were both well aware, for there were few conspiracies against the king’s authority and no plots against the king’s life, and if Louis of France had chosen to go unattended his pompous, melancholy person would have been in no danger.
Louis walked slowly to the little table in the arbor, and, seating himself, took out a letter from his pocket and read it thoughtfully over. Then he drew a watch looped in diamonds from his pocket and looked at the hour. As he did so the huddled, seeming sleeping figure on the bench stiffened itself, sat up erect, and cast off its cloak.
Lagardere rose and advanced towards the king. "I am here," he said, in a firm, respectful voice.
Louis turned round and looked with curiosity but without apprehension at the man who addressed him, the man who was dressed like a gypsy, but who clearly was no gypsy. "Are you the writer of this letter?" he asked.
Lagardere saluted him with a graceful reverence. "Yes, your Majesty. I know that you are the King of France."
Louis slightly inclined his head. "I could not refuse a summons that promised to tell me of Louis de Nevers. Are you Lagardere?"
Lagardere made a gesture as of protest. "I am his ambassador. Have I the privilege of an ambassador?"
The king frowned slightly. "What privilege?"
"Immunity if my mission displeases you," Lagardere answered.
The king looked steadily at the seeming gypsy, who returned his glance as steadily. "You are bold, sir," he said.
Lagardere answered him, with composure. "I am bold because I address Louis of France, who never broke his word—Louis of France, who still holds dear the memory of Louis of Nevers."
The king signed to him to continue. "Speak freely. What do you know of Louis of Nevers?"
Lagardere went on: "Lagardere knows much. He knows who killed Nevers. He knows where Nevers’s child is. He can produce the child. He can denounce the murderer."
"When?" asked the king, eagerly.
"To-morrow," Lagardere answered. Then he hastened to add: "But he makes his conditions."
Louis frowned as Lagardere mentioned the word "conditions," and asked: "What reward does he want?"
Lagardere smiled at the question. "You do not know Lagardere. He asks for a safe-conduct for himself."
The king agreed. "He shall have it."
But Lagardere had more to ask. "He also wants four invitations for the ball your majesty gives at the Palais Royal to-morrow night."
Perhaps Lagardere showed himself something of a courtier in this speech. The great Richelieu had bequeathed to the little Louis his splendid dwelling-house, and Louis was indeed giving a stately entertainment there, avowedly in order to do honor to the memory of him who had made so munificent a gift, but in reality to prove to himself that he was master where he had been slave, and that he could, if he pleased, amuse himself to his heart’s content in the house that had been the dwelling of his tyrant. What Louis, always dissimulative, feigned to be an act of gracious homage to dead generosity was in truth an act of defiant and safe self-assertion. Perhaps Lagardere guessed as much. Certainly he played agreeably upon the king’s susceptibilities when he gave to Richelieu’s bequest the name of Palais Royal, which was still quite unfamiliar, instead of the name of Palais Cardinal, which it had worn so long and by which name almost every one still called it. Certainly the king’s pale cheeks reddened with satisfaction at the phrase; it assured him soothingly of what he was pleased to consider his triumph. But he allowed a slight expression of surprise to mingle with his air of complacency, and Lagardere hastened to give the reason for what was on the face of it a sufficiently strange request.
"There, before the flower of the nobility of France, Lagardere will denounce Nevers’s assassin and produce Nevers’s child."
The king agreed again. "He shall have his wish. Where shall the invitations be sent?"
Lagardere bowed low in acknowledgment of the promise. "Sire," he said, "an emissary from Lagardere will wait upon your secretary to-morrow morning He will say that he has come for four invitations promised by your majesty for to-morrow night, and he will back his demand with the password ’Nevers.’"
The king bowed his head. "It shall be done as you wish," he answered. "Is there anything more?" he asked, and Lagardere replied: "This much more: that your majesty speak nothing of this to any one till midnight to-morrow."
The king agreed a third time. "Lagardere has my word."
"Then," said Lagardere, "Lagardere will keep his word."
Louis rose to his feet, and signed that the interview was ended. "If he does, I am his friend for life. But if he fail, let him never enter France again, for on my word as a gentleman I will have his head."
He saluted Lagardere slightly, and turned and crossed the bridge. A few paces beyond it he was joined by Chavernay and Bonnivet. The three stood together for a few moments; then the king and Bonnivet continued their journey towards Neuilly, leaving Chavernay behind them, lingering in the shade of the trees.
XVISHADOWS
Lagardere looked thoughtfully after the departing monarch. "God save your majesty for a gallant man," he murmured to himself. "Now we may enter Paris in safety. Why, who is this?" He was about to enter the Inn, when he suddenly stopped and looked back sharply over the Neuilly road. To his surprise he saw that the light-heeled fop who had accompanied the king was retracing his steps in the direction of the bridge.
Lagardere asked himself what this could mean. Did the king suspect him? Was he sending this delicate courtier to question him, to spy upon him? He moved a little way across the stretch of common land, and stood at the side of the caravan so that he was concealed from any one crossing the bridge from Neuilly. As a matter of fact, Chavernay’s return had nothing whatever to do with the business which had brought the king to the Inn of the Three Graces. He had asked and gained permission to be free to pursue a pastime of his own, and that pastime was to try and learn something of the pretty lady whom he had frightened into the seclusion of the Inn, a pastime that he felt the freer to pursue now that the king’s assurance that he had visited the Three Graces for the sake of no woman.
So, dreaming of amorous possibilities, Chavernay came daintily across the bridge, very young, very self-confident, very impudent, very much enjoying himself. As he neared the Inn he looked about him nonchalantly, and, seeing that no one was in sight, he stooped and caught up a pebble from the roadway and flung it dexterously enough against the window above the Inn porch. Then he slipped, smiling mischievously, under the doorway of the Inn, and waited upon events. In a moment the window was opened, and Gabrielle looked out. "Is that you, Henri?" she asked, softly.
Instantly Chavernay emerged from his hiding-place, and stood bareheaded and bending almost double before the beautiful girl. "It was I," he said, with a manner of airy deference.
Gabrielle drew back a little. "You? Who are you?" she asked, astonished.
Chavernay again made her a reverence. "Your slave," he asserted.
Gabrielle remembered him now, and looked annoyed. "Sir!" she said, angrily.
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 Cæsar 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 Æsop, 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 Æsop as instantly as Æsop had recognized Lagardere. Æsop 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."
Æsop 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 Æsop, who watched him with folded arms and his familiar malevolent smile. When they were quite close, Æsop 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."
Æsop’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."
Æsop 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?"
Æsop 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."
Æsop 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 Æsop. 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.
XVIIIN 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 Æsop 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 Æsop 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 Æsop and addressed him, very pleasantly: "This, I think, will serve our purpose as well as any place in the world."
Æsop 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 Æsop, 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."
Æsop 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 Æsop 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 Æsop 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 Æsop 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 Æsop 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 Æsop, 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 Æsop 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 Æsop," 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 Æsop, 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 Æsop’s, he knew that Æsop’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 Æsop 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 Æsop 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, Æsop 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. Æsop 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 Æsop 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.
If, therefore, it was soon plain to him that the boast of the hunchback was true enough, and that his skill with his weapon had greatly bettered in the years that had elapsed since their previous encounter, Lagardere was rejoiced to find it so, as it gave a greater difficulty and a greater honor to his achievement. It was clear, too, from the expression on Æsop’s face, after the first few instants of the engagement, that he was made aware that his skill was not as the skill of Lagardere. He fought desperately, and yet warily, knowing that he was fighting for his life, and trying without success every cunning trick that he had learned in the fencing-schools of Spain. The thrust of Nevers he did not attempt, for of that he knew Lagardere commanded the parry, but there were other thrusts on which he relied to gain the victory, and each of these he tried in succession, only to be baffled by Lagardere’s instinctive steel.
Lagardere, watching him while they fought, hated his adversary for his own sake apart from his complicity in the crime of Caylus. Æsop was the incarnation of everything that was detestable in the eyes of a man like Lagardere. A splendid swordsman, his sword was always lightly sold to evil causes. He prostituted the noble weapon that Lagardere idolized to the service of the assassin, the advantage of the bully, and the revenge of the coward. He would have felt no scruple about slaying him, even if Æsop had not been, as now he was, a dangerous and unexpected enemy in his path.
Æsop, unable to make Lagardere break ground, and unable to get within Lagardere’s guard, now began to taunt his antagonist savagely, calling him a child-stealer and a woman-wronger, with other foul terms of abuse that rolled glibly from his lips in the ugliness of his rage and fear.
Lagardere listened with his quiet smile, and when the hunchback made a pause he answered him with scornful good-humor. "You waste your breath, Master Æsop," he said, "and you should be saving it for your prayers, if you know any, or for your fighting wind, if there is nothing of salvation in you. You are a very base knave. I do not think you ever did an honest, a kindly, or a generous deed in your life. I know that you have done many vile things, and would do more if time were given to you; but the time is denied, Master Æsop, and yet you may serve a good cause in your death."
Even as he spoke Lagardere’s tranquillity of defence suddenly changed into rapidity of attack. His blade leaped forward, made sudden swift movements which the bravo strove in vain to parry, and then Æsop dropped his sword and fell heavily upon the grass. He was dead, dead of the thrust in the face, exactly between the eyes, the thrust of Nevers.
Lagardere leaned over his dead enemy and smiled. His account against the assassins of Caylus was being slowly paid; but never had any item of that account been annulled with less regret. The others—Staupitz, Saldagno, Pinto, and the rest—had been ruffianly creatures enough, but there was a kind of honesty, a measure of courage in their ruffianism. They were, at least some of them, good-hearted in their way, true to their comrades and their leaders; but of the ignoble wretch that now lay a huddle of black at his feet, Lagardere knew nothing that was not loathsome, and he knew much of Master Æsop.
Lagardere stooped and gathered a handful of grass, wiped his sword and sheathed it.
"Yes," he said, apostrophizing the dead body, "you shall serve a good cause now, Master Æsop, if you have never served a good cause yet."
He looked anxiously about him as he spoke to make sure that the solitude was still undisturbed. There was not a human being within sight on either bank of the river. This quiet, this isolation, were very welcome to his temper just then, for the purpose that had come into Lagardere’s mind at the commencement of the combat had matured, had ripened during its course into a feasible plan. It had its risks, but what did that matter in an enterprise that was all risk; and if it succeeded, as, thanks to its very daring, it might succeed, it promised a magnificent reward. That it involved the despoiling of a dead body in no way harassed Lagardere. He was never one to let himself be squeamish over trifles where a great cause was at stake, and, though much that was inevitable to the success of his scheme was repellent to him, he choked down his disgust and faced his duty with a smile. Quickly he dragged the body of his dead enemy into the shelter and seclusion of the orchard-trees. There, rolling Æsop on his face, he proceeded nimbly and dexterously to strip his clothes from his body. Soon the black coat, black vest, black breeches, black stockings, black boots, and black hat lay in a pile of sable raiment on the orchard grass. As he garnered his spoil, a little book dropped from the pocket of the black coat and lay upon the grass. Lagardere picked it up and opened it with a look of curiosity that speedily changed to one of aversion, for the book was a copy in Italian of theLuxurious Sonnetsof Messer Pietro Arentino, which Lagardere, who knew Italian, found at a glance to be in no way to his taste, and the little book had pictures in it which pleased him still less. With a grunt of disgust at this strange proof of the dead man’s taste in literature, Lagardere stepped to the edge of the orchard, and, holding the volume in his finger and thumb, pitched it over the open space into the river, where it sank. Having thus easily got rid of the book, Lagardere began to cast about him for some way to dispose of the body.
The boats that lay alongside of the little landing-stage caught his eye. Lifting Master Æsop’s corpse from the ground, he trailed it to the crazy structure, and placed it in the oldest and most ramshackle of the two weather-worn vessels. After untying the rope that fastened the boat to its wharf, Lagardere caught up a boat-hook that lay hard by, and, raising it as if it were a spear, he drove it with all his strength against the bottom of the boat and knocked a ragged hole in its rotting timbers. Then, with a vigorous push, he sent the boat out upon the smooth, swift river.
The vigor of its impetus carried the boat nearly out to the middle of the stream before the river could take advantage of the leak. Then, in a few minutes, Lagardere saw the strangely burdened craft slowly sink and finally settle beneath the surface of the stream.
When the boat and its burden were out of sight, and the water ran as smoothly as if it were troubled with no such secret, Lagardere turned, and, gathering up the garments of his antagonist as a Homeric hero would have collected his fallen enemy’s armor, rolled them into as small a bundle as possible, and, putting them under his arm, made his way cautiously back to the Inn.
He gained its shelter unperceived. Unperceived and noiselessly he ascended the stairs which led to his room, and, opening the door, flung his bundle upon the ground. He then closed the door again, and, going a little farther down the corridor, knocked at an adjoining door, which immediately opened, and Gabrielle stood before him looking pale and anxious. Lagardere smiled cheerfully at her, and, taking from his coat the white rose which he had plucked in the garden, offered it to her.
The girl caught it and pressed it to her lips, and then asked, eagerly: "The man—where is the man? What has become of him?"
Lagardere affected an air of surprise, and then, with the manner of one who thought the matter of no importance, answered her: "You mean my friend in black who spoke to me just now?"
The girl nodded. "Yes," she said, "he seemed evil, he seemed dangerous."
Lagardere smiled reassuringly. "Evil he may be," he said, "but not dangerous—no, not dangerous. Indeed, I am inclined to think he will be more useful to us than otherwise."
"But he seemed to threaten you," the girl protested.
Lagardere admitted the fact. "He was a little threatening at first," he agreed, "but I have managed to pacify him, and he will not trouble us any more."
He took the girl’s cold hand and kissed it reverentially. "Gabrielle," he said, "we go to Paris to-day, but till I come for you and tell you it is time for us to depart I want you to remain in this chamber. You will do this for me, will you not?"
"I will always do whatever you wish," the girl answered, and her eyes filled with tears.
Lagardere was filled with the longing to clasp her in his arms, but he restrained himself, again kissed her hand with the same air of tender devotion, and motioned to her to enter her room. When she had closed the door he returned to his own room, and there, with amazing swiftness, divested himself of his outer garments and substituted for them those of the dead Æsop.
Producing a small box from a battered portmantle that stood in a corner, he produced certain pigments from it, and, facing a cracked fragment of unframed looking-glass that served for a mirror, proceeded with the skill of an experienced actor to make certain changes in his appearance.
His curiously mobile face he distorted at once into an admirable likeness to the hunchback, and then, this initial likeness thus acquired, he heightened and intensified it by few but skilful strokes of coloring matter. Then he dexterously rearranged his hair to resemble the hunchback’s dishevelled locks, compelling its curls to fall about his transformed face and shade it. Finally he surmounted all with the hunchback’s hat, placed well forward on his forehead. He gave a smile of satisfaction at the result of his handiwork, and the smile was the malign smile of Æsop.
"That is good enough," he murmured, "to deceive a short-sighted fellow like Peyrolles, and as for his Highness of Gonzague, he has not seen me for so many years that there will be no difficulty with him."
He glanced at his new raiment with an expression of distaste. "When I get to Paris," he mused, "I will shift these habiliments. It is all very well to play the bird of prey, but it is somewhat unpleasant to wear the bird’s own feathers."