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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Duke's Motto, by Justin Huntly McCarthy
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Duke's Motto
+       A Melodrama
+
+Author: Justin Huntly McCarthy
+
+Release Date: March 7, 2009 [EBook #28266]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUKE'S MOTTO ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by D Alexander, Tim Krajcar and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
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+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           THE DUKE'S MOTTO
+
+                             A MELODRAMA
+
+                                  BY
+                        JUSTIN HUNTLY McCARTHY
+
+                              AUTHOR OF
+           "SERAPHICA" "IF I WERE KING" "THE PROUD PRINCE"
+                              ETC. ETC.
+
+
+                         NEW YORK AND LONDON
+                     HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
+                               MCMVIII
+
+
+
+
+                              NOVELS BY
+                        JUSTIN HUNTLY McCARTHY
+
+          THE GORGEOUS BORGIA.  Post 8vo              $1.50
+          SERAPHICA.  Post 8vo                         1.50
+          THE DUKE'S MOTTO.  Post 8vo                  1.50
+          IF I WERE KING.  Illustrated.  Post 8vo      1.50
+          MARJORIE.  Illustrated.  Post 8vo            1.50
+          THE DRYAD.  Post 8vo                         1.50
+          THE LADY OF LOYALTY HOUSE.  Post 8vo         1.50
+          THE PROUD PRINCE.  Post 8vo                  1.50
+          THE FLOWER OF FRANCE.  Post 8vo              1.50
+          THE ILLUSTRIOUS O'HAGAN.  Post 8vo           1.50
+          NEEDLES AND PINS. Illustrated.  Post 8vo     1.50
+
+                 HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, N. Y.
+
+                       Published August, 1908.
+
+
+
+
+                               DEDICACE
+
+
+                          A VICTORIEN SARDOU
+
+MAITRE,
+
+Voila un melodrame que j'ai fait, le dernier de plusieurs melodrames
+anglais qui ont Lagardere pour heros. Des mots remplacent l'action, des
+mots remplacent le decor, les costumes, et les accessoires; mais enfin ce
+pastiche n'est qu'une piece et non un roman. Je l'ai fait pour Lewis
+Waller, acteur romantique s'il en fut, et grandement doue des qualites
+qui appartiennent par tradition a Lagardere. J'ai su, il y a longtemps,
+grace a M. Jules Claretie, que vous etiez le vrai createur de ce paladin,
+Lagardere, pair de d'Artagnan, pair de Cyrano, pair presque de Roland et
+d'Olivier. Et si je ne l'avais pas su, j'aurais pu l'apprendre
+dernierement en lisant ce livre aussi plein de charme que d'erudition,
+"Les Anciens Theatres de Paris" de M. Georges Cain. Mais je crois que
+cette verite est connue de peu de monde dans les pays ou se parle la
+langue anglaise, que quand on loue "Le Bossu" de Feval on doit aussi
+louer "Le Bossu" de Sardou.
+
+XIV-I.-MCMVIII.
+
+
+
+
+                               CONTENTS
+
+       I.  THE SEVEN DEVILS                     1
+      II.  THE THRUST OF NEVERS                13
+     III.  A BUYER OF BLADES                   32
+      IV.  THE LITTLE PARISIAN                 48
+       V.  THE PARRY TO THE THRUST OF NEVERS   62
+      VI.  THE MOAT OF CAYLUS                  73
+     VII.  BROTHERS-IN-ARMS                    82
+    VIII.  THE FIGHT IN THE MOAT               91
+      IX.  THE SCYTHE OF TIME                 100
+       X.  A VILLAGE FAIR                     108
+      XI.  AESOP REDUX                        114
+     XII.  FLORA                              124
+    XIII.  CONFIDENCES                        132
+     XIV.  "I AM HERE!"                       139
+      XV.  THE KING'S WORD                    152
+     XVI.  SHADOWS                            159
+    XVII.  IN THE GARDEN                      172
+   XVIII.  THE FACTION OF GONZAGUE            185
+     XIX.  THE HALL OF THE THREE LOUIS        198
+      XX.  A CONFIDENTIAL AGENT               209
+     XXI.  THE PRINCESS DE GONZAGUE           219
+    XXII.  THE FAMILY COUNCIL                 225
+   XXIII.  THE KING'S BALL                    237
+    XXIV.  THE ROSE-COLORED DOMINO            247
+     XXV.  THE GLOVE OF COCARDASSE            257
+    XXVI.  THE REWARD OF AESOP                266
+   XXVII.  AESOP IN LOVE                      278
+  XXVIII.  THE SIGNATURE OF AESOP             290
+    XXIX.  THE DEAD SPEAKS                    298
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE SEVEN DEVILS
+
+
+It was very warm in the inn room, but it was so much warmer outside, in
+the waning flames of the late September evening, that the dark room
+seemed veritably cool to those who escaped into its shelter from the
+fading sunlight outside. A window was open to let in what little air was
+stirring, and from that window a spectator with a good head might look
+down a sheer drop of more than thirty feet into the moat of the Castle of
+Caylus. The Inn of the Seven Devils was perched on the lip of one rock,
+and Caylus Castle on the lip of another. Between the two lay the gorge,
+which had been partially utilized to form the moat of the castle, and
+which continued its way towards the Spanish mountains. Beyond the castle
+a bridge spanned the ravine, carrying on the road towards the frontier.
+The moat itself was dry now, for war and Caylus had long been
+disassociated, and France was, for the moment, at peace with her
+neighbor, if at peace with few other powers. A young thirteenth Louis, a
+son of the great fourth Henri, now sat upon the throne of France, and
+seemingly believed himself to be the ruler of his kingdom, though a newly
+made Cardinal de Richelieu held a different opinion, and acted according
+to his conviction with great pertinacity and skill.
+
+Inside the Inn of the Seven Devils, on this heavy day of early autumn,
+seven men were sitting. It was an odd chance, and the men had joked about
+it heavily--there was one man for each devil of the Inn's name. Six of
+these men were grouped about a table furnished with flagons and beakers,
+and were doing their best to alleviate the external heat by copious
+draughts of the rough but not unkindly native wine which Martine, the
+plain-faced maid of the Inn, dispensed generously enough from a ruddy
+earthenware pitcher. A stranger entering the room would, at the first
+glance, have taken the six men seated around the table for soldiers, for
+all were stalwart fellows, with broad bodies and long limbs, bronzed
+faces and swaggering carriage, and behind them where they sat six great
+rapiers dangled from nails in the wall, rapiers which the revellers had
+removed from their sides for their greater ease and comfort. But if the
+suppositious stranger were led to study the men a little more closely, he
+would be tempted to correct his first impression. The swaggering carriage
+of the men lacked something of the stiffness inevitably to be associated
+with military training in the days when the levies of the Sun-King were
+held, or at least held themselves to be, the finest troops in Europe, a
+cheerful opinion which no amount of military misfortune could dissipate.
+
+Each of the drinkers of the inn had his own individuality of swagger, his
+truculent independence of mien, which suggested a man by no means
+habitually used either to receive commands or to render unquestioning
+obedience. Each of the men resembled his fellows in a certain flamboyant
+air of ferocity, but no one of them resembled the others by wearing that
+air of harmonious training with other men which links together a company
+of seasoned soldiers. With their long cloaks and their large hats and
+their high boots, with their somewhat shabby garments stained with age
+and sweat and wine, in many places patched and in many places tattered,
+with their tangled locks and ragged mustachios, the revellers had on
+closer study more the appearance of brigands, or at least of guerillas,
+than of regular troops. As a matter of fact, they were neither soldiers
+nor brigands, though their way of life endowed them with some of the
+virtues of the soldier and most of the vices of the brigand.
+
+There was not a man in that room who lacked courage of the fiercest kind;
+there was but one man in the room with intelligence enough to appreciate
+the possibility of an existence uncoupled with the possession of courage
+of the fiercest kind. There was not a man in the room who had the
+slightest fear of death, save in so far as death meant the cessation of
+those privileges of eating grossly, drinking grossly, and loving grossly,
+which every man of the jack-rascals prized not a little. There was not a
+man in the room that was not prepared to serve the person, whoever he
+might be, who had bought his sword to strike and his body to be stricken,
+so long as the buyer and the bought had agreed upon the price, and so
+long as the man who carried the sword felt confident that the man who
+dandled the purse meant to meet his bargain.
+
+These were the soldierly virtues. But, further, there was not a man in
+the room who would have felt the smallest compunction in cutting any
+man's throat if he had full pockets, or shaming any woman's honor if she
+had good looks. These were their brigand's vices. Fearless in their
+conduct, filthy in their lives, the assembled rogues were as ugly a bunch
+of brutalities as ever sprawled in a brothel, brawled in a tavern, or
+crawled from some dark corner to cut down their unsuspicious prey.
+
+The six fellows that sat around the wine-stained, knife-notched table of
+the Inn of the Seven Devils had little in them to interest a serious
+student of humanity, if such a one had chanced, for his misfortune, to
+find his way to that wicked wine-house on that wicked evening. There were
+differences of nationality among the half-dozen; that was plain enough
+from their features and from their speech, for though they all talked, or
+thought they talked, in French, each man did his speaking with an accent
+that betrayed his nativity. As the babbling voices rose and fell in
+alternations of argument that was almost quarrel, narrative that was
+sometimes diverting, and ribaldry that was never wit, it would seem as if
+the ruffianism of half Europe had called a conference in that squalid,
+horrible little inn. Guttural German notes mixed whimsically with
+sibilant Spanish and flowing Portuguese. Cracked Biscayan--which no
+Spaniard will allow to be Spanish--jarred upon the suavity of Italian
+accents, and through the din the heavy steadiness of a Breton voice could
+be heard asserting itself. Though every man spoke in French, for the
+purposes of the common parliament, each man swore in his own tongue; and
+they all swore briskly and crisply, with a seemingly inexhaustible
+vocabulary of blasphemy and obscenity, so that the foul air of that inn
+parlor was rendered fouler still by the volley of oaths--German, Spanish,
+Italian, Portuguese, Biscayan, and Breton--that were fired into its
+steaming, stinking atmosphere. So much for the six men that sat at the
+table.
+
+The seventh man in the room, although he was of the same fellowship, was
+curiously unlike his fellows. While the others were burly, well-set-up
+fellows, who held their heads high enough and thrust out their chests
+valiantly and sprawled their strong limbs at ease, the seventh man was a
+hunchback, short of stature and slender of figure, with a countenance
+whose quiet malignity contrasted decisively with the patent brutality of
+his comrades. The difference between the one and the others was
+accentuated even in dress, for, while the swashbucklers at the table
+loved to bedizen themselves with an amount of ferocious finery, and
+showed in their sordid garments a quantity of color that likened them to
+a bunch of faded wild flowers, the hunchback was clad soberly in black
+that was well-worn, indeed, and grizzled at the seams, but neatly
+attended. He sat in the window, reading intently in a little volume, and,
+again unlike his associates, while he read he nursed between his knees a
+long and formidable rapier. Those at the table paid him no heed; most of
+them knew his ways, and he, on his side, seemed to be quite undisturbed
+in his studies by the noise and clamor of the drinking-party, and to be
+entirely absorbed in the delights of literature.
+
+But if the hunchback student was quite content to let his companions be,
+and to find his pleasures in scholarship of a kind, it came about that
+one of his companions, in a misguided moment, found himself less content
+to leave the hunchback student undisturbed. It was the one of the company
+that knew least about him--Pinto the Biscayan, newest recruit in that
+huddle of ruffians, and therefore the less inclined than his fellows to
+let a sleeping dog lie. He had been drinking deeply, for your Biscayans
+are potent topers, and in the course of his cups he discovered that it
+irritated him to see that quiet, silent figure perched there in the
+window with its wry body as still as if it had been snipped out of
+cardboard, with its comical long nose poked over a book, with its
+colorless puckered lips moving, as if the reader muttered to himself the
+meaning of what he read, and tasted an unclean pleasure in so doing. So
+Pinto pulled himself to his feet, steadied himself with the aid of the
+table edge, and then, with a noiseless dexterity that showed the
+practised assassin, whose talent it is to pad in shadows, he crossed the
+room and came up behind the hunchback before the hunchback was, or seemed
+to be, aware of his neighborhood.
+
+"What are you reading?" he hiccoughed. "Let us have a peep at it." And
+before the hunchback could make an answer Pinto had picked the book
+quickly from the hunchback's fingers and held it to his own face to see
+what it told about.
+
+Now it would have profited Biscayan Pinto very little if he had been
+given time to study the volume, at least so far as its text was
+concerned, for the little book was a manuscript copy of the _Luxurious
+Sonnets_ of that Pietro Aretino whom men, or rather some men, once called
+"The Divine." The book was illustrated as well, not unskilfully, with
+sketches that professed to be illuminative of the text in the manner of
+Giulio Romano. These might have pleased the Biscayan, for if he had no
+Italian, and could, therefore, make nothing of the voluptuousness of the
+Scourge of Princes, he could, at least, see as well as another savage the
+meaning of a lewd image. But the privilege was denied him. Scarcely had
+he got the book in his fingers when it was plucked from them again, and
+thereafter, while with his left hand the hunchback slipped the booklet
+into the breast of his doublet, with his right hand he dealt Pinto such a
+buffet on the side of his head as sent him reeling across the floor, to
+bring up with a dull thud at the table against the backs of his nearest
+companions.
+
+Instantly all was tumult. Pinto, black with anger, screamed Biscayan
+maledictions and struggled to get at his sword where it hung against the
+wall, while his comrades, clinging to him and impeding him, were trying
+in every variety of bad French to dissuade him from a purpose which they
+were well enough aware must needs end disastrously for him. For they all
+knew, what the raw Biscayan did not know, how strong was the arm and how
+terrible the sword of the hunchback whose studies Pinto had so rudely and
+so foolishly interrupted. As for the hunchback himself, he stood quietly
+by his chair, with his hands resting on the pommel of his rapier, and a
+disagreeable smile twisting new hints of malignity into features that
+were malign enough in repose. Now it may be that the sight of that
+frightful smile had its effect in cooling the hot blood of the Biscayan,
+for, indeed, the hunchback, as he stood there, so quietly alert, so
+demoniacally watchful, seemed the most terrible antagonist he had ever
+challenged. At least, in a little while the Biscayan, drinking in swiftly
+the warnings of his companions, consented to be pacified, consented even
+to be apologetic on a whispered hint, that was also a whispered threat,
+from his leader, that there should be no brawling among friends.
+
+"It was only a joke, comrade," he said, sullenly, and flung himself
+heavily into his empty seat. The hunchback nodded grimly.
+
+"I like a joke as well as any man," he said, "and can make one myself if
+occasion serve."
+
+Therewith he seated himself anew, and, pulling the book from his bosom,
+resumed his reading and his silent mouthing, while something of a gloom
+brooded over his fellows at the table. It was to dissipate this gloom
+that presently the man who sat at the head of the table, a bald and
+red-faced fellow who looked a German, and who seemed to exercise some
+kind of headship over the others, pushed back his chair a little from the
+board and glanced half anxiously and half angrily towards the inn door.
+Then he thumped his red fist upon the wood till the flagons clattered and
+rattled.
+
+"Why don't the late dogs come to heel?" he grumbled, speaking with a
+strong Teutonic accent. "It is long past the hour, and I like
+punctuality."
+
+A Spaniard at his right hand, swarthy, not ill-looking, whom his friends
+called Pepe el Matador, grinned into the German's face.
+
+"Will not this string of swords serve the turn?" he said, and pointed
+with a dirty, well-shaped hand to the six long rapiers that hung against
+the wall behind them.
+
+The Italian, Faenza, began to laugh a little, quiet, teasing laugh; the
+sullen Biscayan, Pinto, patted el Matador on the back; Joel de Jurgan the
+Breton, stared stolidly; and Saldagno the Portuguese, refreshed himself
+with a drink. Encouraged by what he conceived to be the sympathy of his
+comrades, Pepe renewed the attack. "Come, Staupitz, come," he questioned,
+"are not those swords long enough and sharp enough to scare the devil?"
+
+Staupitz struck the table again. "No, no, my children," he said, "not for
+this job. Monsieur Peyrolles told me to bring nine of my babies, and nine
+we must be, and nine we should be at this moment if our truants were at
+hand."
+
+At this moment Saldagno set down his beaker. "I hear footsteps," he said.
+In the momentary silence which followed this remark, all present could
+hear distinctly enough the tramp of feet outside, and in another instant
+the door was flung open and the two men whom Staupitz had been expecting
+so impatiently made their appearance.
+
+If the contrast had been marked between the six men who sat at the table
+and the seventh man who sat apart, the contrast that existed between the
+two new-comers was still more striking. The first to enter was a big,
+jovial, red-faced, black-haired man with a huge mustache and a manner
+that suggested an ebullient admiration of himself and an ebullient
+appreciation of all possible pleasures. He was habited much like his
+predecessors, in that he was booted, cloaked, hatted, and sworded as they
+were booted, cloaked, hatted, and sworded, but everything with him,
+owing, it may be, to his flagrant Gascon nationality, tended to an
+extravagance of exaggeration that made him seem almost like a caricature
+of the others. His hat was bigger, his cloak more voluminous, his boots
+more assertive, his sword longer, his taste for colors at once more
+pronounced and more gaudy. If the others might be likened in their
+coloring to faded wild flowers, this man seemed to blaze like some
+monstrous exotic. He was a swashbuckler whom Callot would have loved to
+paint.
+
+While he entered the room with his air of splendid assurance that
+suggested that the Inn belonged to him, and greeted those that awaited
+him with such a nod as a monarch might accord to his vassals, he was
+followed by one that showed in almost every particular his opposite. This
+one, that represented an extreme of Norman character as his ally
+represented an extreme of Gascon character, this one that seemed to
+shelter timidly behind the effulgence of his companion, was a lean,
+lanky, pallid fellow, clad wholly in black of a rustier and shabbier kind
+than that worn by the reader in the window. From beneath his dingy black
+felt hat thin wisps of flaxen hair flowed ridiculously enough about his
+scraggy neck. While his Gascon comrade entered the room with the manner
+of one who carries all before him, the Norman seemed to creep, or rather
+to slink, in with lack-lustre eyes peering apologetically about him
+through lowered pink eyelids, while his twitching fingers appeared to
+protest apologetically for his intrusion into a society so far above his
+deserts. But if in almost every particular he was the opposite to his
+friend, in one particular, however, he resembled him, for a long rapier
+hung from his side and slapped against his lean calves.
+
+In a further regard, moreover, the two new-comers, however different they
+might seem in build of body and in habit of apparel, resembled each other
+more closely than they resembled any of the earlier occupants of the Inn
+room. There are castes in rascality as in all other trades, classes,
+professions, and mysteries, honorable or dishonorable, and this latest
+pair of knaves belonged patently to the more amiable caste of
+ruffianism--a higher or a lower caste, as you may be pleased to look at
+it. In the bold eyes of the gaudily clad Gascon, as in the uneasy eyes of
+the sable-coated Norman, there was a quality of candor which might be
+sought for in vain among the rogues that greeted them. Certainly neither
+the Gascon nor the Norman would have seemed reassuring figures to a timid
+traveller on a lonely road, and yet there was, as it were, a kind of
+gentility in their composition which would have been obvious to a reader
+of men, and would have approved them as, in their way and of their race,
+trustworthy. Here, the reader of men would say, are a brace of assassins
+who hold a sort of honor in their hearts, who would never skulk in a
+corner to stab an enemy in the back, nor wrong a wretched woman who
+plainly was unwilling to be wronged--a brace of heroes. And the reader of
+men would for once in a way, have been in the right.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE THRUST OF NEVERS
+
+
+At the sight of the two men, the ruffians at the table set up a roar of
+welcome and bumped their mugs lustily upon the board to a chorus of
+greeting, in which the names of Cocardasse and Passepoil were repeated in
+a variety of accents from German to Italian, from Portuguese to Biscayan,
+from Spanish to Breton, but in all cases with the same degree of
+enthusiasm and admiration. The big, gaudy fellow, patently pleased by the
+tribute, struck a magnificent attitude and extended a benedictory hand
+towards the drinkers. "Courage, chanticleers!" he shouted--"comrades
+all," and, advancing towards the table, gave Staupitz a lusty slap on the
+back, while Passepoil, following nervously behind him, whispered beneath
+his breath and behind his lifted hand a timid "Greeting, gentlemen,"
+which was hardly audible in the buzz of voices. But while Cocardasse was
+busy engaging clasps of the hand with the men of many nationalities who
+had been waiting for him, the attention of Passepoil was entirely
+diverted by the appearance of the Inn maid, Martine, who at that moment
+appeared upon the scene with a fresh pitcher of wine in honor of the
+fresh arrivals. The lean and pale man blushed and sighed as he saw her.
+Those in the room that knew the Norman were well aware that love of woman
+was his weakness, and they paid no heed to his attempted philandering,
+taking it, so far as they thought of it at all, as a matter of course and
+honest Passepoil's way.
+
+Though Martine was as little comely as need be, she was still a woman,
+and a woman Passepoil had never seen before, and, sidling towards her, he
+endeavored to enter into amicable conversation, which was received but
+indifferently well. By this time Cocardasse had finished his greetings,
+and, drawing back a step or two, surveyed the company with a look of
+satisfaction not unmingled with astonishment.
+
+"Why, Papa Staupitz," he said, "here we have many friends and all fine
+blades. This is indeed a pleasure party." His eyes travelled from the
+table to the window, where the man in black still sat and read quite
+unconcernedly. Something like surprise puckered Cocardasse's rubicund
+face. "You here, AEsop?" he questioned.
+
+The man whom he called AEsop looked up for a moment from his book and
+shrugged his shoulders. "Devil knows why!" he said. "If they want me,
+they don't want the others. If they want the others, they don't want
+me."
+
+His remarks were interrupted by a slight scuffle between Passepoil and
+Martine. Passepoil had so far conquered his natural timidity as to go to
+the length of soliciting a kiss from the Inn maid. She had successfully
+repulsed him with a slap on each of his cheeks, and had slipped from the
+room. While Passepoil was rubbing his face ruefully, AEsop went on,
+sardonically:
+
+"What do you think of it, friend Cocardasse? Here we are, nine of us,
+nine picked swordsmen, and we are going to fight one man."
+
+Cocardasse had returned to the table and filled himself a monstrous
+measure of wine. He was thirsty, an habitual state with him, and he eyed
+the rough wine lovingly.
+
+"Who is the giant who is going to fight nine of us?" he asked as he
+lifted his cup from the board.
+
+Passepoil, who, enjoying like his comrade an abiding drought, had
+followed his example, hoping to find consolation in wine for the
+disappointments of love, also expressed his surprise.
+
+"Every man of us can fight three men at a time," he whispered, timidly,
+and he, too, lifted his glass.
+
+"Who is the man, anyhow?" said Cocardasse, cheerfully, making the wine
+swing in the vessel; and Staupitz answered him, slowly:
+
+"Louis, Duke of Nevers."
+
+The effect of this simple speech upon the new-comers was exceedingly
+remarkable. Cocardasse seemed suddenly to forget his thirst, for he set
+down his untasted mug upon the table. Passepoil did the like. "Oh!" said
+Cocardasse, solemnly. "Ah!" said Passepoil, gloomily.
+
+For a few appreciable seconds of strained excitement to those that
+watched them the pair remained rigid, staring at their rejected
+wine-cups, as if the liquor they contained had some monstrous Medusa-like
+property of stiffening into stone all those that presumed to drink of it.
+Then the Gascon, slowly turning his head, gazed steadfastly at the
+Norman; and the Norman, slowly turning his head, gazed steadfastly at the
+Gascon, and then the pair, so gazing, both wagged their polls very
+solemnly indeed, and puckered their eyebrows and betrayed many other very
+visible signs of dissatisfaction, not to say of discomfort. Then
+Cocardasse muttered to his comrade the words "Louis de Nevers," as if
+they were not at all to his liking, and Passepoil, in his turn, repeated
+the words, as if they were not at all to his liking, and then they both
+sighed and grunted and were silent.
+
+The look of stupefaction, not to say consternation, on the faces of the
+new arrivals was patent to every man in the room--most patent and most
+unpalatable to the leader of the gang. Staupitz thrust his red, Teutonic
+face forward with a mocking look and a mocking voice as he grunted:
+"Seems to me you don't relish the job."
+
+Cocardasse nodded at him with perfect affability, and patted his shoulder
+with a massive, red hand. "Papa Staupitz," he said, good-humoredly, "you
+read me like a book."
+
+"In the largest print," added Passepoil, who generally supplemented any
+remark of his comrade with some approving comment of his own.
+
+Staupitz swung round in his chair, upsetting a tankard in his angry
+movement, as he glared, all rage, at the strangely assorted pair. "Are
+you afraid?" he asked, with guttural contempt.
+
+Cocardasse grinned and showed his large, dog-like teeth. "I am not afraid
+of you, Papa Staupitz," he said, quite cheerfully, "nor of any man in
+this room, nor of all the men in this room."
+
+Passepoil added, stammering in his speech, blinking his pink eyelids
+rapidly: "If any gentleman doubts the point, there is a pleasant bit of
+kitchen garden outside where we can adjourn and argue the matter
+pleasantly together, as gentlemen should."
+
+Nobody present seemed inclined to pick a quarrel either with the
+ebullient Gascon or the hesitating Norman. The six bullies at the table
+knew well enough, and savage, masterful AEsop at the window knew well
+enough, that the swaggering Gascon was the first fencing-master in Paris,
+and that his colleague, the Norman, for all his air of ineffable
+timidity, was only second to him in skill with the weapon and readiness
+to use it. There was a moment's silence, and then Cocardasse observed:
+"I'm afraid of just two men in the world."
+
+"The same with me," added Passepoil, humbly.
+
+Cocardasse resumed his interrupted speech: "And one of them is Louis de
+Nevers."
+
+Staupitz's puzzled, angry face travelled round the room, ranging over the
+Gascon, the Norman, the Spaniard, the Portuguese, the Biscayan, the
+Breton, and the hunchback. "Thunder and weather!" he cried; "is not nine
+to one good enough odds for you?"
+
+The others, with the exception of AEsop, who still seemed to read as
+peacefully in his book as if he were alone in the room, appeared inclined
+to applaud the question of their chief, but Cocardasse was not in the
+least impressed by the retort. He replied to Staupitz's query with
+another--"Have you never heard of the secret thrust of Nevers?"
+
+A new silence seemed to fall upon the company, and for the second time
+since the Gascon and the Norman had entered the room the hunchback took a
+part in the conversation, closing his book as he did so, but carefully
+keeping a finger between the pages to mark the place. "I don't believe in
+secret thrusts," he said, decisively.
+
+The Gascon moved a little away from Staupitz and a little nearer to AEsop,
+whom he looked at fixedly. The hunchback sustained his gaze with his
+habitual air of cold indifference. Cocardasse spoke: "You will, if you
+ever face Louis de Nevers. Now, Passepoil, here, and I, we are, I
+believe, held in general repute as pretty good swordsmen--"
+
+Passepoil interrupted, stuttering furiously in his excitement: "But he
+touched us with that secret thrust in our own school in Paris--"
+
+Cocardasse completed his friend's statement: "Three times, here on the
+forehead, just between the eyes."
+
+Passepoil labored his point: "Devil take us if we could find a parry for
+it."
+
+Cocardasse summed up his argument, gloomily: "They say it has never been
+parried, never will be parried."
+
+Again an awkward silence reigned. With a shrug of his shoulders, AEsop
+resumed his studies, finding Aretino more diverting than such nonsense.
+Breton stared at Teuton; Italian interrogated Spaniard; Portuguese
+questioned Biscayan. The affairs of the party seemed to be at a
+dead-lock. The fact was that Staupitz and his little band of babies, as
+he was pleased to call them, were not really of the same social standing
+in the world of cutthroats as Gascon Cocardasse and Norman Passepoil.
+Cocardasse and his companion were recognized fencing-masters in Paris,
+well esteemed, if not of the highest note, whereas Staupitz was no better
+than an ordinary bully-broker, and his so-styled children no more than
+provincial rascallions. It was not for them, and they knew it, to display
+such knowledge of the great world as might be aired by Cocardasse and
+Passepoil, and when Cocardasse spoke with so much significance about the
+thrust of Nevers, and questioned them with so much insistence about the
+thrust of Nevers, it was plain that he spoke from the brimmings of a
+wisdom richer than their own. Staupitz, who was in some sense a son of
+Paris, if only an adopted son, and that, indeed, by process of
+self-adoption, knew enough of Olympian matters to be aware that there was
+an illustrious gentleman that was Duke of Nevers, whom he was equally
+willing to aid with his sword or slay with his sword, if occasion served.
+Now occasion seemed to demand that Staupitz should follow the latter
+course. He was employed to kill somebody, and AEsop had assured him that
+this somebody was Louis, Duke de Nevers. Staupitz had not cared who it
+was; it was all one to him, but honestly he was troubled now by the
+patent trouble of Cocardasse and his ominous mutterings about the thrust
+of Nevers.
+
+Passepoil broke the silence, surveying the puzzled faces around him. "No
+wonder there's such a crowd of us." And for the first time there was
+something like the sound of audacity in his voice and a glance of
+audacity on his visage.
+
+"Faith," said Cocardasse, emphatically, "I'd rather face an army than
+face Louis de Nevers."
+
+Again there was a silence. The gentlemen of the sword seemed to be at a
+loss for conversation. Again Passepoil broke the silence, this time with
+a question: "Why are we after Louis de Nevers?"
+
+Nobody seemed to be able to answer him. Even Staupitz, who was
+responsible to the others for this gathering of the company, was baffled.
+He had been told to supply nine swords, and he had supplied them. He had
+been told by his employer the purpose for which the nine swords were
+wanted--he had been told by AEsop against whom those nine swords were to
+be drawn--and that was the extent of his knowledge. This time the
+hunchback, in his favorite character of know-all, took the lead. He put
+his book in his pocket, as if he perceived that further study was to be
+denied him that afternoon, with so much noise and bustle of curiosity
+about him, and rose from his chair. Holding his long rapier behind his
+back with both his hands, he advanced into the middle of the room, where
+he proceeded to harangue his fellow-guardsmen.
+
+"I can tell you," he said, harshly, "if you would care to hear the
+story."
+
+Now bravos, swashbucklers, spadassins, and such soldiers of fortune are
+like children in this regard--as indeed in many another--that they love a
+good yarn well spun. If something in the dominating, masterful manner of
+AEsop compelled their attention, something also in the malicious smile
+that twitched his lips seemed to promise plenitude of entertainment. A
+grave quiet settled upon the ragamuffins, their sunburned faces were
+turned eagerly towards the hunchback, their wild eyes studied his mocking
+face; they waited in patience upon his pleasure. Pleased with the
+humility of his audience, AEsop began his narrative.
+
+"There are," he said, "now living three noble gentlemen in the first
+flush of youth, in the first flight of greatness, young, handsome,
+brilliant, more like brothers than friends. They are known in the noble
+world of the court as the three Louis, because by a curious chance each
+of these splendid gentlemen carries Louis for a Christian name. Humorists
+have been known to speak of them as the three Louis d'or. The first is
+none other than our good king's person, Louis of Bourbon, thirteenth
+monarch of his name; the second is Louis, Duke of Nevers; the third is
+his cousin, Louis of Mantua, Prince of Gonzague."
+
+He paused for a moment, looking with the satisfaction of a tale-teller at
+the expectant faces before him, and as he paused an approving murmur from
+his audience urged him to continue. AEsop resumed his narration.
+
+"You will ask how the Italianate Mantuan comes to be a cousin of our
+French Nevers, and I will tell you. Nevers's father, Louis de Nevers, the
+twelfth duke, had a very beautiful sister, who was foolish enough, or
+wise enough, as you may choose to take it, to fall in love with a needy
+Italian nobleman that came adventuring to Paris in the hope of making a
+rich marriage. He made a rich marriage, or perhaps it would be more
+accurate to say that he thought he made a rich marriage. He married
+Mademoiselle de Nevers."
+
+Again AEsop halted, employing one of the familiar devices of rhetoricians,
+who lure their hearers to keener interest by such judicious pauses in the
+course of their exposition. The listening ruffians were as attentive as
+babes at a day-school, and AEsop, with a hideous distortion of his
+features, which he intended for a pleased smile, went on with his story:
+
+"Mademoiselle de Nevers had some fortune of her own, of course, but it
+was not large; it was not the feast for which the amative Mantuan had
+hungered. The Nevers's fortune was in the duke's hands, and remained in
+the duke's hands, for the duke married at much the same time as his
+sister; and the duke's wife and Gonzague's wife were brought to bed much
+about the same time, and each bore a son, and each son was named Louis
+after the twelfth duke, out of the affection his wife bore him, out of
+the affection his sister bore him, and out of the affection that sister's
+Mantuan husband pretended, in his sly Italian manner, to bear him."
+
+A belated patriotism stirring vaguely in Faenza's muddled mind tempted
+him to resent the hunch-back's slights upon the land which had been
+unlucky enough to mother him.
+
+"All men of Italy are not knaves," he growled, huskily, and, half rising
+from his seat with crimsoned visage, he was busying himself to say more,
+when Staupitz, who was as interested as the others in Master AEsop's
+scandalous chronicle, clapped one bear's paw on Faenza's shoulder and
+another bear's paw across Faenza's mouth, and thus forced him at once, by
+sheer effort of brute strength, to a sitting posture and to silence. This
+action on the part of the man whom for the time being he had consented to
+accept as his general, combined with the cold glance of cruelty and scorn
+which AEsop gave him, served to cool Faenza's hot blood. He heard AEsop
+say, dryly, "Some men of Italy are fools," and might perchance have
+flamed again, to his misluck, but that Staupitz, breathing thickly in his
+ear, whispered: "Idiot, he mocks a Mantuan. Are not you Naples born and
+bred?" Faenza, recovering his composure, resolved himself swiftly from an
+Italian in general to a Neapolitan in particular, with a clannish
+antagonism to alien states. He spat upon the floor. "Damn all Mantuans!"
+he muttered, and did no more to interrupt the flow of AEsop's discourse.
+
+"As I was saying, this princeling of Gonzague affected a great show of
+friendship for his ducal brother of Nevers, and this same friendship he
+left--it was, indeed, wellnigh all he had to leave--to his only son and
+only child, the present prince of Gonzague."
+
+He made a momentary halt, as if he were observing curiously the effect of
+his words upon his hearers, then resumed:
+
+"The young Louis de Gonzague and the young Louis de Nevers were almost of
+an age. Each was an only child, each was an only son, each was clever,
+each was courageous, each was comely, each was the chosen heart's friend
+of a namesake king, each was much a lover of ladies, each was much loved
+by ladies."
+
+AEsop grinned hideously as he said these words, and his left hand fumbled
+lovingly at the little volume that lay hid in the breast of his doublet,
+but he did not delay the flow of his words.
+
+"The chief difference between the two young men who were bound so
+closely by ties of blood and yet more closely by ties of personal
+affection was that while Louis de Nevers was the heir to all the
+treasures of his house, Louis of Gonzague was heir to little more than a
+rotting palace and a hollow title. And yet, by the irony of nature that
+seemed to deny long life to any of the stock of Nevers, Louis de Gonzague
+was the next of kin to his cousin, and the heir to all his wealth if by
+any ill chance the dear young duke should die unmarried."
+
+Here AEsop deliberately shut his mouth for several seconds, while the
+listening bandits, persuaded that some thrilling news was toward, nudged
+each other with their elbows and riddled the watchful hunchback with
+imploring glances that entreated him to proceed. Thus mutely importuned,
+AEsop opened his mouth again:
+
+"But the difference in the youths' fortunes never made any difference in
+their friendship. The purse of the rich Nevers was always open to the
+fingers of the poor Gonzague, and the poor Gonzague had always too true
+an appreciation of the meaning of friendship to deny his heart's brother
+the privilege of ministering to his needs. And as the young Nevers did
+not hint at the slightest inclination to marry and settle down, but
+always declared himself and approved himself the most vagrant of lovers
+and the most frivolous of libertines, there seemed no reason for the good
+Gonzague to be uneasy as to his possible heritage. Moreover, the young
+Duke of Nevers was something delicate of constitution, as it would seem,
+for all his skill as a soldier and swordsman and his fame as a lady's
+man. Once when he was the guest of his cousin of Gonzague in Mantua he
+fell ill of a strange fever that came near to ending his days, and was
+only saved by his French physician, who tended him day and night and took
+him back to France in the first dawn of his convalescence."
+
+AEsop stopped and blinked at his hearers viciously, looking like some
+school-master that wonders how much or how little of what he has been
+saying his pupils have understood. Cocardasse was the first to show
+intelligence and to give it tongue.
+
+"I'll wager," he cried, and swore a great Gascon oath, "that I can hazard
+a pretty guess as to the name of our employer in to-night's work."
+
+AEsop leered at him with a pitying benignity.
+
+"You were always a great brain for deduction, friend Cocardasse," he
+said. "And who should you say was the honest gentleman who wanted our
+swords for this present business?"
+
+"Why," answered Cocardasse, shaking his head gloomily, "though I hate to
+think it, and hate to say it, it seems to me that the man who has most to
+gain from this little meeting and its inevitable result is none other
+than the third Louis, your Italian of Gonzague."
+
+AEsop nodded, and a ferocious smile illuminated his evil face.
+
+"You have come to a very creditable conclusion, friend Cocardasse. It
+looks very much as if Jonathan wanted to kill David, as if Patroclus
+yearned to slaughter Achilles, as if Pythias wanted to extinguish
+Damon."
+
+Master AEsop prided himself upon his scholarship and his felicity in
+classical allusion--a felicity wholly wasted upon his present audience.
+
+Cocardasse was still curious. "Why does Louis de Gonzague want to kill
+his friend, Louis of Nevers, just at this particular moment, and why here
+in this heaven-forgotten hole of a place, in this heaven-forgotten corner
+of the world?"
+
+AEsop explained: "Because Louis de Gonzague, having tried once, with good
+reason, and failed, tries again with better reason and means to succeed
+this time, believing much steel to do better than a little poison.
+Because, in a few words, Louis de Gonzague wants to marry the beautiful
+Gabrielle, daughter of old Caylus of the castle there, who is wealthy,
+too."
+
+Passepoil, who was always interested in affairs of the heart, put in his
+word. "Why doesn't he marry her?"
+
+AEsop was ready to explain that matter also: "Because Gabrielle de Caylus
+is already secretly married to Louis de Nevers. They were married one
+year ago in the chapel of Caylus, and the only witnesses were Louis de
+Gonzague and his factotum, Monsieur Peyrolles, who has summoned us to
+this tryst."
+
+"Why were they secretly married?" asked the amorous Passepoil.
+
+AEsop answered him: "An old family feud between the houses of Nevers and
+Caylus. The marquis would rather kill his daughter than let her marry
+Louis de Nevers. So they were wedded secretly, without his knowledge, and
+Louis de Gonzague, that could deny his dear friend and cousin, Louis de
+Nevers, nothing, helped him to his wife."
+
+"That was generous, at least," Passepoil sighed.
+
+AEsop sneered. "He hoped, as he believed with reason, that there would be
+no issue of the marriage, and that by-and-by he would come to what he
+called his own. But three months ago a daughter was born to the nuptials
+of Nevers, and that is why we are here to-night. Monsieur Peyrolles would
+pretend that it is the old marquis who is using us, the old marquis who
+is suspicious of an amour between his daughter and Nevers. But I know
+better."
+
+"How do you know all this?" Cocardasse inquired.
+
+AEsop shrugged his shoulders. "My good fellow," he said, "it is my
+business to know everything that is worth knowing in my trade. There are
+very few noble houses in France that can hope to hold any secrets from
+me. You may take my word for it--that is how matters stand."
+
+Staupitz and his five swordsmen sat silent and puzzled, leaving the ball
+of conversation to be tossed between Cocardasse, Passepoil, and AEsop.
+
+Cocardasse spoke next: "An ugly job. There's only one man alive to match
+Louis de Nevers."
+
+Something almost approaching a human smile distorted the wrinkled face
+of AEsop and made it appear more than usually repulsive. "You mean me," he
+said, and the smirk deepened, only to dissipate quickly as Cocardasse
+replied:
+
+"Devil a bit. I mean the little Parisian, Henri de Lagardere."
+
+"The best swordsman in Paris!" Passepoil cried, enthusiastically.
+
+"The best swordsman in France!" Cocardasse shouted.
+
+Passepoil commented again: "The best swordsman in Europe."
+
+Cocardasse, not to be outdone, put the final touch to the picture: "The
+best swordsman in the world."
+
+The name of Lagardere seemed to make a marked impression upon the
+company. Every man seemed to have his contribution to make to the history
+of the little Parisian.
+
+Faenza was the first to speak.
+
+"I met your Lagardere once," he said, "at a fencing-school in Milan,
+where half a dozen French gentlemen met half a dozen gentlemen of my
+nationality in a match to test the merits of the French and Italian
+methods of fence. This Lagardere of yours was the only one whom I had any
+difficulty in overcoming."
+
+Cocardasse gave an ironic snort. It was evident that he did not in the
+least believe the latter part of Faenza's narrative. Joel de Jurgan took
+up the thread of reminiscence.
+
+"If your Lagardere be the same as the man I am thinking of," he said, "I
+came across him a couple of years ago at the fair of Neuilly. We had a
+passage of arms, and I think I gave him a cut on the head, but it took me
+some time, I promise you."
+
+Cocardasse glared at the speaker, but said nothing, though the word
+"liar" was plainly expressed in his scornful glance. Joel, impressed by
+his angry face, hastened to add, with the air of one that praises an
+adversary in the handsomest manner, "I swear he was the best fellow,
+second to myself, that I ever met with the rapier."
+
+"I have met him," grunted Staupitz. "He touched me once in a bout of
+twelve points. That was a triumph for him, to my thinking."
+
+Pepe added: "He fought with me once in Madrid, and got off without a
+scratch. That says a good deal for his skill, I'm thinking."
+
+Saldagno and Pinto were silent. They looked curiously at Pepe, but they
+nodded their heads approvingly.
+
+Thus each of the bravos had his eager tale to tell, and would have told
+more but that Cocardasse waved them into silence with his large hand.
+"There is only one Lagardere," he said, and looked as if the subject were
+ended.
+
+AEsop yawned. "I should like to meet your Lagardere."
+
+Cocardasse eyed him ironically. "Sword in hand?" he questioned. "When
+that day comes, pray for your soul."
+
+AEsop shrugged his shoulders, and with an air of indifference produced a
+watch and consulted its dial. "Friends," he said, "this is the hour fixed
+for the arrival of Monsieur Peyrolles, and I think I hear footsteps in
+the passage."
+
+Instantly the Gascon seemed animated by a hurried purpose. He sprang to
+Staupitz's side, and, catching him by the shoulder, shook him vehemently.
+"We must be well paid to face the thrust of Nevers. Let me bargain for
+you. Back me up, and those that are alive to-night will have money in
+pocket to-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+A BUYER OF BLADES
+
+
+Staupitz and his companions seemed to place implicit confidence in the
+superior diplomatic powers of their Gascon comrade, and to have been
+seriously impressed by the gravity of his statement concerning the thrust
+of Nevers, so death-dealing, so unwardable, so almost magically fatal,
+for they readily agreed to his proposition. Places were rapidly found for
+Cocardasse and Passepoil at the table. AEsop returned to his seat and his
+little sinful book. It was deepening dusk by now, but the hunchback knew
+his Aretino by heart, and the open page was a pretence. So he mused by
+the window, and sat nursing his knee moodily. Those at the table seemed
+busy drinking, and heedless of all things save drink, when the side-door
+of the room, that led through the kitchen to the yard, opened, and the
+man they were expecting entered. It was characteristic of the man to make
+his appearance so slyly, surreptitiously, sidling, and roundabout, where
+another would have stepped in direct. At the heels of the new-comer
+tiptoed Martine, swinging, for precaution against the thickening dusk, a
+dingy lantern whose provision of fish-oil emitted a pitiful light that
+scarcely bettered the growing blackness. This lantern the girl set upon
+the head of an empty barrel that stood in a corner, and its fitful,
+shivering rays, faintly illuminating the murkiness around, was at least
+strong enough to allow any philosopher among the bravos--and AEsop was in
+his way a philosopher--to observe and moralize upon the contrast between
+the appearance of this Monsieur Peyrolles who employed bravos and the
+bravos that this Monsieur Peyrolles employed.
+
+Monsieur Peyrolles was a tall, thin, middle-aged man of pale complexion.
+Like AEsop and like Passepoil, he was dressed in black, as became the
+confidential servant of a master with many confidences; but, unlike the
+amorous AEsop and unlike the amorous Passepoil--though the two men were
+amorous after a very different fashion--his garments were of fine quality
+and fine cut, with much costly lace at his yellow neck, and much costly
+lace about the wrists of yellow hands that to a casual glance might, in
+their affected ease, have passed for patrician. Like Passepoil, he
+carried a sword, and, like Passepoil, he knew how to use it, although,
+unlike Passepoil, he was really of a timid disposition, and never engaged
+in any encounter in which he was not certain that his skill was far
+superior to that of his opponent.
+
+He affected the manners of a fine gentleman, and modelled himself as much
+as he dared upon the carriage of his master, when his master was not by,
+and, like the most of such copying apes, he overdid the part. His face
+was curiously unpleasant, long and yellowish white and inexpressive, with
+drooping eyelids masking pale, shifty eyes, with a drooping, ungainly
+nose, and a mouth that seemed like a mistake of nature.
+
+When Martine had placed her lantern to her satisfaction upon its Bacchic
+pedestal, she slipped from the room as quietly as she had entered it,
+answering as she went, with a glance of disdain, the passion of
+admiration that glowed in the eyes and twitched in the fingers of Norman
+Passepoil. The people that kept that evil Inn, the people that served
+that evil Inn, always left their sinister customers to themselves to kiss
+or kill, as best pleased them.
+
+On the entrance of Monsieur Peyrolles the bravos rose and saluted him
+ceremoniously. If there was any hidden mockery, any latent contempt, any
+unconscious hate felt by the brave scoundrels for the cowardly scoundrel
+in their reverence, it was not evident to the new-comer, who took the
+greetings with offensive condescension, eying the bandits over the lace
+edges of his kerchief.
+
+Staupitz advanced some few feet to greet him. "Welcome, Monsieur
+Peyrolles," he said. Then, pointing with an air of introduction to the
+fantastic, many-colored, huge-hatted, big-booted gang of ruffians ranged
+about the table, he added, "My children."
+
+In the dim light Peyrolles peered derisively at the different members of
+the party. "They seem a choice set of ruffians," he observed, with the
+labored impertinence that seemed to him a copy of his master's
+nonchalance.
+
+Staupitz laughed thickly. "No better blades between here and world's
+end." He pointed first at his comrades, as if to imply that he spoke
+allegorically; then he pointed to the row of rapiers dangling against the
+wall, to prove that he also spoke practically and by the card.
+
+"After all," said Peyrolles, "that is the important matter. I come to
+tell you how to earn your pay."
+
+By this time Staupitz and the others had resumed their seats and were
+staring fixedly at Peyrolles, something to that worthy personage's
+embarrassment. Staupitz having said his say, dropped into silence, and
+Cocardasse leaned forward, asserting himself. "We are all attention," he
+declared; and Passepoil, faithful echo by his side, murmured, "We are all
+attention," and allowed himself to wonder what had become of Martine, and
+to regret that business did not permit him to go to look for her.
+
+Peyrolles began to explain. "Wait in the moat to-night at ten o'clock."
+
+Staupitz interrupted him. "Ten o'clock?" he cried. "The devil! it will be
+pretty dark by ten."
+
+"I think there should be a moon about ten," AEsop observed, quietly, with
+his exasperating air of all knowledge.
+
+"Yes, yes," Peyrolles went on, sharply, irritated at being stayed in his
+instructions, "there will be a moon, no doubt, but we do not want too
+much light for this business. Well, then, wait in the moat at ten. I do
+not think you will have to wait long. Then, or thenabouts, a cavalier
+coming by the mountain road will tie his horse to a tree beyond the
+bridge that spans the ravine. He will cross the bridge and walk to yonder
+window hard by the postern."
+
+Peyrolles paused as if he had nothing more to say, and took it for
+granted that his hearers understood his drift. But one of them seemed to
+desire more explicit information.
+
+"Then," said Cocardasse--"then we are to accost him."
+
+Peyrolles nodded. "Very politely--and earn your money." He turned upon
+his heel now, for he relished the Inn room little, and its company less,
+being a fastidious lackey, and made to go, as if the affair were
+settled.
+
+But Cocardasse arrested him. "Who is the gentleman we accost politely?"
+he asked, very blandly, but behind this blandness of Cocardasse's there
+was something menacing to those that knew him well.
+
+Peyrolles eyed the huge Gascon disdainfully. "That does not concern you,"
+he said, sharply.
+
+But the Gascon was not in the least abashed, and, while he grinned at the
+would-be great man with an air of veiled insolence that was excessively
+exasperating to Monsieur Peyrolles, he questioned again: "Who is our
+employer?"
+
+Again Peyrolles retorted: "That does not concern you."
+
+And again Cocardasse persisted: "It might concern us very much if we
+chanced to believe that our quarry is Louis de Nevers, and if we got it
+somehow or other into our heads that our employer is Louis de Gonzague."
+
+As Cocardasse spoke these words, Peyrolles, now thoroughly alarmed and
+irritated, gave Cocardasse a glance that ought to have withered him, but
+Cocardasse was not withered, and smiled banteringly at his employer.
+
+"Fellow," Peyrolles said, "you are inquisitive." As he spoke he flapped
+his kerchief reprovingly at the bravo, whose dilated nostrils greedily
+drank the delicate odors it discharged, and he again made as if to
+depart, and again Cocardasse delayed him, still with the same
+exasperating show of exuberant politeness.
+
+"When it is a matter of our skins," he said, "I think we have a right to
+be inquisitive, and I think we had better have a little chat, Monsieur
+Peyrolles."
+
+As he spoke he made a noble flourish of his right arm that was distinctly
+an invitation to Peyrolles to seat himself in their company, and
+Passepoil, rising with an air of great urbanity, placed a stool before
+Peyrolles.
+
+"Pray be seated," he urged, suavely, blinking his pink eyelids and
+manifesting a deferential fear of the great man that he was very far
+indeed from feeling.
+
+Peyrolles looked about him half angrily, half frightened. He would have
+been glad to make his escape from that accursed chamber, but he had
+astuteness enough to see that there was no escape for him. Cocardasse had
+somehow or other managed to get between him and the door, and the other
+ruffians seemed to be entirely in sympathy with the Gascon's conduct, and
+to have no regard whatever for Peyrolles's dignity or feelings.
+
+With a smile that he intended to be amiable, Peyrolles sat down.
+
+"Well," he said, with an air of one that swallows sour wine, "what have
+you to say to me?"
+
+"Come," said the Gascon, "that is good. Now we can chat at our ease, and
+it will not take us many seconds to understand each other, I promise
+you." He turned to Staupitz. "What was the sum offered for our services?"
+He knew very well, for Staupitz had told him as they huddled together
+before, while the hand of Peyrolles was upon the latch, but he thought
+that it made the situation more impressive if he affected ignorance.
+
+Staupitz answered: "Three hundred pistoles."
+
+Now this was a fair market price enough as the tariff went for ambuscades
+and assassinations of the kind. It meant twenty-five pistoles each to the
+eight subordinates of the band, and a comfortable hundred pistoles for
+old Papa Staupitz to pocket as the patron of the enterprise. But
+Cocardasse held up his hands in well-affected horror and amazement.
+"Three hundred pistoles!" he echoed; "for ruddling the blades and
+risking the lives of nine of the finest swordsmen in Europe?
+Preposterous!--there must be some mistake! We won't haggle. We must have
+three thousand pistoles or--good-bye."
+
+At this audacious proposal to raise their blood-wages exactly ten times,
+the eyes of the bravos glittered avariciously, and they drummed approval
+on the table with their fists. Cocardasse deprecated this display of
+interest with a gentle wave of the hand, and, leaning back in his chair,
+eyed Peyrolles coolly, sure that he plied him with a vise. And Cocardasse
+was right.
+
+Peyrolles hesitated, but also Peyrolles reflected. It had been his wish
+to buy his bandits as cheaply as he could, but it was evident that they
+were better informed about the night's business than he intended them to
+be. It was essential that the work must be done that night, and it was
+also evident that the gentlemen of the sword were quite prepared to take
+their leaves if their terms were not agreed to. He sighed and said, "You
+shall have the money."
+
+Cocardasse nodded approvingly. He was enjoying himself immensely in this
+baiting of the valet of Gonzague, but he allowed no sign of entertainment
+to ripple over his crimson countenance.
+
+"Good," he said, quietly, "but I take it that you have not got such a sum
+as three thousand pistoles about you."
+
+Peyrolles shook his head. "I have brought with me the three hundred
+pistoles that were agreed upon," he said, sourly, with an emphasis upon
+the closing words of his speech. Cocardasse caught him up promptly.
+
+"Agreed upon in ignorance of the services demanded," he corrected. "Well,
+good Monsieur Peyrolles, let us have that three hundred pistoles as
+earnest money for the larger sum."
+
+Somewhat reluctantly Monsieur Peyrolles produced from his doublet a small
+canvas bag and threw it into the hollow of Cocardasse's extended palm. It
+chinked pleasantly as it fell, and Cocardasse weighed it tenderly.
+
+"I will not affront your worthiness," he said, "by affecting to doubt the
+contents of this little bag, and putting it to the scrutiny of a count. I
+will take your word for the tale."
+
+As he spoke he tossed the bag over to Staupitz, who caught it dexterously
+and put it in his pocket. On this Peyrolles made to rise, and again found
+that the hand of Passepoil, obedient to a glance from Cocardasse,
+descended upon his shoulder and nailed him to his place.
+
+"Wait," said Cocardasse, amiably, "we must have some surety for the lave
+of the money."
+
+"Is not my word enough?" Peyrolles asked, with an ineffective air of
+dignity. Cocardasse smiled very sweetly.
+
+"The best of us may have a bad memory," he said, and sighed over the
+frailties of humanity. He turned to his nominal leader. "Papa Staupitz,"
+he said, "will you not see if a pen and ink be available?"
+
+Staupitz rose while Peyrolles glowered, and going to the door that led to
+the kitchen, summoned Martine. Martine, heedless of the adoring homage
+renewed in Passepoil's eyes, went to a cupboard in the wall and extracted
+from its depths a dingy ink-horn and a stubby quill, together with a page
+of fairly clean paper torn from the back of an old account-book. Setting
+these on the table, she departed as quietly as she came, wholly
+indifferent to the languishing glances of the Norman. Cocardasse waved a
+space for Peyrolles at the table.
+
+"Be so good," he said, with a quiet insistence, "as to write a formal
+promise to pay Papa Staupitz two thousand seven hundred pistoles
+to-morrow. Date it carefully, and sign it with your excellent and
+honorable name, my dear Monsieur Peyrolles."
+
+Peyrolles frowned, but there was no help for it; so he rose to his feet,
+untroubled this time by the restraining fingers of Passepoil, and, going
+to the table, wrote the demanded document, with every appearance of
+repugnance at the task and its conditions, for the pen was vile, the ink
+viler, and the paper vilest. When he had finished, Cocardasse took it
+from him and scanned it carefully.
+
+"That is all right," he said, and placed the still wet writing on the
+table in front of Staupitz. Peyrolles made as if to move towards the
+door, but again Passepoil, who was watching intently the face of
+Cocardasse, read a meaning there, and, pouncing upon Peyrolles,
+persuaded him firmly back into the seat he had quitted.
+
+"That is not all," said Cocardasse to the astonished and angry valet.
+"This night's work is a big night's work, and not to be paid for over the
+counter and done with. We want the money first, but afterwards we want
+the protection and favor of Louis de Gonzague."
+
+Peyrolles frowned and made a vehement effort to assert his authority.
+
+"You talk very freely and loosely of great names," he said, with as much
+sharpness as he could muster in the presence of that ring of rascality.
+"You should know very well, if you know anything at all about the
+scandals of grandees, that Monseigneur the Marquis of Caylus has every
+reason to dislike Monseigneur the Duke of Nevers, and to wish him out of
+the way."
+
+Cocardasse laid a whimsical finger to the side of his jolly, tropical
+nose and grinned impishly.
+
+"We know what we know, Monsieur Peyrolles," he said, urbanely. "If it
+were merely necessary to kill the Duke of Nevers to gratify the hate of
+any private enemy, one place would do as well as another, and we might
+take him any time on his way here, instead of waiting till the precise
+moment when he enters the moat of Caylus. But you wish us to wait for
+that precise moment because you, and your master, wish it to seem patent
+to all the world that the deed was done by the Marquis of Caylus on his
+own ground, to defend his own honor. Once again, we demand hereafter the
+favor and protection of his highness the Prince of Gonzague."
+
+This time Peyrolles needed no pause for reflection. So much was wise to
+promise to men who could draw conclusions so dexterously. "You shall have
+it," he said, and rose from his seat, this time unrestrained by the
+Norman's pressure. "There is my hand on it," he added.
+
+Cocardasse appeared not to perceive the extended hand as he slapped the
+hilt of his sword. "Here is my rapier, which answers for me."
+
+Peyrolles smiled sourly. "You had better place a sentinel in the moat,"
+he said, addressing Staupitz. "He can give the signal when the mouse
+walks into the trap. Till then let the others keep in the background so
+as to cut off our gentleman's retreat."
+
+Staupitz nodded sulkily. He had always held Monsieur Peyrolles in
+considerable respect, a respect that had been greatly shaken by
+Cocardasse's audacious and insolent treatment of the satellite of
+Gonzague. Now the bravo seemed ready to resent receiving an order from
+his employer's go-between. Peyrolles prudently took no notice of his
+sullenness. "Good-evening, gentlemen," he said, and walked towards the
+door. As he reached it, he turned again and spoke significantly:
+"Remember--if you fail, no pay."
+
+Cocardasse grinned impudently at him. "Sleep in peace, Monsieur
+Peyrolles." Peyrolles made a wry face and went out.
+
+As soon as he had gone the bravos gathered about Cocardasse and patted
+him enthusiastically on the back. Only AEsop remained in his corner,
+apparently indifferent to the whole proceedings.
+
+"Well done, comrade," cried Passepoil, wringing the hand of his
+brother-in-arms; and the others, whose pay had been so notably increased
+by the diplomacy of Cocardasse, were equally as effusive in their
+expressions of gratitude.
+
+Cocardasse met their applause with an impressive monosyllable. "Wine," he
+said to Martine, who had peeped in to see if her services were needed,
+and in a twinkling the pannikins were filled again and lifted to eight
+thirsty mouths, and set down again empty of their contents. The first
+business was to share the contents of Monsieur Peyrolles's bag, which
+Staupitz duly divided according to the original understanding, giving
+each man twenty-five pistoles, and keeping the remainder for himself. By
+this time the ink on the promissory note was dry, and Staupitz folded it
+up carefully and put it in his pocket.
+
+After this for another half-hour the talk was all about the young Duke de
+Nevers and his secret thrust, and the woman he loved, and the Prince de
+Gonzague, his friend, who meant to kill him. Here, as before, AEsop
+dominated the party by his superior knowledge of all the individuals in
+the little tragedy in which they were invited to play subordinate parts.
+He told them of the life feud between the family of Caylus and the family
+of Nevers, a feud as bitter as that of the Capulets and Montagues of old
+time. He told them of Gonzague's passions, Gonzague's poverty. He told
+them all about Monsieur Peyrolles, Gonzague's discreet and infamous
+factotum. He told them, also, being as it seemed a very gold-mine of
+court scandals, much of the third Louis, the august friend of Louis of
+Nevers and Louis of Gonzague, the third Louis who was the king of
+France.
+
+The bravos hung upon his words. In many ways they were simple folk, and,
+like all simple folk, they loved to be told stories, and AEsop prided
+himself upon being something of a man of letters, a philosopher, and an
+historian. It was, therefore, no small annoyance to narrator and audience
+when the narrative was interrupted, as it was nearing its conclusion, by
+the opening of the Inn door. Every face expressed astonishment as it was
+pushed sufficiently apart to admit the entry of a slender and graceful
+boy in the rich habit of a page. The boy came a little way into the room,
+looking cautiously about him. He acted as if at first he took the room in
+its dimness to be unoccupied, and he seemed to be somewhat disconcerted
+at discovering that it contained so many occupants. He stood still while
+his bright eyes ran rapidly, and indeed fearfully, over the somewhat
+alarming features of the guests. Failing, apparently, to find among them
+the person, whoever it was, whom he had come there to seek, he turned to
+leave as quietly as he had entered, but his egress was barred by AEsop,
+who had slipped between him and the door, and who now questioned him,
+with a grin of malignant intelligence on his face.
+
+"Whom are you looking for, pygmy?"
+
+The page put a bold face on it and answered with a bold voice: "I have a
+letter for a gentleman."
+
+AEsop pointed to the group at the table. "We are all gentlemen. Let's have
+a look at your letter." Then he added to his companions: "It may be
+useful. The imp wears the livery of Nevers."
+
+Instantly the others approved by signs and grunts of AEsop's action, and
+the page, now really alarmed, made a desperate effort to escape. "Let me
+pass!" he cried, and tried to rush under AEsop's arm. But AEsop caught the
+boy in an iron grip, and, though the courageous page drew a dagger and
+tried to stab his assailant, he was disarmed in a second and seized by
+the others, who sprang from the table and clustered about him, fierce
+birds of prey about a helpless quarry. The lad cried for help, hopelessly
+enough. Strong, dirty fingers were tearing open his jerkin and fumbling
+for the concealed letter, when suddenly it seemed to the astonished
+swordsmen that an earthquake and a whirlwind had combined for their
+undoing. AEsop rolled to one end of the room, Staupitz to another;
+Cocardasse and Passepoil, Saldagno, Pepe, Pinto, Faenza, and Joel were
+scattered like sparrows, and the little page found himself liberated and
+crouching at the feet of a man who was standing with folded arms
+surveying the discomfited bravos mockingly.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE LITTLE PARISIAN
+
+
+The new-comer was a young man of little over one-and-twenty, of medium
+height, but with a well-built, well-knit figure that gave a promise of
+extraordinary strength and power of endurance, coupled at the same time
+with a scarcely less extraordinary suppleness. He had a face that was
+certainly handsome, though many handsomer faces were familiar in Paris at
+that day, but none more gallant, and, indeed, its chief charm was its
+almost audacious air of self-reliance, of unfailing courage, of
+changeless composure, and unconquerable humor. The eyes were bright and
+laughing. Even now, although the man was undoubtedly angry, his eyes
+still smiled in unison with his lips. His dark hair fell gracefully about
+his shoulders. He wore a somewhat faded white coat, girdled with a
+crimson sash--the white coat of a captain in the king's Light-Horse--and,
+though he carried himself with an easy dignity, the general condition of
+his dress showed he was one who was neither afraid of nor unfamiliar with
+poverty. Now he looked around him with a bright defiance, seemingly
+diverted by the havoc his single pair of arms and legs--for he had used
+both limbs in the brawl--had wrought among nine swashbucklers, and
+apparently prepared at any moment to repeat the performance, if occasion
+called for action.
+
+It was curious to observe that, though the new-comer had worked such
+confusion among the bravos whom he had taken so roughly unawares, he did
+not show any sign of having passed through a scuffle with a number of men
+or having accomplished anything especially arduous in bringing them so
+swiftly to discomfiture. His breathing was not quickened, his comely
+young face was unflushed. As he stood there lightly poised in an easy
+attitude that might at any moment be resolved into an attitude of
+defence, he seemed, to such of his spectators as had sufficiently
+recovered their senses to look at him coolly, rather to resemble one that
+had come in on the heels of a tuss and was watching its result with
+unconcerned eyes than one that with no more assistance than his own agile
+limbs had been the cause of humiliation to so many powerful adversaries.
+Staupitz, blinking fiercely as he rubbed his aching head, which had
+rattled sharply against the table that arrested his flight across the
+room, was too bewildered to swear out the oaths that were frothing within
+him when he realized that the earthquake, the whirlwind, the cataclysm
+that had tumbled him and his companions about like so many nine-pins was
+no other and no more than the slim and pleasant young gentleman who
+stood there so composedly. While the bewildered ruffians were picking
+themselves up, and with some little difficulty recovering their breath,
+the young gentleman addressed them mockingly: "Are there quite enough of
+you to manage this adversary?" And as he spoke he pointed to the little
+page who was huddled at his feet.
+
+AEsop was the first of the bravos to recover his troubled senses and to
+seek to retaliate upon his assailant. He whipped his long rapier from its
+sheath, and was making for the intruder when Cocardasse flung his strong
+arms around the hunchback and restrained him. "Be easy," he cried; "it is
+the little Parisian!" And at the same moment Passepoil, with the gesture
+of one who salutes in a fencing-school, exclaimed the name "Lagardere."
+
+As for the other ruffians, they gathered together sulkily enough about
+the table, staring at the stranger. His face was familiar to all of them,
+and there was not one among them bold enough to follow the example of
+AEsop. Lagardere, who had taken no notice of the threatened attack of the
+hunchback, surveyed the group, and, glancing from them, addressed himself
+to Cocardasse and Passepoil.
+
+"Why, my old masters," he asked, drolling them, "what are you doing in
+this desperate adventure? You ought to be careful. The boy might have
+hurt you." His eyes turned from the Gascon and the Norman back again to
+the fellows at the table. "Some of these scarecrows seem familiar." His
+glance rested on Staupitz, and he questioned him: "Where have we met?"
+
+Staupitz saluted Lagardere very respectfully as he answered: "At Lyons."
+
+Lagardere seemed to search his memory and to find what he sought. "True.
+You touched me once."
+
+Staupitz made an apologetic gesture. "Only once in twelve times."
+
+Lagardere turned to Saldagno, Pepe, and Pinto. "Ah, my bandits of Madrid,
+who tried me, three to one."
+
+Saldagno was more apologetic than Staupitz, with a Latin profusion of
+gesture, as he explained: "That was for a wager, captain."
+
+Lagardere shrugged his shoulders. "Which you did not win." He turned to
+Joel de Jurgan. "Does your head still carry my cut?"
+
+The Breton lifted a large hand to his bullet head and fumbled through the
+thick hair for a familiar spot. "There is a scar," he admitted.
+
+Lagardere turned to the Italian. "Do you still," he asked, "hold the
+Italian school to be superior to the French?"
+
+Faenza shook his head. "Not when you practise the French method," he
+answered, politely.
+
+There was a little pause, and then AEsop, who had by this time been
+released from the embrace of Cocardasse, and had sheathed his sword, came
+forward and faced Lagardere. "I desire acquaintanceship, Captain
+Lagardere. Men call me AEsop."
+
+Lagardere gazed at the hunchback, and a look of displeasure banished the
+mirth from his eyes. "I have heard of you," he said, curtly. "A good
+sword and a bad heart. I don't like the blend. You may go to the devil."
+
+He turned away from AEsop and bent over the lad, who still crouched at his
+feet. "Now, lad, you must promise not to hurt these gentlemen, for some
+of them are friends of mine."
+
+While the bravos tried not to appear annoyed by Lagardere's banter,
+which, indeed, in its simplicity vexed their simple natures greatly, the
+page rose to his feet and whispered softly to his rescuer, "I have a
+letter for you from the Duke de Nevers."
+
+Lagardere extended his hand. "Give it," he said.
+
+The page produced the letter, of which AEsop had been so anxious to gain
+possession, and handed it to Lagardere, whispering as he did so, "Save me
+from these ogres. I carry another letter to a lady."
+
+Lagardere smiled. "To Gabrielle de Caylus, I'll swear," he murmured in a
+low voice which was calculated only to reach the page's ears. Then he
+turned again to the swordsmen. "Sirs, this lad, more fastidious than I,
+dislikes your society. Pray respect his prejudices." He pushed the page
+gently towards the main door. "Hop, skip, jump!"
+
+In a moment the page had glided out of the room. AEsop made a movement as
+if he were inclined to follow, but any such intention was frustrated by
+Lagardere, who shut the door after the boy and stood with his back
+towards it. "Stay where you are, gentlemen," he said, and there was
+something so persuasive in the way in which he said it that the gentlemen
+stayed where they were. Then Lagardere, as if he had almost forgotten
+their presence, slowly walking down the room till he paused in the
+middle, opened the letter and began to read it. As he seemed absorbed by
+its contents, Staupitz on the one side and AEsop on the other came
+cautiously towards him with the intention of reading the letter over his
+shoulder, but Lagardere's seeming forgetfulness of their presence
+instantly changed. He looked up sharply, glancing right and left, and
+AEsop and Staupitz fell back in confusion, while Lagardere spoke to them,
+mocking them: "You will dub me eccentric; you will nickname me whimsical;
+you will damn me for a finicking stickler, and all because I am such an
+old-fashioned rascal as to wish to keep my correspondence to myself.
+There, there, don't be crestfallen. This letter makes me so merry that
+you shall share its treasure. But, first, fill and drink with me, a noble
+toast."
+
+To suggest drinking was to forge a link between the bravos and the man
+who down-faced them so masterfully. The big jug seemed to jump from hand
+to hand, every mug was full in a twinkling, and every face was fixed
+steadfastly on Lagardere, waiting for his words. Lagardere lifted his
+brimming beaker with a voice of joyous mockery that carried at once
+defiance and respect to a distant man. "The health of Louis of Nevers!"
+he said, and drained his green wine as cheerfully as if it had been the
+elixir of the gods.
+
+At his words blank astonishment spread over the faces of the Gascon and
+the Norman. "He said 'Nevers,'" Cocardasse whispered to Passepoil, and
+Passepoil whispered back, "He did." As for the other bravos, they had
+been as much surprised as Cocardasse and Passepoil by Lagardere's
+request, but they managed to conceal their surprise by lifting their
+mugs, and now as they nodded and winked to one another, they tilted their
+vessels and drank, shouting, "The health of Louis de Nevers!"
+
+Cocardasse came nearer to Lagardere, and said in a voice that was almost
+a whisper, "Why do you drink the health of Louis de Nevers?"
+
+Lagardere looked for a moment annoyed at the presumption of Cocardasse in
+questioning him, then the annoyance gave place to his familiar air of
+tolerant amusement. "I don't love questions, but you have a kind of right
+to query." He turned to the others. "You must know, sirs, that this pair
+of rapiers were my fairy godfathers in the noble art of fence."
+
+The Norman looked at Lagardere with a very loving expression. "You were a
+sad little rag of humanity when first you came to our fencing-academy."
+
+"You are right there," said Lagardere. "I was the poorest, hungriest
+scrap of mankind in all Paris. I had neither kin nor friends nor pence,
+nothing but a stout heart and a sense of humor. That is why I came to
+your academy, old rogues."
+
+Cocardasse was reminiscent. "Faith, you looked droll enough, with your
+pale face and your shabby clothes. 'I want to be a soldier,' says you; 'I
+want to use the sword.'"
+
+Lagardere nodded. "That was my stubborn law. The world laughed at me, but
+I laughed at the world, and I won my wish."
+
+"Just think of it!" said Cocardasse. "Henri de Lagardere, a gentleman
+born, without a decent relative, without a decent friend, without a
+penny, making his livelihood as a strolling player in the booth of a
+mountebank."
+
+While Cocardasse was speaking, Lagardere seemed to listen like a man in a
+dream. He forgot for the moment the reeking Inn room where he stood, the
+beastly visages that surrounded him, the whimsy that had drifted him
+thither. All these things were forgotten, and the man that was little
+more than a boy in years was in fancy altogether a boy again, a
+shivering, quivering slip of a boy that stood on the gusty high-road and
+knuckled his eyelids to keep his eyes from crying. How long ago it
+seemed, that time twelve years ago when a mutinous urchin fled from a
+truculent uncle to seek his fortune as Heaven might please to guide!
+Heaven guided an itinerant mime and mountebank that tramped France with
+his doxy to a wet hedge-side where a famished, foot-sore scrap of a lad
+lay like a tired dog, trying not to sob. The mountebank was curious, the
+mountebank's doxy was kind; both applauded lustily the boy's resolve to
+march to Paris, cost what it might cost, and make his fortune there. The
+end of the curiosity and the kindness and the applause was that the
+little Lagardere found himself at once the apprentice and the adopted son
+of the mountebank, with his fortune as far off as the stars. But he
+learned many things, the little Lagardere, under the care of that same
+mountebank; all that the mountebank could teach him he learned, and he
+invented for himself tricks that were beyond the mountebank's skill. How
+long ago it seemed! Would ever space of time seem so long again? So the
+young man mused swiftly, while Cocardasse told his tale; but ere
+Cocardasse had finished, Lagardere was back in the tavern again, and,
+when Cocardasse had finished, Lagardere caught him up: "Why not? Some
+actors are as honest as bandits. I was no bad mummer, sirs. I could
+counterfeit any one of you now so that your mother wouldn't know the
+cheat. And my master made me an athlete, too; taught me every trick of
+wrestling and tumbling and juggling with the muscles. That is why I was
+able to tumble you about so pleasantly just now. I should have been a
+mountebank to this day but for an accident."
+
+Passepoil was curious. "What accident?" he asked.
+
+Lagardere answered him: "A brawl over a wench with a bully. I challenged
+him, though I was more at home with a toasting-fork than a sword. I
+caught up an unfamiliar weapon, but he nicked the steel from my hand at a
+pass and banged me with the flat of his blade. The girl laughed. The
+bully grinned. I swore to learn swordcraft."
+
+"And you did," said Passepoil. "In six months you were our best pupil."
+
+Cocardasse continued: "In twelve you were our master."
+
+Passepoil questioned again: "What became of your bully?"
+
+Lagardere was laconic: "We had a chat afterwards. I attended his
+funeral."
+
+Cocardasse clapped his hands. "Well begun, little Parisian."
+
+Passepoil pointed admiringly at Lagardere. "Look at you now, a captain in
+the king's guard."
+
+Lagardere laughed cheerfully. "Look if you like, but I am no such thing.
+I am cashiered, exiled from Paris."
+
+"Why?" asked Cocardasse, and Lagardere replied with a question: "Do you
+remember the Baron de Brissac?"
+
+Cocardasse nodded. "One of the best swords in Paris."
+
+Lagardere resumed: "Well, the late baron--"
+
+Passepoil interrupted: "The late baron?"
+
+Lagardere explained: "Brissac had a lewd tongue and smirched a woman. So
+I pulled his ears."
+
+Cocardasse grinned. "The devil you did!"
+
+"Yes," said Lagardere, "they were very long and tempting. We resumed the
+argument elsewhere. It was brief. Good-bye, Brissac! But as the good
+king, thanks to the good cardinal, now frowns upon duelling, I am exiled
+when I ought to be rewarded."
+
+Cocardasse sighed. "There is no encouragement for virtue nowadays."
+
+Lagardere's voice was as cheerful as if there were no such thing in the
+world as exile. "Well, there I was at my wit's end, and my nimble wits
+found work for me. 'If I must leave France,' I said, 'I will go to Spain,
+where the spirit of chivalry still reigns.' So I raised a regiment of
+adventurers like myself--broken gentlemen, ruined spendthrifts, poor
+devils out at elbow, gallant soldiers of fortune one and all. They wait
+for me a mile from here. We shall find work to do in Spain or elsewhere.
+The world is wide, and it has always work for good swords to do."
+
+Cocardasse looked at him admiringly. "Your sword will never rust for want
+of use," he said, with approval.
+
+Lagardere answered him, briskly: "Why should it? 'Tis the best friend in
+the world. What woman's eye ever shone as brightly as its blade, what
+woman's tongue ever discoursed such sweet music?"
+
+Cocardasse took off his hat and swung it. "Hurrah for the sword!" he
+shouted.
+
+Lagardere's glance applauded his enthusiasm. "Iron was God's best gift to
+man, and he God's good servant who hammered it into shape and gave it
+point and edge. I shall never be happy until I am master of it."
+
+AEsop joined the conversation mockingly. "I thought you were master of
+it," he said, with an obvious sneer.
+
+Cocardasse and Passepoil looked horrified at the hunchback's
+impertinence, but Lagardere did not seem to be vexed, and answered, quite
+amiably: "So did I till lately." Then he said, addressing himself
+generally to the company: "Have any of you ever heard of the thrust of
+Nevers?"
+
+A tremor of excitement ran through his audience. Cocardasse took up the
+talk: "We spoke of it but now."
+
+"Well," said Lagardere, "what do you think of it?"
+
+AEsop, the irrepressible, thrust in his opinion. "Never was secret thrust
+invented that cannot be parried."
+
+Lagardere looked at him somewhat contemptuously. "So I thought till I
+crossed swords with Nevers. Now I think differently."
+
+Cocardasse whistled. "The devil you do," he commented.
+
+"I will tell you all about it," said Lagardere. "It happened three months
+ago. That secret thrust piqued me. Then people talked too much about
+Nevers; that irritated me. Wherever I went, from court to camp, from
+tavern to palace, the name of Nevers was dinned in my ears. The barber
+dressed your hair a la Nevers. The tailor cut your coat a la Nevers.
+Fops carried canes a la Nevers; ladies scented themselves a la Nevers.
+One day at the inn they served me cutlets a la Nevers. I flung the damned
+dish out of the window. On the doorstep I met my boot-maker, who offered
+to sell me a pair of boots a la Nevers. I cuffed the rascal and flung him
+ten louis as a salve. But the knave only said to me: 'Monsieur de Nevers
+beat me once, but he gave me a hundred pistoles.'"
+
+Passepoil sighed for the sorrows of his young pupil: "Poor little
+Parisian!"
+
+Lagardere went on with his tale: "Now I am vainglorious enough to hold
+that cutlets would taste good if they were cooked a la Lagardere; that
+coats a la Lagardere would make good wearing, and boots a la Lagardere
+good walking. I came to the conclusion that Paris was not big enough for
+the pair of us, and that Nevers was the man to quit the field. Like AEsop
+yonder, I laughed at the secret thrust."
+
+He paused, and Cocardasse questioned: "But you don't laugh now?"
+
+Lagardere answered him, gravely: "Not a laugh. I waited for Nevers one
+evening outside the Louvre and saluted him. 'Sir,' I said, in my grandest
+manner, 'I rely upon your courtesy to give me a moonlight lesson in your
+secret thrust.' Lord, how he started. 'Who the devil are you?' says he. I
+made him a magnificent bow. 'I am Henri de Lagardere, of the king's
+Light-Horse. I am always in trouble, always in debt, always in love.
+These are misfortunes a man can endure. But I am always hearing of your
+merits, which is fretting, and of your irresistible secret thrust, and
+that is unbearable.'"
+
+Lagardere paused to give dramatic effect to the point in his narrative.
+
+"What did he say to that?" asked Passepoil.
+
+Lagardere went on: "'Ah,' said the duke, 'you are the fellow they call
+handsome Lagardere'" (Lagardere interrupted the flow of his story with a
+pathetic parenthesis--"I can't help it, they do call me so"); "'people
+talk too much about you, and that wearies me'; which shows that he had a
+touch of my complaint. Well, he was civility itself. We went down by the
+church of St.-Germain, and had scarcely crossed swords when the point of
+his rapier pricked me here, just between the eyes. I was touched--I,
+Lagardere--and if I had not leaped backward I should have been a dead
+man. 'That is my secret thrust,' says the duke with a smile, and wished
+me good-evening."
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE PARRY TO THE THRUST OF NEVERS
+
+
+There was a heavy stillness in the room when Lagardere came to the end of
+his tale. "This sounds serious," Cocardasse said, gloomily, and those
+about him were gloomily silent.
+
+Lagardere resumed his story: "I pondered that thrust for a month. At last
+I mastered it. I tried it on the Baron de Brissac with perfect success."
+
+A general laugh at this remark relieved the tension of the bravos'
+nerves. AEsop took advantage of the more cheerful atmosphere again to
+address Lagardere. "Matchless cavalier," he asked, with a wry assumption
+of politeness, "would you show me that thrust you esteem so highly?"
+
+Lagardere looked at the speaker with a whimsical smile. "With pleasure,"
+he said, and drew his sword. AEsop did likewise, and while the bravos drew
+back towards the wall to allow a free space for the lesson the two
+swordsmen came on guard. Lagardere explained while he fenced, naming each
+feint and lunge and circle of the complicated attack as he made it. With
+the last word of his steel-illuminated lecture his sword, that had
+illustrated the words of the fencer, seemed suddenly to leap forward, a
+glittering streak of light.
+
+AEsop leaped back with a yell, and clapped his left hand to his forehead.
+"Damnation!" he cried.
+
+Cocardasse, who had been following the proceedings with the keenest
+attention, hurried out of the circle of spectators. "Splendid!" he cried.
+"What is the parry?"
+
+"It is as clear as day," Lagardere answered. "This is how the trick is
+done," and again, as he spoke, his blade explained his text, gleaming and
+twisting in the cunning evolutions of the riposte.
+
+Cocardasse, who had drawn his own sword, repeated Lagardere's words and
+parodied Lagardere's gestures faithfully. "I see," he said, and turned to
+the others, who had lost nothing of the lesson. "Have you caught it,
+boys? It might serve--"
+
+Lagardere interrupted him, indifferent to the evil appreciation on the
+faces of the spectators. "It will serve at once. I am going to try it on
+its master."
+
+"On Nevers?" queried Staupitz, hoarsely.
+
+Lagardere nodded. "On no less a man. I should have told you that I
+plagued him until he promised me my revenge. When I was exiled I wrote to
+remind him." Lagardere drew a letter from his breast and held it up for a
+moment before returning it to its lodging. "In this letter he accepts my
+challenge, names the time, the place--"
+
+Cocardasse interrupted: "What time?"
+
+"To-night at ten," Lagardere replied.
+
+"The place?" asked Passepoil.
+
+"The moat of Caylus," Lagardere answered. He pointed to the window at
+which AEsop had been sitting so long. "You can see it from that window."
+
+There was a general look of astonishment on the faces of all the bravos.
+Passepoil, quick with his Norman caution, glanced at Staupitz and the
+group about him, and put his finger cautiously to his lips.
+
+Cocardasse was still inquisitive. "Why there?" he questioned.
+
+Lagardere explained, amiably: "Because such is the good duke's pleasure.
+When I sent him my cartel I made it plain that I had little time on my
+hands, as I was anxious, on account of the king's fire-new zeal against
+duelling, to cross the frontier as speedily as might be. I knew the duke
+was staying on his estates near by, and I suggested, with a fine show of
+gravity, that possibly his highness was acquainted with some quiet place
+in the neighborhood of the Castle of Caylus where we might settle our
+little difference. Oh, the words were solemnly couched, but I swear to
+you that I laughed heartily when I wrote them."
+
+Lagardere laughed again in memory of that former mirth as he made an end
+of speaking. Cocardasse scratched an ear and glanced at Passepoil.
+Passepoil scratched an ear and glanced at Cocardasse. The rest of the
+bravos stared with a sullen curiosity at Lagardere, who paid no heed to
+their gaze.
+
+"Why did you laugh?" Cocardasse asked, after a short pause.
+
+Lagardere answered him affably: "Because I knew that my allusion to
+Caylus would fret my excellent enemy. There is, it seems, a beauty hidden
+in that gloomy castle, Gabrielle de Caylus, whom my duke adores in spite
+of the ancient feud between the two houses of Caylus and Nevers. It
+should please him to fight under the eyes of his lady love, whom I can
+console if I win."
+
+The idea seemed to please Lagardere, for he again began to laugh softly
+to himself after he had finished speaking. But Cocardasse did not seem to
+think it was a laughing matter, for his voice was almost solemn as he
+asked: "Did you speak of the lady in your letter to Nevers?"
+
+Lagardere interrupted his mirth to reply: "Of course. The situation is so
+humorous. I suggested playfully that there was a lovely princess
+imprisoned in the castle of a wicked old ogre named Caylus, and I hinted
+that if things turned out as I hoped, I might be fortunate enough to
+carry solace and freedom to the captive damsel." He paused for a moment
+and then asked in wonder: "Why do you pull such long faces?"
+
+For, indeed, the faces of the swashbucklers were almost funereal in their
+solemnity. Passepoil, relying upon his Norman cunning, took it upon
+himself to explain a ticklish situation. "It is lucky we are here to
+help you," he said, knowingly.
+
+Lagardere's laughter became more pronounced. "To help me?" he cried, and
+he shook with amusement at the absurdity of the words.
+
+Passepoil insisted: "It's no laughing matter. Nevers is the lady's
+husband."
+
+He spoke with a portentous solemnity against which Lagardere protested,
+laughing louder than before. "On the contrary, it is more laughable than
+ever. A secret marriage. A romance. Perhaps I shall have to soothe a
+widow when I hoped to woo a maid."
+
+"Better have a sword or two to back you," Cocardasse suggested,
+cunningly.
+
+Lagardere frowned. "No, thank you. I do my own fighting."
+
+Passepoil whispered, insinuatingly: "Could I help to carry off the
+lady?"
+
+Lagardere's frown deepened. "No, thank you. I do my own love-making.
+Clear out and leave me alone. That is all I want of you, my friends."
+
+Cocardasse sighed. "I'd do anything in the world to oblige you, but--" He
+paused and looked helplessly at his former pupil, whom his faltering
+speech, his hesitating manner began to anger.
+
+"But what?" said Lagardere, sharply.
+
+Cocardasse made an apologetic gesture. "Every man to his trade. We also
+are waiting for some one."
+
+Lagardere raised his eyebrows. "Indeed, and that some one?"
+
+The bravos looked at one another uneasily, trying to seem devil-may-care
+and failing wofully. Nobody appeared to want to speak. At last Passepoil
+spoke. "That some one is Louis de Nevers," he said, and wished heartily
+that he did not have to say it.
+
+Lagardere at first appeared to be puzzled by the answer. Then the full
+meaning of it seemed to fall upon him like a blow, and his face blazed at
+the insult. "Nevers! You! Ah, this is an ambuscade, and I have sat at
+drink with assassins!"
+
+Cocardasse protested: "Come, captain, come."
+
+Lagardere's only answer was to spring back clear of the nearest swordsmen
+and to draw his sword again. The bravos gathered together angrily about
+Staupitz, buzzing like irritated bees.
+
+Lagardere flung his comely head back, and his bright eyes flamed with a
+royal rage. His words came quick and clear in his anger: "It was for this
+you sought to learn Nevers's thrust, and I--Oh, it would make the gods
+laugh to think that I taught it to you! You have the best of the joke so
+far, excellent assassins, but if any one of you touches a hair of
+Nevers's head he will find that the joke is two-edged, like my sword. If
+Nevers must die, it shall be in honorable battle and by my hands, but not
+by yours, while Lagardere lives."
+
+AEsop commented, sneeringly: "Lagardere is not immortal."
+
+Staupitz grunted, angrily: "Shall one man dictate to nine?" and made an
+appealing gesture to his comrades, inciting them against their censor.
+
+Lagardere faced their menaces with the contemptuous indifference with
+which a mastiff might have faced as many rats. He commanded, imperiously:
+"Pack off, the whole gang of you, and leave Nevers to me!"
+
+The bravos still buzzed and grumbled: Cocardasse rubbed his chin
+thoughtfully; Passepoil pinched his long nose. The situation was becoming
+critical. Lagardere was Lagardere, but he was only one man, after all, in
+a narrow room, against great odds. Truly, the odds would be diminished if
+the quarrel came to actual blows, for Cocardasse was resolved, and he
+knew that Passepoil was resolved also, to side with Lagardere in such an
+emergency. But even with the situation thus altered the result could only
+be unnecessary bloodshed, which would be bad, for, if Lagardere was their
+dear Little Parisian, the others were also their comrades. Further, it
+would mean the postponing, probably the abandonment, of their enterprise
+against Nevers, which would be much worse. Cocardasse plucked the Norman
+to him with a strong finger and thumb, and whispered in his ear: "Get the
+boys away and shift the keys."
+
+Passepoil nodded, and glided discreetly among the bravos huddled together
+at the table, whispering the words of Cocardasse in the ears of each.
+
+Lagardere frowned at this mystery. "What are you whispering?" he asked,
+angrily.
+
+Cocardasse explained, plausibly. "Only that if you wanted to keep Nevers
+to yourself--"
+
+Passepoil interrupted, concluding: "It mattered little who did the job."
+
+By this time the bravos, who at the beginning of the quarrel had unhooked
+their rapiers from the wall, were now pulling their cloaks about them and
+making for the main door. The Italian, the Breton, the Spaniard, the
+Biscayan, and the Portuguese filed out into the passage, followed by
+AEsop, who turned to pay Lagardere a mocking salutation and to say,
+tauntingly: "So good-night, gallant captain."
+
+Staupitz, with an air of surly carelessness, sauntered down to the only
+other door in the room, the door that led to the domestic offices of the
+Inn. While he did so, Cocardasse held out his hand to Lagardere in sign
+of amity, but Lagardere refused it. "I am no precisian," he said. "I have
+kept vile company. I would not deny my hand to a hang-man. But the most
+tolerant philosopher has his dislikes, and mine are assassins."
+
+Cocardasse sighed, and made for the main door, followed by Passepoil, who
+said, wistfully, "Adieu, Little Parisian," a greeting of which Lagardere
+took no notice.
+
+Now, while AEsop had been saying his taunting farewell to Lagardere he had
+been standing with his back to the door, and with his left hand had
+dexterously abstracted the key. Also, while Cocardasse had been
+endeavoring to gain a clasp of the hand from Lagardere, Staupitz had
+quietly locked the door leading to the kitchen and put that key in his
+pocket. Now Staupitz, Cocardasse, and Passepoil went in their turn
+through the main door and drew it behind them.
+
+Lagardere seated himself at the table with a sigh of relief as he heard
+the heavy feet trampling down the passage, but his relief did not last
+long. His quick ears caught a sound that was undoubtedly the click of a
+key in a lock, followed by the shuffle of cautiously retiring feet. He
+instantly sprang to his feet, and, rushing to the main door, caught at
+the handle and found the door firmly locked.
+
+"Damn them!" he cried; "they have locked the door." Then he began to
+shout, furiously, calling first upon Cocardasse, and then upon Passepoil
+by name to open the door immediately, knowing these two to be his friends
+among the gang of rascals. But no answer came to his cries, and, vigorous
+though he was, his efforts had no effect upon the solid strength of the
+door. Turning, he hurried to the door which led to the kitchen and tried
+that, only to find that it, too, was locked against him, and that it,
+too, was impregnable. He looked about him hurriedly. He knew it was no
+use calling for the people of the Inn, who would be sure to side with
+their truculent customers, and he knew also that, if he did not succeed
+in making his escape from the trap into which he had blundered, Nevers
+would be murdered.
+
+He rushed to the window and looked out. The sight was not pleasing. The
+rugged rock on which the Inn was perched dropped beneath him thirty feet
+to the moat below, and, though his eyes eagerly scanned the face of the
+cliff, he could see no possibility, even for one so nimble as himself, of
+climbing down it successfully. To jump such a height would be to end as a
+jelly and be of no service to Nevers. For a few wild moments he cursed
+his folly in having been deluded by the bravos, and then his native high
+spirits and his native humor came to his assistance, reminding him that
+he always made it his business to look upon the diverting side of life,
+and that it was now clearly his duty to seek for the entertaining
+elements of the present predicament. Undoubtedly, these were hard to
+find. The jest was decidedly a bitter one, and could only be turned to
+his taste if he succeeded in getting out. But how was he to succeed? He
+tried the door again, despairingly and unsuccessfully as before. He
+reflected that perhaps there might be a rope in the room, and anxiously
+he looked in every corner. No rope was to be found.
+
+Clapping his hands to his sides in his vexation at being thus baffled, he
+touched the soft substance of his silken sash, and instantly an idea
+kindled at the touch. "Perhaps this will do," he thought, and hurriedly
+proceeded to unwind it. It was a long sash, for it went from his shoulder
+to his waist and then three times round his middle, where it was tied in
+a large bow with long ends. It was at least fifteen feet long, and as
+tough as any hemp that was ever twisted. He fastened one end of it
+quickly round a bar in the window, and let the long crimson streamer drop
+down the side of the cliff. Using this as a means of descent, it would
+bring him half-way down the rock. Hanging by his arms, he would cover
+much of the remaining distance, and the drop thence to the ground would
+be easy. In another moment he was outside the window, and, grasping the
+silk firmly in his strong fingers, began his perilous descent.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE MOAT OF CAYLUS
+
+
+The descent into the moat of Caylus was rather a ticklish business, even
+with the aid of an improvised rope, for the face of the cliff was, for
+the most part, smooth, and afforded little in the way of foothold, but
+Lagardere was a trained athlete and a man of great physical strength, one
+that could use his feet with skill for purchase against the face of the
+rock, and he made his way dexterously to the end of his tether. Even when
+he had got thus far, and was swinging by his hands from the end of his
+taut sash, he was a considerable distance from the ground. But Lagardere
+let go with as light a heart as if he were a new Curtius leaping into a
+new gulf; and, indeed, if he had been of a mind to make the parallel, he
+would have counted his stake as great as the safety of Rome. Dropping
+like a plummet, he alighted on his hands and knees on the ground. Quickly
+he picked himself up, dusted the earth from his palms, and, after
+carefully feeling himself all over to make sure that he was none the
+worse, save for the jar of his tumble, he looked about him cautiously. It
+was late evening now, and the hot day knew no cooler dusk.
+
+As he looked up from the strange vault in which he stood, the vault that
+was formed by the moat of Caylus between the rock on which the castle
+rose and the rock on which the Inn of the Seven Devils was perched, he
+saw above him the late evening sky painted with the strangest pageant. To
+the right of the spot where the sun had declined the purple melancholy of
+the heavens was broken by a blaze of gold, such as might have flashed
+from the armor of some celestial host marshalled and marching against the
+Powers of Darkness. To the left, under lowered eyelids of sable clouds,
+there ran a band of red fire that seemed as if it must belt the earth
+with its fury, a red fire that might have flamed from the mouth of the
+very pit. Lagardere was not over-imaginative, but the strangeness of the
+contrast, the fierce splendor of the warring colors, touched the player's
+heart beneath the soldier's hide. "The gold of heaven," he murmured, and
+saluted the sky to the right. "The rod of hell," he thought, and pointed
+towards the left, where distant trees stared, black, angry outlines
+against those waves of livid fire. Was not this contest in the clouds a
+kind of allegory of the quarrel in which he was now engaged, and was not
+his cause very surely, in its righteousness, its justice, its honor,
+gilded and invigorated by those noble rays to strive against and
+overthrow the legionaries of evil?
+
+Even as he thought such unfamiliar thoughts, the pageant of opposing
+forces dimmed and dwindled. The darkness was gathering swiftly, investing
+the world with its legion of gloom; and in the shadow of the great Castle
+of Caylus, rising like a rock itself out of the solid rock behind
+Lagardere, the moat was soon very dark indeed. There was little light in
+the moonless sky; there came none from the castle, which in its dim
+outline of towers and battlements might have been the enchanted palace of
+some fairy tale, so soundless, so lightless, so unpeopled did it seem.
+There was a faint gleam discernible in the windows of the Inn on the
+other side of the gorge from which he had just succeeded in escaping.
+
+Lagardere looked up at the Inn and laughed; Lagardere looked up at the
+castle and smiled. What was she like, he wondered, that beautiful
+Gabrielle de Caylus, whom it had been his impudent ambition to woo, and
+whom he now knew to be married to Nevers, his appointed antagonist? He
+had come all that way with the pleasant intention of killing Nevers, but
+he felt more friendly towards his enemy since he had learned of the plot
+against his life, and he wondered who was the instigator of that plot,
+who was the paymaster of the, as he believed, baffled assassins. For in a
+sense he believed them to be baffled, and this for two reasons. The first
+was that he heard no sound of stealthy footsteps creeping across the
+bridge. The second was that when he glanced up at the Inn window he saw
+that the dim glow in the distant window was suddenly occulted, and then
+as suddenly became visible again. It was plain to Lagardere that some
+one had entered the room and had looked out of the window for an instant.
+Therefore some one had already discovered his absence, probably the maid
+of the Inn. No doubt she would send word to the bravos, and it might very
+well chance that the bravos would not think the odds in their favor
+sufficiently good when they knew that they had to deal with Henri de
+Lagardere as well as with Louis de Nevers.
+
+Lagardere whistled cheerfully the lilt of a drinking-song as he reflected
+thus, for he considered himself quite equal to handling the whole batch
+of rascallions if only he had a wall of some kind to back him. He was
+fondling the possibility that they had given up the whole business in
+disgust at his interruption of their purpose, when it suddenly stabbed
+his fancy that they might ambush Nevers on his way. But he dismissed that
+fear instantly. He hoped and believed that if they knew he was free they
+would give him the first chance to kill Nevers for them. In any case, all
+that he could do was to wait patiently where he was and see what the
+creeping minutes brought.
+
+The moat of Caylus did not appear to him to be, under the existing
+conditions, by any means the ideal field for a duel. In the darkness it
+seemed to him to be more happily adapted for a game of blindman's-buff.
+There was a half-filled hay-cart in the moat, and bundles of hay were
+scattered hither and thither on the ground and littered the place
+confusingly. Lagardere began to busy himself in clearing some of this hay
+out of the way, so as to afford an untroubled space for the coming
+combat. While he was thus engaged he heard for the first time a faint
+sound come from the direction of the castle. It was the sound of a door
+being turned cautiously upon its hinges. Crouching in the shadow of the
+rock down which he had lately descended, Lagardere looked round and saw
+dimly two forms emerge like shadows from the very side of the castle. The
+new-comers had come forth from a little postern that gave onto the moat,
+to which they descended by some narrow steps cut in the rock, and they
+now walked a little way slowly into the darkness. Lagardere, all
+watchfulness, could hear one of the shadows say to the other, "This way,
+monseigneur," and the word "monseigneur" made him wonder. Was he going to
+be brought face to face with the Marquis of Caylus, the old ogre whose
+grim tyranny had been talked of even in Paris?
+
+The shadow addressed as monseigneur answered, "I see no one," and the
+voices of both the shadows were unfamiliar to the listener. But the voice
+of the shadow that was saluted as monseigneur sounded like the voice of a
+young man.
+
+The leading shadow seemed to be peering into the darkness in front of
+him. "I told them to place a sentinel," he said to his companion; and as
+he spoke he caught sight of Lagardere, who must have looked as shadowy
+to him as he looked to Lagardere, and he pointed as he added: "Yes, there
+is some one there, monseigneur."
+
+"Who is it?" the second shadow questioned, and again the voice sounded
+youthful to Lagardere's ears.
+
+"It looks like Saldagno," said the first shadow; and, coming a little
+farther forward, he called dubiously into the gloom: "Is that you,
+Saldagno?"
+
+Now, as Saldagno was the name of one of the swordsmen who had met at the
+Inn in menace of Nevers, Lagardere came to the swift conclusion that the
+two shadows now haunting him had something to do with that conspiracy,
+and that, if it were possible, it would be as well to learn their
+purposes. He was, therefore, quite prepared to be Saldagno for the
+occasion, and it was with a well-affected Lusitanian accent that he
+promptly answered, "Present," and came a little nearer to the strangers.
+
+The first shadow spoke again, craning a long neck into the darkness. "It
+is I, Monsieur Peyrolles. Come here."
+
+Lagardere advanced obediently, and the second shadow, coming to the side
+of his companion, questioned him. "Would you like to earn fifty
+pistoles?"
+
+Although both the voices were strange to Lagardere, the voice of this
+second shadow seemed to denote a person of better breeding than his
+companion, a person accustomed to command when the other was accustomed
+to cajole. Also, it was decidedly the voice of a young man. Whoever the
+speaker might be, he certainly was not the crabbed old Marquis de Caylus.
+Lagardere endeavored eagerly but unsuccessfully to see the face of the
+speaker. Night had by this time fallen completely. The moat was as black
+as a wolf's mouth, and the shadow that was muffled in a cloak held a
+corner of it so raised that it would have concealed his visage if the
+gorge had been flooded with moonlight.
+
+"Who would not?" Lagardere answered, with a swagger which seemed to him
+appropriate to a light-hearted assassin.
+
+The shadow gave him commands. "When ten o'clock strikes, tap at this
+window with your sword." He pointed as he spoke to the wall of the
+castle, and in that wall Lagardere, peering through the obscurity, could
+faintly discern a window about a man's height from the moat. The speaker
+went on: "A woman will open. Whisper very low, 'I am here.'"
+
+Involuntarily Lagardere echoed the last words, "I am here," and added,
+"The motto of Nevers."
+
+There was annoyance in the well-bred voice as it questioned, sharply:
+"What do you know of Nevers?"
+
+Peyrolles respectfully answered for the sham Saldagno: "Monseigneur, they
+all know whom they are to meet. How they know I cannot tell, but they do
+know. But they are to be trusted."
+
+The shadow shrugged his shoulders and resumed his instructions: "The
+woman will hand you a child, a baby a few months old. Take it at once to
+the Inn." He paused for a moment and then said, slowly: "I trust you are
+not tender-hearted."
+
+Lagardere protested with voice and gesture. "You pain me," he declared.
+
+Apparently satisfied, the shadow went on: "If the girl should die in your
+arms, no one will blame you, and your fifty pistoles will be a hundred.
+'Tis but a quick nip of finger and thumb on an infant's neck. Do you
+understand?"
+
+"What I do not understand," retorted Lagardere, "is why you do not do the
+job yourself and save your money."
+
+It was now Peyrolles's turn to be annoyed. "Rascal!" he exclaimed,
+angrily. But the man he called monseigneur restrained him.
+
+"Calm, Peyrolles, calm! For the very good reason, inquisitive gentleman,
+that the lady in question would know my voice or the voice of my friend
+here, and as I do not wish her to think that I have anything to do with
+to-night's work--"
+
+Lagardere interrupted, bluffly: "Say no more. I'm your man."
+
+Even as he spoke the plaintive sound of a horn was heard far away in the
+distance. Peyrolles spoke: "The first signal. The shepherds have been
+told to watch and warn at the wood-ends and the by-path and the causeway
+to the bridge. Nevers has entered the forest."
+
+The noble shadow gave a little laugh. "He is riding to his death, the
+fool amorist. Come."
+
+Then the two shadows flitted away in the darkness as nebulously as they
+had come, and the castle swallowed them up, and Lagardere was alone again
+in the moat among the bundles of hay.
+
+"May the devil fly away with you for a pair of knaves!" he said beneath
+his breath, apostrophizing the vanished shadows. "But I'll save the child
+and Nevers in spite of you." For in those moments of horrid colloquy all
+his purpose had been transmuted. These unknown plotters of murder had
+confirmed him in his alliance to the man he had come to slay. So long as
+Nevers was in peril from these strange enemies, so long Lagardere would
+be his friend, free, of course, to rekindle his promise later. But now
+even Nevers's life was not of the first importance. There was a child
+threatened, a child to be saved. Who were these devils, these Herods,
+that sought to slay a baby?
+
+Even as he asked himself this question he could hear through the clear
+air the striking of a clock in the distant village. He counted the
+strokes from one to ten. This was the time that had been fixed by the
+master shadow. Lagardere made his way carefully across the moat till he
+stood beneath the designated window. He drew his sword and tapped with
+the blade thrice against the pane. Then he sheathed his sword and waited
+upon events.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+BROTHERS-IN-ARMS
+
+
+He had not long to wait. In a few moments the window above him turned
+softly on its hinges, and a head appeared in the open space. The chamber
+from which the window opened was unilluminated, and the light in the moat
+was so dim that Lagardere could only perceive the vague outline of a
+woman's head and shoulders leaning forward into the darkness. Even in
+that moment of tension he felt himself stirred by a sharp regret that he
+should not be able to judge for himself as to the beauty of the lady whom
+the world called Gabrielle de Caylus, but whom he knew to be the Duchess
+de Nevers. A very low, sweet voice called to him through the darkness,
+speaking the Christian name of Nevers.
+
+"Louis!" the woman said, and Lagardere immediately answered, "I am here."
+He spoke very low, that his voice might not be recognized, and because he
+had the mimic's trick he made his voice as like as he could to the voice
+of Nevers.
+
+Evidently his voice was not recognized, evidently the lady took him for
+her lord, for she immediately went on speaking very low and clear, her
+words falling rapidly from above on the ears of the waiting Lagardere.
+
+"Do not speak, Louis," she said; "do not linger. I am watched; I fear
+danger. Take our dear Gabrielle."
+
+As she spoke she leaned her body a little farther forward into the night
+and extended her arms towards her hearer.
+
+Lagardere tingled with a sudden thrill as he realized that this beautiful
+woman was nearer to him, that she was seeking him, that she believed him
+to be her lover. And he realized with a pang that he, impudent in his
+libertinism, had entertained with a light heart the light hope in some
+audacious way to take by storm the love of this unknown woman. It had
+seemed, in Paris, an insolently boyishly possible, plausible adventure;
+but now, in his new knowledge and in this distant, lonely place, his
+enterprise, that, after all, was little more than an impish vision,
+seemed no other than a tragi-comical impertinence. All that he had known
+of Gabrielle de Caylus was that she was reported fair, and that she was
+loved by his enemy. All that he knew of her now was that she was his
+enemy's wife, that she had a gracious voice, and that she loved his enemy
+very dearly; yet this was enough for Lagardere, this, and to know that
+the woman was all unconsciously trusting to his honor, to his courage, to
+his truth. And it was with an unfamiliar exaltation of the spirit that
+Lagardere swore to himself that the unwitting confidence of Gabrielle de
+Caylus should not be misplaced, and that all his hand, his heart, his
+sword could do for her service should cheerfully and faithfully be done.
+
+Lagardere could see that she was holding something in the nature of a
+bundle in her out-stretched arms. This was the child, no doubt, of whom
+the masked shadow had spoken. Lagardere took the bundle cautiously in his
+hands and lowered it to a secure resting-place in his left arm. Then the
+Duchess de Nevers spoke again, and he saw that she was holding another
+and smaller object in her hand.
+
+"This packet," she said, "contains the papers recording our marriage,
+torn from the register of the chapel. I feared they would be destroyed if
+I did not save them."
+
+As she spoke she put the packet into Lagardere's extended right hand, and
+as his fingers closed upon it the horn that he had heard before was wound
+again in the distance, but this time it seemed to his keen ears that the
+sound was nearer than before.
+
+The woman in the window gave a shiver. "There is much to say," she
+sighed, "but no time to say it now. That may be a signal. Go, go, Louis.
+I love you."
+
+In another moment her head was drawn back into the darkness of the
+apartment, the window closed, and the old castle was as silent and
+obscure as before. If it were not for the bundle in his left arm and the
+packet in his right hand, Lagardere might well have been tempted to
+believe that the whole episode was no more than the fancy of a dream. He
+thrust the packet into his breast, and then moved slowly towards the
+centre of the moat, tenderly cradling his precious charge. Peering
+closely down at the bundle, he could dimly discern what seemed to be a
+baby face among the encircling folds of silk which wrapped the child. It
+was sleeping soundly; the transition from its mother's arms to the arms
+of the soldier of fortune had not wakened it, and now, as Lagardere
+gently rocked it in his arms, it continued to sleep.
+
+The whimsicality of the adventure began to tickle Lagardere's fancy. He
+seemed to be destined to play many parts that night. A few minutes back
+he had masqueraded as a bravo to deceive the mysterious shadows. Then he
+had pretended to be a husband to deceive the Duchess de Nevers. Now he
+imitated a nurse in order that Nevers's child might sleep soundly. He
+looked again at the quiet morsel of humanity, and his heart was stirred
+with strange desires and melancholy imaginings. Raising his hand to his
+hat, he uncovered solemnly and made the baby a sweeping salute.
+
+"Mademoiselle de Nevers," he whispered, "your loyal servant salutes you!
+Sleep in peace, pretty sweetheart."
+
+Then he began to sing softly beneath his breath the burden of an old
+French lullaby which he remembered from his childhood days, with its
+burden of "Do, do, l'enfant do, l'enfant dormira tantot," and as he sang
+the horn again sounded the same dreary, prolonged note as before, but now
+more clearly, and therefore plainly nearer.
+
+"That must be the last signal," Lagardere thought, and on the moment he
+heard the sound of footsteps on the bridge, and out of the darkness
+beyond a man slowly descended into the darkness of the moat. In another
+instant Lagardere heard the well-known voice of Nevers calling out:
+"Halloo! Is any one here?"
+
+Lagardere advanced to meet his appointed enemy. "This way, duke!" he
+cried. Then he added, reprovingly: "You would have been wiser to carry a
+lantern."
+
+Nevers moved swiftly towards him along the kind of path that Lagardere
+had made in the bundle of hay, and as he came he spoke, and his tone was
+menacing and imperious. "Let me feel your blade. I can kill in the
+dark."
+
+Lagardere answered him, ironically: "Gifted gentleman! But I want a talk
+first."
+
+He had scarcely finished when a flash like lightning stabbed the darkness
+and came very near to stabbing him. It was the sword of Nevers, who was
+thrusting wildly before him into the gloom, while he cried: "Not a word!
+You have insulted a woman!"
+
+Lagardere beat a rapid retreat for a few paces, and called to him: "I
+apologize humbly, abjectly. I kneel for forgiveness."
+
+Nevers's only answer was to follow up and thrust rapidly at Lagardere's
+retreating figure, while he cried, fiercely: "Too late."
+
+There was nothing for Lagardere to do but to defend himself in order to
+gain time with this passionate madman. Therefore, Lagardere drew his
+sword and parried the attack which Nevers was now making at close
+quarters. It was so dark in the moat that the two antagonists could
+scarcely see each other, and even the brightness of the blades was with
+difficulty distinguished. In a voice that was at once anxious and
+mocking, Lagardere cried to the duke: "Unnatural parent, do you wish to
+kill your child?"
+
+The last word stopped Nevers like a blow. He lowered his sword and spoke
+wonderingly: "My child! What do you mean?"
+
+Lagardere answered him, gravely: "At this moment Mademoiselle de Nevers
+is nestled in my arms."
+
+Nevers echoed him, astonished: "My daughter, in your arms?"
+
+Lagardere came quite close to the duke and showed him the bundle cradled
+in his elbow. "See for yourself; but step gently, for the young lady's
+sleep must be respected."
+
+Nevers gave a gasp of surprise. "What has happened?"
+
+Lagardere answered him, slowly: "Madame de Nevers gave this little lady
+to me just now from yonder window, taking me for you. There is a plot to
+kill the child, to kill you."
+
+Nevers gave a groan. "This is the hate of the Marquis de Caylus."
+
+"I don't know who is doing the job," Lagardere answered, "but what I do
+know is that the night is alive with assassins. I think I have got rid of
+some of them, but there may be others, wherefore prudence advises us to
+be off."
+
+He could see Nevers stiffen himself in the darkness as he answered,
+proudly: "A Nevers fly?"
+
+Lagardere shrugged his shoulders. "Even I have no passion for flight, but
+with a sweet young lady to defend--"
+
+Nevers seemed to accept his correction. "You are right. Forgive me. Let
+us go."
+
+The two men turned to leave the moat, but as they did so they were
+stopped by the sound of fresh footsteps on the bridge, and in another
+instant Nevers's page had descended the steps and ran to join them.
+
+"My lord!" he cried to the duke as soon as he reached the pair--"my lord,
+my lord, you are surrounded!"
+
+Nevers gave an angry cry: "Too late!"
+
+Lagardere answered him with a laugh. "Nonsense! There are but nine
+rascals."
+
+But the laugh died away upon his lips when the page hurriedly
+interrupted: "Twenty at least."
+
+Lagardere was staggered but emphatic. "Nine, duke, nine. I saw them,
+counted them, know them."
+
+The page was equally emphatic. "They have got help since you came. There
+are smugglers hereabouts, and they have recruited their ranks from
+them."
+
+Lagardere grunted. "Ungentlemanly," he protested, and then addressed
+Nevers: "Well, duke, we can manage ten apiece easily." He turned to the
+boy and gave him some quick instructions. "Creep through the wood behind
+the castle to the highway. Run like the devil to the cross-roads, where
+my men wait. Tell them Lagardere is in danger. They may be here in a
+quarter of an hour."
+
+The boy answered him, decisively: "They shall be."
+
+Lagardere patted him on the back. "Good lad," he said, and the boy darted
+from his side and disappeared into the darkness.
+
+Lagardere turned to the duke. "There is no chance of escaping now without
+a scuffle," he said; "we must fight it out as well as we can. You and I,
+duke, ought not to think it a great matter to handle ten rascals apiece
+in this fighting-place, if only we intrench ourselves properly."
+
+As he spoke he laid his precious bundle reverently in the hay-cart, where
+it seemed to sleep as peacefully as if it were in its native cradle, and
+began piling up the great masses of the bundles of hay in front of him to
+form a kind of rampart.
+
+Nevers looked at him in astonishment. "Do you stand by me?"
+
+Lagardere answered him cheerfully. "I came here to fight with you. I stay
+here to fight for you. I must fight somebody. I lose by the change, for
+it is a greater honor to fight Monsieur de Nevers than a battalion of
+bravos, but there is no help for it."
+
+There was a little silence, and then Nevers said, slowly: "You are a
+splendid gentleman."
+
+"There is nothing to make a fuss about," Lagardere said, lightly. "I am
+this little lady's soldier. I came here in a cutthroat humor enough, but
+since I dandled her daintiness in my arms I've taken a fine liking for
+her father."
+
+Nevers reached out his hand to Lagardere. "Henceforward we are
+comrades--brothers."
+
+Lagardere clasped the extended hand. "Heart and hand, for life and death,
+brother."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+THE FIGHT IN THE MOAT
+
+
+As they stood there, hand clasped in hand, exchanging the dateless pledge
+of brotherhood, they heard the sound of many feet coming cautiously along
+the road to the bridge. The practised assassins walked catfoot, but there
+were others that shuffled in their care to go warily.
+
+Nevers said, quietly: "Here come the swords."
+
+Lagardere gave a jolly laugh. "Now for a glorious scrimmage!" he said,
+and made his sword sing in the air.
+
+As he spoke the words, shade after shade began to descend the steps from
+the bridge and to advance cautiously into the moat. Lagardere counted
+them as they came: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
+ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen,
+eighteen, nineteen, twenty. Even in the darkness he thought he could
+recognize certain figures: the twisted form of the hunchback, the burly
+body of Cocardasse, the gaunt figure of the Norman, the barrel bulk of
+Staupitz. This barrel bulk came to the front of the shadows huddled
+together at the base of the hill, and spoke with the thick, Teutonic
+voice that Lagardere had heard so short a time before. "There they are,"
+Staupitz said, and Lagardere could see a gleam in the night as the German
+pointed to where the two newly bound comrades stood together.
+
+An instant answer came with the defiant cry of Nevers, "I am here!" which
+was immediately echoed by Lagardere. "I am here!" he shouted; and then
+added for himself: "Lagardere! Lagardere!"
+
+Among the bravos a momentary note of comedy intruded upon the intended
+tragedy, as is often the way when humanity foregathers on sinister
+business. Cocardasse plucked Passepoil by the sleeve and drew him a
+little away from their fellow-ruffians. "We cannot fight against the
+Little Parisian," he whispered into the Norman's ear. "We will look on,
+comrade." Passepoil nodded approval, but spoke no word. For the rest of
+that red adventure into the placid blackness of the night those two stood
+apart in the shadow, with their arms folded and their swords in their
+sheaths, sombrely watching the seven men that were their friends
+assailing the one man they loved. Such honor as they had forbade them to
+change sides and fight for the Little Parisian. They had been paid to
+range with the assailants of Nevers. But no payment could possibly
+prevail on them to attack Lagardere. So, according to their consciences,
+they split the difference and held aloof. Their abstention was not
+noticed by their fellows in the excitement of the time.
+
+Numerous as they were, the bravos and their new recruits seemed unwilling
+to advance against two such famous swordsmen. Lagardere taunted their
+apathy:
+
+"Come, you crows, the eagles wait for you." He felt that the words had a
+fine theatrical ring, and he enjoyed them as he flung them forth.
+
+Nevers cried his cry, "I am here!" and Lagardere repeated it, "I am
+here!" He was longing to come to blows with the bandits, and to show them
+what two men could do against their multitude. His sword quivered like a
+snake in its eagerness to feel blades against its blade.
+
+The barrel bulk of Staupitz spoke again addressing his little army. "Do
+you fear two men?" he asked. "Forward!"
+
+On the word the eighteen men charged, the original seven leading; the
+eleven recruits, less whole-hearted in the business, came less alertly in
+the rear. The charge of the assassins was abruptly arrested by
+Lagardere's bulwark, and over that bulwark the swords of the two
+defenders flashed and leaped, and before every thrust a man went down. It
+seemed an age of battle, it seemed an instant of battle. Then the baffled
+assassins recoiled, leaving two of the smugglers for dead, while Saldagno
+and Faenza were both badly wounded, and cursing hideously in Portuguese
+and Italian.
+
+Behind the intrenchments, Lagardere chuckled as he heard. He turned to
+Nevers. "Are you wounded?" he asked, anxiously.
+
+And Nevers answered, quietly: "A scratch on the forehead."
+
+As he saw Nevers lift his hand for a moment to the space between his
+eyes, Lagardere groaned to himself, "My damned fencing-lesson," and
+mentally promised to make his enemies pay for their readiness to learn.
+He had not long to wait for an opportunity.
+
+The discomfited bravos were rapidly gathering together for a fresh
+attack. This time their leading spirit was no longer Staupitz,
+disagreeably conscious of the difficulties of the enterprise, but the
+hunchback AEsop, who seemed to burn with a passion for slaughter.
+Lagardere likened him in his mind to some ungainly, obscene bird of prey,
+as he loomed out of the mirk waving his gaunt arms and shrieking in his
+rage and hate. "Kill them! kill them!" he screamed, as he rushed across
+the intervening space, and the bravos, heartened by his frenzy of fight,
+streamed after him, flinging themselves desperately against the piled-up
+hay, only to meet again the irresistible weapons of the friends, and
+again to recoil before them. Nevers held his own on one side; Lagardere
+held his own on the other. Nevers delivered his thrust at AEsop, and for
+the second time that day the hunchback felt the prick of steel between
+his eyes and saved himself by springing backward, his blood's fire
+suddenly turned to ice. Lagardere's sword was like a living fire. "Look
+out, Staupitz! Take that, Pepe!" he cried, and wounded both men. Then,
+while the German and the Spaniard fell back swearing, he turned joyously
+to Nevers, for his quick ear caught the sound of galloping on the distant
+highway.
+
+"Good cheer, brother! I hear horses. My men are coming. Lagardere!
+Lagardere!"
+
+Nevers responded joyously, "I am here! Victory!"
+
+By this time the ground was strewn with the dead and wounded of their
+assailants, and, save for the slight scratch on Nevers's forehead, the
+defenders were unhurt. The galloping of horses was now distinctly heard,
+and the sound was as displeasing to the bravos as it was delightful to
+Lagardere.
+
+Delightful, indeed, for the sake of his companion, whom he was so hot to
+save. Otherwise, Lagardere, so far as he had clearness enough to think
+coherently at all, thought that he had never lived, had never hoped to
+live, through moments so delightful. To be in the thick of such a brawl,
+to be fighting side by side with the best swordsman in all France against
+what might well be considered overwhelming odds, and to be working havoc
+and disaster among his antagonists, stirred Lagardere's blood more
+blithely than ripe wine. He had fought good fights before now, but never
+such a fight as this, in the black and dark night, with the dim air thick
+with hostile swords, and the night wind singing songs of battle in his
+ears. To live like this was to be very much alive; this had a zest denied
+to any calmly planned duello; this had a poetry fiercer and finer than
+the shock of action in the daylit lanes of war.
+
+He called merrily to the bravos to renew their assault, but the bravos
+hung back discouraged; even the murder-zeal of AEsop had flagged. Then, in
+an instant, the attacked became the attackers, on the impulse of Nevers.
+Shouting anew the motto of his house, "I am here!" he leaped lightly over
+the rampart of hay, soliciting the swords of his foemen. Lagardere
+followed his example in an instant, and the pair now carried the war into
+the enemies' country, charging the staggered assassins, who scattered
+before them. Lagardere drove some half a dozen of the rogues, including
+Staupitz and the discomfited AEsop, towards the bridge. Nevers, nearer to
+the castle, struck down in quick succession two of the ruffians that were
+rash enough to stand their ground, and stood for the moment alone and
+unassailed, the master of his part of the field.
+
+Noiselessly behind him the little postern of Caylus opened. Noiselessly
+two shadows emerged, both masked and both holding drawn swords. Though it
+was still all blackness under the walls of the castle, there was now a
+little light in the sky, where a pale moon swam like a golden ship
+through wave after wave of engulfing cloud. The pair paused for a moment,
+as if to make sure that indeed their auxiliaries were being routed. Then
+the foremost shadow glided quietly close to Nevers, where he stood
+flushed with victory.
+
+"I am here!" Nevers cried, exulting, as he waved his conquering sword and
+looked in vain for an antagonist.
+
+"I am here!" repeated the shadow behind him, mockingly, and thrust his
+weapon deep into the victor's side. Nevers reeled before the suddenness
+and sureness of the stroke, and fell on his knees to the ground with a
+great cry that startled Lagardere and stayed him in his triumph. Nevers,
+striving to rise, turned his face against his treacherous enemy, and
+seemed to recognize the shadow in spite of its masked visage.
+
+"You!" he gasped--"you, for whom I would have given my life!"
+
+"Well, I take it," the shadow whispered, grimly, and stabbed him again.
+Nevers fell in a huddle to the earth, but he raised his dying breath in a
+cry.
+
+"Help, Lagardere! help! Save the child! Avenge me!"
+
+Then he died. Though the assassin stabbed again, he only stabbed a
+corpse. Lagardere, who was brooming his foes before him as a gardener
+brooms autumnal leaves from grass, had been arrested in his course by the
+first cry of the wounded Nevers. While he paused, his antagonists,
+rallying a little and heartened by their numbers, made ready for a fresh
+attack. Then, swiftly, came Nevers's last wild call for help, and
+Lagardere, with a great fear and a great fury in his heart, turned from
+the steps leading to the bridge and made to join his comrade. But the
+clustering swordsmen heard that cry, too, and found new courage in the
+sound. It meant that one of the demi-gods with whom, as it seemed, they
+were warring, was now no more than common clay, and that there was good
+hope of ending the other. They came together; they came upon Lagardere;
+they strove to stay him in his way. They might as well have tried to stay
+a hurricane. Lagardere beat them back, cut them down, and swept through
+their reeling line to the spot where Nevers was lying.
+
+"I am here!" he shouted, and faced the masked shadow. "Murderer, you hide
+your face, but you shall bear my mark, that I may know you when we meet
+again."
+
+The slayer of Nevers had stood on guard by the side of his victim when
+Lagardere came towards him. By his side the masked companion extended a
+cautious blade. In one wild second Lagardere beat down the slayer's sword
+and wounded the unknown man deeply on the wrist. The assassin's sword
+fell from his hand, and the assassin, with a cry of rage, retreated into
+the darkness. Lagardere had only time to brand the traitor; he had not
+the time to kill him. Looking swiftly about him, he saw that his
+vengeance must be patient if he were to save his skin from that shambles.
+The sword of the satellite defended the master; other swords began to
+gleam anew. From all the quarters of that field of fight the bravos were
+gathering again, all there were left of them, and Lagardere was now
+alone. With the activity of the skilled acrobat he leaped backward to the
+cart, and, while he still faced his enemies and while his terrible sword
+glittered in ceaseless movement, he snatched the child from the
+sheltering hay with his left hand, and, turning, began to run at his full
+speed towards the bridge. There were bravos in his path that thought to
+stay him, but they gave way before the headlong fury of his rush as if
+they believed him to be irresistible, and he reached the steps in
+safety.
+
+Once there he turned again and raised his sword in triumph, while he
+cried, fiercely: "Nevers is dead! Long live Nevers!"
+
+By now the galloping of horses sounded loud as immediate thunder, and
+even as Lagardere spoke a number of shadowy horsemen had occupied the
+bridge behind him, and those in the moat could see above them the glint
+of levelled muskets. The servant shadow held the postern open with a
+trembling hand to harbor the survivors of the strife. But the man that
+had killed Nevers, the man that Lagardere had branded, had still a hate
+to satisfy.
+
+"A thousand crowns," he cried, "to the man who gets the child!"
+
+Not a man of all the baffled assassins answered to that challenge.
+Standing upon the steps of the bridge, Lagardere caught it up.
+
+"Seek her behind my sword, assassin! You wear my mark, and I will find
+you out! You shall all suffer! After the lackeys, the master! Sooner or
+later Lagardere will come to you!"
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+THE SCYTHE OF TIME
+
+
+The years came and the years went, as had been their way since the fall
+of Troy and earlier. To the philosophic eye, surveying existence with the
+supreme wisdom of the initiate into mysteries, things changed but little
+through eons on the surface of the world, where men loved and hated, bred
+and slew, triumphed and failed, lorded and cringed as had been the way
+since the beginning, when the cave man that handled the heavier
+knuckle-bone ruled the roost. But to the unphilosophic eye of the
+majority of mankind things seemed to change greatly in a very little
+while; and it seemed, therefore, to the superficial, that many things had
+happened in France and in Paris during the seventeen years that had
+elapsed since the fight in the moat of Caylus.
+
+To begin with, the great cardinal, the Red Man, the master of France, had
+dipped from his dusk to his setting, and was inurned, with much pomp and
+solemnity, as a great prince of the church should be, and the planet
+wheeled on its indifferent way, though Armand du Plessis, Cardinal de
+Richelieu, was no more. His Gracious Majesty Louis the Thirteenth,
+self-named Louis the Just, found himself, for the first time in his
+futile career, his own master, and did not know quite what to make of the
+privilege. He mourned the deceased statesman with one eye, as it were,
+while he ogled his belated goddess of freedom with the other. It might
+well be that she had paid too tardy a visit, but at least he would essay
+to trifle with her charms.
+
+Many things had happened to the kingdom over which, for the first time,
+his Majesty the King held undivided authority since the night of Caylus
+fight. For one thing, by the cardinal's order, all the fortified castles
+in France had been dismantled, and many of them reduced to ruins,
+owl-haunted, lizard-haunted, ivy-curtained. This decree did not
+especially affect Caylus, which had long ceased to be a possible menace
+to the state, and, after the death of the grim old marquis, was rapidly
+falling into decay on its own account without aid from the ministers of
+Richelieu's will. For another thing, two very well-esteemed gentlemen of
+his Majesty's Musketeers, having been provoked by two other very
+well-esteemed gentlemen of his Eminence's Musketeers, had responded to
+the challenge with the habitual alacrity of that distinguished body, and
+had vindicated its superiority in swordcraft by despatching their
+antagonists. After this victory the gentlemen of the Musketeers,
+remembering the rigor of the cardinal's antipathy to duelling, made a
+vain effort to put some distance between them and the king's justice.
+They were arrested in their flight, brought back to Paris, and perished
+miserably on the scaffold by the pointless sword of the executioner. Each
+of these events proved in its degree that Monsieur de Richelieu had very
+little respect for tradition, and that if he disliked an institution, no
+matter how time-hallowed and admired by gentlemen, he did away with it in
+the most uncompromising and arbitrary manner. There were many other
+doings during the days of the cardinal's glory that are of no account in
+this chronicle, though they were vastly of importance to the people of
+France. But many things had happened that are of moment to this
+chronicle, and these, therefore, shall be set down as briefly as may be.
+
+News did not travel, when the seventeenth century was still young, from
+one end of the kingdom to the other with any desperate rapidity. Even
+when the posts rode at a hand gallop, the long leagues took their long
+time to cover, and, after all, of most of the news that came to the
+capital from abroad and afar it was generally safe to disbelieve a full
+half, to discredit the third quarter, and to be justifiably sceptical as
+to the remaining portion. But, credible or incredible, all news is blown
+to Paris, as all roads lead to Rome, and in the fulness of time it got to
+be known in Paris that the Duke Louis de Nevers, the young, the
+beautiful, the brilliant, had come to his death in an extraordinary and
+horrible manner hard by the Spanish frontier, having been, as it seemed,
+deliberately butchered by a party of assassins employed, so it was said,
+by his father-in-law, the old Count of Caylus.
+
+It was not difficult for the well-informed in Paris to credit the ignoble
+rumor. The old feud between the house of Caylus, on the one hand, and the
+house of Nevers on the other, was familiar to those who made it their
+business to be familiar with the movements of high persons in high
+places; and when on the top of this inherited feud you had the secret
+marriage between the son of the house of Nevers and the daughter of the
+house of Caylus, there was every reason, at least, to believe in a bloody
+end to the business. There was, however, no jot of definite proof against
+the marquis. Nevers's dead body was found, indeed, in the neighborhood of
+the castle, with three sword wounds on it, one inflicted from the back
+and two from the front, but who inflicted or caused to be inflicted those
+wounds it was impossible to assert with knowledge, though it was easy
+enough to hazard a conjecture.
+
+Anyway, Louis de Nevers was dead. It was amazing news enough for Paris,
+but there was more amazing news to follow. To begin with, Louis de
+Nevers's young wife was now formally recognized even by the old marquis
+as Louis de Nevers's young widow. It was true that there was no
+documentary evidence of the marriage, but Prince Louis de Gonzague, who
+happened to be a guest of the Marquis de Caylus at the time of the
+murder, and who seemed little less than inconsolable for the death of his
+friend, came forward in the handsomest, gallantest fashion to give his
+evidence. He told how he and his faithful henchman Peyrolles had been the
+witnesses of the secret wedding. He succeeded in placating the wrath of
+the Marquis of Caylus. He succeeded in obtaining the sanction of the
+king, and, which was more important, the sanction of the cardinal, to the
+recognition of the marriage of Mademoiselle de Caylus with the late Duke
+Louis de Nevers. All this was thrilling news enough, but news more
+thrilling was to follow. The newly recognized Duchess of Nevers soon, to
+the astonishment and, at first, the blank incredulity of all hearers,
+took to herself a third name, and became Madame la Princesse de Gonzague.
+There was soon no doubt about it. She had consented to marry, and had
+married, Prince Louis de Gonzague, who, as all the world knew, had been
+the closest friend of the dead Louis of Nevers with one exception, and
+that was Louis of Bourbon, that was King of France. People who talked of
+such things said, and in this they were generally inspired in some way,
+directly or indirectly, by friends of Prince Louis de Gonzague, that the
+Duke de Nevers had been murdered by an exiled captain of Light-Horse, who
+was little else than a professional bully, and who for some purpose or
+purposes of his own had, at the same time, succeeded in stealing the
+duke's infant daughter. What the reasons might be for this mysterious
+act of kidnapping they either were not able or did not choose always to
+explain. It was an undoubted fact that the late duke's daughter had
+disappeared, for the grief of the whilom Duchess de Nevers and present
+Princess de Gonzague was excessive for the loss of her child, and the
+efforts she made and the money she spent in the hope of finding some
+trace of her daughter were as useless as they were unavailing. It was
+also certain that on or about the time of the late duke's death a certain
+captain of Light-Horse, whose name some believed to be Henri de
+Lagardere, had fled in hot haste from Paris to save his audacious head
+from the outraged justice of the king for fighting a duel with a certain
+truculent Baron de Brissac and incontinently killing his man.
+
+What connection there might be between these two events those that busied
+themselves in the matter left to the imagination and intelligence of
+their hearers, but after awhile few continued to busy themselves in the
+matter at all. Nevers was dead and forgotten. The fact that Nevers's
+daughter had been stolen was soon forgotten likewise by all save the man
+and the woman whom it most immediately concerned. Few troubled themselves
+to remember that the Princess de Gonzague had been for a brief season the
+Duchess de Nevers, and if Louis de Gonzague, whenever the tragic episode
+was spoken of, expressed the deepest regret for his lost heart's brother
+and the fiercest desire for vengeance upon his murderer or murderers,
+the occasions on which the tragic episode was referred to grew less year
+by year. Louis de Gonzague flourished; Louis de Gonzague lived in Paris
+in great state; Louis de Gonzague was the intimate, almost the bosom
+friend, of the king; for Louis of Bourbon, having lost one of the two
+Louis whom he loved, seemed to have a double portion of affection to
+bestow upon the survivor. If Louis de Gonzague did not himself forget any
+of the events connected with a certain night in the moat of Caylus; if he
+kept emissaries employed in researches in Spain, emissaries whose numbers
+dwindled dismally and mysteriously enough in the course of those
+researches, he spoke of his recollections to no one, save perhaps
+occasionally to that distinguished individual, Monsieur Peyrolles, who
+shared his master's confidences as he shared his master's rise in
+fortunes. For Monsieur Peyrolles knew as well as his master all about
+that night at Caylus seventeen years before, and could, if he chose--but
+he never did choose--have told exactly how the Duke de Nevers came to his
+death, and how the child of Nevers disappeared, and how it was that the
+battered survivors of a little army of bravos had been overawed by the
+muskets of a company of Free Companions. He could have told how seven
+gentlemen that were named Staupitz, Faenza, Saldagno, Pepe, Pinto, Joel,
+and AEsop had been sent to dwell and travel in Spain at the free charges
+of Prince Louis de Gonzague, with the sole purpose of finding a man and a
+child who so far had not been found, though it was now seventeen years
+since the hounds had been sent a-hunting.
+
+But though a year may seem long in running, it runs to its end, and
+seventeen years, as any school-boy will prove to you, take only seventeen
+times the length of one year to wheel into chaos. So these seventeen
+years had been and had ceased to be, and it was again summer-time, when
+many people travelled from many parts of the world for the pleasure of
+visiting Paris, and some of those travellers happened to come from Spain.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+A VILLAGE FAIR
+
+
+It was a custom of old standing in the little village of Neuilly to hold
+a fair every year in the full flush of the spring. The custom of this
+fair went back for ages; antiquarians declared that they could find
+traces of it so far off as the reign of the good King Dagobert of the
+yellow hair, who had, as immortal song has consecrated, a trifling
+difficulty with his smallclothes; at least, it was certain that it dated
+from a very long time, and that year by year it had grown in importance
+with the people who go to fairs for the purposes of business, and in
+popularity with the people who go to fairs for the purposes of pleasure.
+Hither came half the tumblers, rope-walkers, contortionists, balancers,
+bear-leaders, puppet-players, wrestlers, strong men, fat women, bearded
+ladies, living skeletons, horrible deformities, lion-tamers, quack
+doctors, mountebanks, and jugglers who patrolled Europe in those days,
+and earned a precarious living and enjoyed the sweets of a vagabond
+freedom in the plying of their varied trades.
+
+At one time the fair of Neuilly had attracted only the humbler folk from
+Paris to taste of its wares, but as it had gradually grown in importance,
+so, accordingly, it had increased the number of its clients. First, the
+humbler burgesses came with their wives to gape and stare at the marvels
+it displayed; then their example was followed by the wealthier of their
+kind, and fur and velvet moved freely among the rabble of the fair. Now,
+in the year with which we deal, it had been for some little time the
+fashion for gentlefolk to drift in merry parties to Neuilly and enjoy the
+fun of the fair as frankly as any sober burgess or loose-tongued clerk.
+This year, however, a greater honor still was in store for the fair and
+its fellowships of vagrant playmakers. It was known to a few, who were
+privileged to share the secret, and also privileged to share the
+enjoyment with which that secret was concerned, that his Sovereign
+Majesty Louis of Bourbon, thirteenth of his name of the kings of France,
+intended to visit incognito the fair at Neuilly. He was to go thither
+accompanied by a few of the choicest spirits of his court, the most
+excellent of the rakes and libertines who had been received into the
+intimacy of the king's newly found liberty, and those same rakes and
+libertines felt highly flattered at being chosen by his highness for his
+companions in an enterprise which at least was something out of the
+beaten track of the rather humdrum amusements of the Louvre. Why the king
+particularly wanted to visit the fair of Neuilly on that particular day
+of that particular spring-time, none of those that were in the secret of
+the adventure professed to know or even were curious to inquire. It was
+enough for them that the king, in spite of his ill-health, looked now
+with a favorable eye upon frivolity, and that a sport was toward with
+which their palates for pleasure were not already jaded, and they were as
+gleeful as children at the prospect of the coming fun.
+
+Neuilly knew nothing of the honor that was awaiting it. Neuilly was busy
+with its booths and its trestles and its platforms and its roped-in,
+canvas-walled circuses, and its gathering of wanderers from every corner
+of Europe, speaking every European tongue. Neuilly was as busy as it well
+might be about its yearly business, and could scarcely have made more
+fuss and noise and pother if it had known that not only the King of
+France, but every crowned head in Christendom, proposed to pay it a
+visit.
+
+A little way from Neuilly, to the Paris side of the fair, there stood a
+small wayside inn, which was perched comfortably enough on a bank of the
+river. It was called, no one knew why, the Inn of the Three Graces, and
+had, like many another wayside inn in France, its pleasant benches before
+the doors for open-air drinkers, and its not unpleasant darkened rooms
+inside for wassail in stormy weather; also it had quite a large orchard
+and garden behind it running down to the river's edge, where the people
+of the Inn raised good fruit and good vegetables, which added materially
+to the excellence of their homely table. The high-road that skirted the
+Inn encountered, a little way above it, a bridge that spanned the river
+and continued its way to Neuilly and the fair and the world beyond. At
+one side of the Inn was a little space of common land, on which, at this
+time of fair-making, a company of gypsies were encamped, with their
+caravans and their ragged tents and their camp-fires. On the other side
+of the Inn were some agreeably arranged arbors, in whose shadow tables
+and chairs were disposed for the benefit of those who desired to taste
+the air with their wine and viands. Taking it in an amiable spirit, the
+Inn of the Three Graces seemed a very commendable place.
+
+All day long on the day of which we speak, and all day long for many days
+preceding it, there had been a steady flow of folk from the direction of
+Paris making in the direction of Neuilly, and not a few of these, taken
+by the appearance of the little wayside Inn, found it agreeable to
+refresh themselves by slaking their thirst and staying their stomachs
+inside or outside of its hospitable walls. The most of those that so
+passed were sight-seers, and these the Inn saw again as they passed
+homeward in the dusk or sometimes even in the darkness with the aid of
+flambeaux and lanterns. But a certain number were, as might be said,
+professional pedestrians, peddlers with their packs upon their shoulders,
+anxious to dispose of ribbons and trinkets to gaping rustics, easily
+bubbled burgesses, and to the more wary histrions and mountebanks, for
+whom a different scale of charges ranged.
+
+A little after noon on the day in question the wayside Inn of the Three
+Graces was quiet enough. The last chance visitor had emptied his can and
+crossed the bridge to Neuilly and its delights; the last peddler had
+slung his pack and tramped in the same direction; the gypsies, who since
+early morning had sprawled upon the common land, had shaken themselves
+free from their idleness into an assumption of activity, and had marched
+off almost in a body to take their share in the profits of the occasion
+by a little judicious horse-coping and fortune-telling. One of their
+number, indeed, they left behind in the great, gaudy, green-and-red
+caravan that stood in front of all the other caravans in the middle of
+the grassy space--one of their number who would much have preferred the
+merriment and the sunlight of the fair to the confinement of the caravan,
+but who remained in the caravan, nevertheless, because she had to do what
+she was told.
+
+The neighborhood of the Inn, therefore, seemed strangely deserted when a
+man appeared upon the bridge in the direction contrary to that of the
+general stream of passers-by, for this man was coming from the direction
+of Neuilly and was going in the direction of Paris. He was a twisted man
+with a hunched back, who was clad in black and carried a long sword, and
+he came slowly down the slope of the bridge and along the road to the
+Inn, looking about him quickly and cautiously the while as he did so. He
+had the air of one resolved to be alert against possible surprises even
+where surprises were improbable if not impossible; but his sinister face
+wore a malign smile of self-confidence which proclaimed that its wearer
+felt himself to be proof against all dangers.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+AESOP REDUX
+
+
+Seeing that the neighborhood was vacant of all occupants, the hunchback
+advanced to the Inn, and, seating himself at a table under one of the
+little arbors, drummed lustily with his clinched fist upon the board. In
+answer to this summons the landlord appeared hurriedly at the door--such
+a man as had evidently been destined by heaven to play the part of
+landlord of a wayside inn.
+
+He advanced and questioned his guest obsequiously: "Your honor wants--"
+
+The hunchback answered him, roughly: "Wine, good wine. If you bring me
+sour runnings I'll break your head."
+
+The landlord bowed with a dipping upward projection of apologetic hands.
+"Your honor shall have my best."
+
+The landlord went back into the Inn, and the hunchback sprawled at his
+ease, tilting back his chair and resting his lean, black legs on the
+table. He sat thus wise for some little time, blinking under the shadow
+of his large, black hat at the pleasant sunlight and the pleasant
+grasses about him with something of the sour air of one to whom such
+pleasant things meant little. But presently his careless eyes, that might
+almost have seemed to be asleep, so much were the lids lowered, suddenly
+grew alert again. A man appeared on the bridge--a lank, lean,
+yellow-skinned man, with a face that seemed carved out of old ivory, with
+furtive eyes and a fawning mouth. The new-comer was gorgeously,
+over-gorgeously, dressed, and his every movement affected the manners of
+a grand seigneur. He carried a tall cane with a jewelled knob, on which
+his left hand rested affectionately, as if it pleased him, even in this
+form, to handle and control costly things. Precious laces extravagantly
+lapped his unattractive hands. A sword with a jewelled hilt hung from his
+side. The moment the new-comer saw the hunchback he hastened towards him,
+but the hunchback, for his part, for all his plain habit, showed no
+deference to the splendidly dressed gentleman who saluted him. He
+remained in his easy, sprawling attitude, his chair still tilted back,
+his thin legs still lolling on the table. The magnificent gentleman
+addressed him with a certain air of condescension in his voice:
+
+"Good-morning, AEsop. You are punctual. A merit."
+
+AEsop, without rising or showing any deference in his manner, answered
+with a scarcely veiled note of insolence in his voice: "Good-morning,
+Monsieur Peyrolles. You are not punctual. A defect. Sit down."
+
+Peyrolles, apparently somewhat dashed by the coolness of his reception,
+obeyed the injunction of the hunchback and seated himself, but he still
+forced the show of condescension into his manner and strove to maintain
+it in his voice as he continued the conversation. "Though it's--let me
+see--why, it's seventeen years since we met--I knew you at once."
+
+AEsop grunted: "Well, I knew you at once, if it comes to that, though the
+time was no shorter."
+
+Peyrolles smiled awkwardly. "You haven't changed," he observed.
+
+AEsop's eyes travelled with a careful and contemptuous scrutiny over the
+person of his old employer. "You have. You didn't wear quite such fine
+clothes when I saw you last, my friend. What luck it is to have a master
+who makes a rich marriage!"
+
+As he said these words the landlord emerged from the Inn with a tray in
+his hands that bore a bottle and glasses. As he approached, AEsop swung
+his legs off the table and resumed the ordinary attitude of a feaster.
+The landlord placed the tray on the table, thankfully accepted AEsop's
+money, and with many salutations returned to the shelter of the Inn. AEsop
+filled two glasses with a shining white wine and pushed one to Peyrolles.
+"Drink!" he said, gruffly.
+
+Peyrolles waved his yellow fingers in polite refusal. "I thank you. No."
+
+In a second AEsop had sprung to his feet angrily, and, leaning over the
+table, thrust his own twisted visage close to the yellow mask in front
+of him. "Damn you!" he screamed--"damn you! are you too proud to drink
+with a man who has travelled all the way from Madrid on your dirty
+business? Let me tell you--"
+
+The man's attitude of menace, the man's violent words, clearly alarmed
+Monsieur Peyrolles, who interrupted him nervously with a voice quavering
+with protestation: "No, no, you need not. Of course, not too proud.
+Delighted."
+
+AEsop dropped into his seat again. "That's better. Your health." He lifted
+the glass to his lips as he spoke and slowly drained it. There was no
+sound of solicitation for his companion's welfare in his words, there was
+no expression of pleasure on his face as he did so. He took the good wine
+as he took all bright and kindly things, sourly.
+
+Peyrolles hastened to follow the example of his pledge. "Your health," he
+said, and sipped diffidently at the wine, and then, finding it agreeable,
+finished it.
+
+There was a little pause, and then AEsop spoke again.
+
+"Seventeen years," he murmured, with a chuckle--"seventeen years since we
+last met, on the morning, as I remember, after the little mishap in the
+moat of Caylus."
+
+Peyrolles shivered, and seemed uneasy. AEsop paid no heed to his evident
+discomfort.
+
+"What a wild-goose chase you sent us all on, I and Staupitz and the
+others--flying into Spain to find Lagardere and the child. The others
+hunted for him, as I suppose you know, with the results which, also, I
+suppose you know."
+
+Peyrolles nodded feebly. His yellow face was several tinges yellower, his
+teeth seemed to threaten to chatter, and he looked very unhappy. His
+voice was grave as he spoke: "Those who did find him were not fortunate."
+AEsop laughed.
+
+"They were fools," he asserted. "Well, for my part, I said to myself that
+the wise course for me to follow was not to waste my strength, my energy,
+and my breath in chasing Lagardere all over a peninsula, but to wait
+quietly for Lagardere to come to me. Madrid, I reasoned, is the centre of
+Spain; everyone in Spain comes to Madrid sooner or later; _ergo_, sooner
+or later Lagardere will come to Madrid."
+
+"Well, did he?" Peyrolles asked, forcing himself to give tongue, and
+eying the hunchback dubiously. He found AEsop too humorous for his fancy.
+AEsop grinned like a monkey whose nuts have been filched.
+
+"No," he said--"no, not as yet, to my knowledge, or he would be dead. But
+I have a conviction that our paths will cross one day, and when that day
+comes you may be sorry for Lagardere if your heart is inclined to be
+pitiful."
+
+The unpleasant expression on Monsieur Peyrolles's face whenever the name
+of Lagardere was mentioned now deepened sufficiently to make it quite
+plain that he cherished no such inclination. AEsop went on:
+
+"He proved himself a pretty good swordsman on the night of the--shall we
+say altercation?--and he certainly succeeded in persuading me that there
+was something to be said for those secret thrusts that I treated too
+lightly. When I first met Lagardere I knew all that Italy and all that
+France could teach me of sword-play. Now I know all that Spain can teach.
+I tell you, friend Peyrolles, I think I am the best swordsman alive."
+
+Peyrolles did not at all like to be hailed as friend in this familiar
+manner by the hunchback, but he had his reasons for mastering his
+feelings, and he showed no signs of distaste. Perhaps he had begun to
+realize that AEsop would not mind in the least if he did manifest
+displeasure.
+
+"Now, finding myself in Madrid," AEsop resumed, "and not being inclined to
+follow the foolish example of my companions, which led each of them in
+turn to you know what, I cast about to make myself comfortable in Madrid.
+I soon found a way. I set up an excellent bagnio; I lured rich youths to
+the altars and alcoves of play and pleasure. I made a great deal of
+money, and enjoyed myself very much incidentally. It is always a pleasure
+to me to see straight, smooth, suave men killing themselves with sweet
+sins."
+
+The expression of his face was so hideous, as he spoke in his demoniacal
+air of triumph over those that were less afflicted than himself, that
+Peyrolles, who was not at all squeamish, shuddered uncomfortably. AEsop
+seemed for a while to be absorbed in soothing memories, but presently he
+made an end of rubbing his hands together silently, and resumed his
+speech:
+
+"It was all in the way of my ancient and honorable trade to have no small
+traffic with pretty women and the friends of pretty women and the parents
+of pretty women. And it was this part of my trade which put the idea into
+my head which prompted me to write to you, friend Peyrolles, and which
+persuaded me to uproot myself from my comfortable house and my responsive
+doxies, and jog all the way from Madrid to Paris."
+
+The sense of what he had sacrificed in making the journey seemed suddenly
+to gall him, for he glared ferociously at Peyrolles, and said, sharply:
+"Here have I been talking myself dry while you sit mumchance. Tell me
+some tale for a change. Why in the name of the ancient devil did Nevers's
+widow marry Gonzague?"
+
+Peyrolles laughed feebly. "Love, I suppose."
+
+AEsop waved the suggestion away. "Don't talk like a fool. I expect old
+Caylus made her. He was a grim old chip, after my own heart, and our
+widow had no friends. Oh yes; I expect daddy Caylus made her marry
+Gonzague. What a joke!--what an exquisite joke!"
+
+Peyrolles replied, with attempted dignity: "You didn't travel all the way
+from Madrid to talk about my master's marriage, I suppose."
+
+In a moment AEsop's manner became ferocious again. Again he thrust
+forward his seamed, malicious face, and again the yellow mask drew back
+from it. "You are right, I did not. I came because I am tired of Spain,
+because I lust for Paris, because I desire to enter the service of his
+Highness Prince Louis de Gonzague, to whom I am about to render a very
+great service."
+
+Peyrolles looked at him thoughtfully, the yellow mask wrinkled with
+dubiety. "Are you serious about this service?" he asked. "Can you really
+perform what your letter seemed to promise?"
+
+"I should not have travelled all this way if I did not know what I was
+about," AEsop growled. "I think it matters little if I have lost Lagardere
+if I have found the daughter of Nevers."
+
+Peyrolles was thoroughly interested, and leaned eagerly across the table.
+"Then you think you have found her?"
+
+AEsop grinned at him maliciously. "As good as found her. I have found a
+girl who may be--come, let's put a bold face on it and say must
+be--Nevers's daughter. I told you so much in my letter."
+
+Peyrolles now drew back again with a cautious look on his face as he
+answered, cautiously: "My master, Prince Gonzague, must be satisfied.
+Where is this girl?"
+
+AEsop continued: "Here. I found her in Madrid, the dancing-girl of a band
+of gypsies. She is the right age. The girl is clever, she is comely, her
+hair is of the Nevers shade, her color of the Nevers tint. She is, by
+good-fortune, still chaste, for when I first began to think of this
+scheme the minx was little more than a child, and the gypsies, who were
+willing to do my bidding, kept her clean for my need. Oh, she has been
+well prepared, I promise you! She has been taught to believe that she was
+stolen from her parents in her babyhood, and will meet any fable
+half-way. She will make a most presentable heiress to the gentleman we
+killed at Caylus--"
+
+Peyrolles agitated his yellow hands deprecatingly. He did not like the
+revival of unpleasant memories. "My good friend!" he protested.
+
+AEsop eyed him with disdain. "Well, we did kill him, didn't we? You don't
+want to pretend that he's alive now, after that jab in the back your
+master gave him fifteen years ago?"
+
+Peyrolles wriggled on his chair in an agony of discomfort. "Hush, for
+Heaven's sake! Don't talk like that!"
+
+AEsop slapped the table till the glasses rang. "I'll talk as I please."
+
+Peyrolles saw it was useless to argue with the hunchback, and submitted.
+"Yes, yes; but let bygones be bygones. About this girl?"
+
+AEsop resumed his narrative. "I sent her and her tribe Franceward from
+Madrid. I didn't accompany them, for I'm not fond of companionship; but I
+told them to wait me here, and here they are. What place could be more
+excellent? All sorts of vagabonds come hither from all parts of the world
+at fair-time. How natural that your admirable master should amuse his
+leisure by visiting the fair, and in so diverting himself be struck by a
+beautiful gypsy girl's resemblance to the features of his dear dead
+friend! It is all a romance, friend Peyrolles, and a very good romance.
+And I, AEsop, made it."
+
+The hunchback struck an attitude as he spoke, and strove to twist his
+evil countenance into a look of inspiration.
+
+Peyrolles was all eagerness now. "Let me see the girl," he pleaded.
+
+AEsop shook his head. "By-and-by. It is understood that if Gonzague
+accepts the girl as Nevers's child he takes me into his service in Paris.
+Eh?"
+
+Peyrolles nodded. "That is understood."
+
+AEsop yawned on the conclusion of the bargain. "Curse me if I see why he
+wants the child when he has got the mother."
+
+Peyrolles again neared, and spoke with a lowered voice: "I can be frank
+with you, master AEsop?"
+
+"It's the best plan," AEsop growled.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+FLORA
+
+
+Peyrolles prepared to be frank. He put up his hand, and whispered behind
+it cautiously: "The married life of the Prince de Gonzague and the widow
+of Nevers has not been ideally happy."
+
+AEsop grinned at him in derision. "You surprise me!" he commented,
+ironically.
+
+Peyrolles went on: "The marriage is only a marriage in name. What
+arguments succeeded in persuading so young a widow to marry again so soon
+I do not, of course, know." He paused for a moment and frowned a little,
+for AEsop, though saying nothing, was lolling out his tongue at him
+mockingly. Then he went on, with a somewhat ruffled manner: "At all
+events, whatever the arguments were, they succeeded, and the Duchess de
+Nevers became the Princess de Gonzague. After the ceremony the Princess
+de Gonzague told her husband that she lived only in the hope of
+recovering her child, and that she would kill herself if she were not
+left in peace."
+
+He paused for a moment. AEsop spurred him on: "Well, go on, go on."
+
+Peyrolles cleared his throat. Being frank was neither habitual nor
+pleasant. "As the princess had absolute control of the wealth of her dead
+husband, the Duke de Nevers, and as she promised to allow my master the
+use of her fortune as long as he--"
+
+Again he paused, and AEsop interpolated: "Left her in peace."
+
+Peyrolles accepted the suggestion. "Exactly--my master, who is a perfect
+gentleman, accepted the situation. Since that day they seldom meet,
+seldom speak. The princess always wears mourning--"
+
+AEsop shivered. "Cheerful spouse."
+
+Peyrolles went on: "While the Prince de Gonzague lives a bright life, and
+sets the mode in wit, dress, vice--in every way the perfect gentleman,
+and now the favorite companion and friend of his melancholy majesty,
+whose natural sadness at the loss of the great cardinal he does his best
+to alleviate."
+
+AEsop laughed mockingly as Peyrolles mouthed his approvals. "Lucky groom.
+But if he can spend the money, why does he want the girl?"
+
+Peyrolles answered, promptly: "To please the princess, and prove himself
+the devoted husband."
+
+AEsop was persistent: "What is the real reason?"
+
+Peyrolles, with a grimace, again consented to be frank: "As Mademoiselle
+de Nevers is not proved to be dead, the law assumes her to be alive, and
+it is as the guardian of this impalpable young person that my dear master
+handles the revenues of Nevers. If she were certainly dead, my master
+would inherit."
+
+AEsop still required information. "Then why the devil does he want to
+prove that she lives?"
+
+There was again a touch of condescension in Peyrolles's manner: "You are
+not so keen as you think, good AEsop. Mademoiselle de Nevers, recovered,
+restored to her mother's arms, the recognized heiress of so much wealth,
+might seem to be a very lucky young woman. But even lucky young women are
+not immortal."
+
+AEsop chuckled. "Oh, oh, oh! If the lost-and-found young lady were to die
+soon after her recovery the good Louis de Gonzague would inherit without
+further question. I fear my little gypsy is not promised a long life."
+
+Peyrolles smiled sourly. "Let me see your little gypsy."
+
+AEsop hesitated for a moment. It evidently went against his grain to
+oblige Peyrolles--or, for that matter, any man, in anything; but in this
+instance to oblige served his own turn. He rose, and, passing the door of
+the Inn, crossed the space of common land to where the caravan stood, a
+deserted monument of green and red.
+
+The hunchback tapped at the door and whispered through the lock: "Are you
+there, Flora?"
+
+A woman's voice answered from within--a young voice, a sweet voice, a
+slightly impatient voice. "Yes," it said.
+
+"Come out," AEsop commanded, curtly.
+
+Then the gaudy door of the caravan yielded, and a pretty gypsy girt
+appeared in the opening. She was dark-haired, she was bright-eyed, she
+was warmly colored. She seemed to be about eighteen years of age, but her
+figure already had a rich Spanish fulness and her carriage was swaying
+and voluptuous. Most men would have been glad enough to stand for a while
+in adoration of so pleasing a picture, but AEsop was not as most men. His
+attitude to women when they concerned him personally was not of
+adoration. In this case the girl did not concern him personally, and he
+had no interest in her youth or her charms save in so far as they might
+serve the business he had in hand.
+
+The girl looked at him with a little frown, and spoke with a little note
+of fretfulness in her voice: "So you have come at last. I have been so
+tired of waiting for you, mewed up in there."
+
+AEsop answered her, roughly: "That's my business. Here is a gentleman who
+wants to speak with you."
+
+As he spoke he beckoned to Peyrolles, who rose from his seat and moved
+with what he considered to be dignity towards the pair, making great play
+of cane, great play of handkerchief, great play of jewelled-hilted sword
+flapping against neatly stockinged leg.
+
+He saluted the gypsy in what he conceived to be the grand manner. "Can
+you tell fortunes, pretty one?"
+
+The gypsy laughed, and showed good teeth as she did so. "Surely, on the
+palm or with the cards--all ways."
+
+"Can you tell your own fortune?" Peyrolles questioned, with a faint tinge
+of malice in the words.
+
+Flora laughed again, and answered, unhesitatingly: "To dance my way
+through the world, to enjoy myself as much as I can in the sunshine, to
+please pretty gentlemen, to have money to spend, to wear fine clothes and
+do nice things and enjoy myself, to laugh often and cry little. That is
+my fortune, I hope."
+
+Peyrolles shook his head and looked very wise. "Perhaps I can tell you a
+better fortune."
+
+Flora was impressed by the manner of the grand gentleman, for to her he
+seemed a grand gentleman. "Tell me, quick!" she entreated.
+
+Peyrolles condescended to explain: "Seventeen years ago a girl of noble
+birth, one year old, was stolen from her mother and given to gypsies."
+
+Flora, listening, counted on her fingers: "Seventeen, one, eighteen--why,
+just my age."
+
+Peyrolles approved. "You are hearing the voice of Nature--excellent."
+
+AEsop put in his word: "That mother has been looking for her child ever
+since."
+
+Peyrolles summed up the situation with a malign smile: "We believe we
+have found her."
+
+Flora began to catch the drift of the conversation, and was eager for
+more knowledge. "Go on--go on! I always dreamed of being a great lady."
+
+Peyrolles raised a chastening finger. "Patience, child, patience. The
+prince, my master, honors the fair to-day in company with a most exalted
+personage. I will bring him here to see you dance. If he recognizes you,
+your fortune is made."
+
+Flora questioned, cunningly: "How can he recognize a child of one?"
+
+Peyrolles lifted to his eyes the elaborately laced kerchief he had been
+carrying in his right hand, and appeared to be a prey to violent
+emotions. "Your father was his dearest friend," he murmured, in a tearful
+voice. "He would see his features in you."
+
+Flora clapped her hands. "I hope he will."
+
+AEsop, looking cynically from the girl to the man and from the man to the
+girl, commented, dryly: "I think he will."
+
+Peyrolles considered the interview had lasted long enough. He signed to
+the girl to retire with the air of a grandee dismissing some vassal.
+"Enough. Retire to your van till I come for you."
+
+Flora pouted and pleaded: "Don't be long. I'm tired of being in there."
+
+AEsop snapped at her, sharply: "Do as you are told. You are not a princess
+yet."
+
+The girl frowned, the girl's eyes flashed, but her acquaintance with AEsop
+had given her the thoroughly justifiable impression that he was a man
+whom it was better to obey, and she retired into the caravan and shut the
+green-and-red door with a bang behind her.
+
+AEsop turned with a questioning grin to Peyrolles. "Well?" he said.
+
+Peyrolles looked approval. "I think she'll do. I'll go and find the
+prince at once."
+
+"I will go a little way with you," AEsop said, more perhaps because he
+thought his company might exasperate the sham grand man than for any
+other reason. He knew Peyrolles would think it unbecoming his dignity to
+be seen in close companionship with the shabbily habited hunchback, hence
+his display of friendship. As he linked his black arm in the yellow-satin
+arm of Peyrolles, he added: "I have taken every care to make our tale
+seem plausible. The gypsies will swear that they stole her seventeen
+years ago."
+
+Peyrolles nodded, looking askance at him, and wishing that destiny had
+not compelled him to make use of such an over-familiar agent, and the
+precious pair went over the bridge together and disappeared from the
+neighborhood of the little Inn, and the spirit of solitude seemed again
+to brood over the locality. But it was not suffered to brood for very
+long. As soon as the voices and the footsteps of Peyrolles and AEsop were
+no longer audible; the green-and-red door of the caravan was again
+cautiously opened, and cautiously the head of the pretty gypsy girl was
+thrust out into the air. When she saw that the pair had disappeared, she
+ran lightly down the steps of the caravan, and, crossing the common,
+paused under the windows of the Inn, where she began to sing in a sweet,
+rich voice a verse of a Spanish gypsy song:
+
+                   "Come to the window, dear;
+                     Listen and lean while I say
+                   A Romany word in your ear,
+                     And whistle your heart away."
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+CONFIDENCES
+
+
+Before she had finished the last line of the verse the curtains of a
+window in the second story of the Inn parted and another young girl
+showed herself through the lattice. This girl was dark-haired like the
+gypsy, and bright-eyed like the gypsy, and, like the gypsy, she seemed to
+be some eighteen years of age, but beyond these obvious features
+resemblance ceased. The girl who looked down from the window of the Inn
+was of a slenderer shape than the gypsy, of a more delicate complexion,
+of a grace and bearing that suggested different breeding and another race
+than that of the more exuberant Gitana. The girl at the window spoke in a
+clear, sweet voice to the singer: "I thought it must be you, Flora."
+
+Flora called back to her: "Come down to me, Gabrielle."
+
+The girl Gabrielle shook her head. "Henri does not wish me to go abroad
+while he is absent."
+
+Flora made a little face. "Our friends do keep us prisoners. There is not
+a soul about."
+
+Gabrielle smiled and consented. "I will come for a moment."
+
+She withdrew from the window, and in a few minutes she appeared at the
+Inn door and joined her impatient friend. Flora kissed her
+affectionately, and asked, between kisses: "Are you not angry with Henri
+for keeping you thus caged?"
+
+Gabrielle smiled an amused denial. "How could I be angry with Henri? He
+has good reasons for his deeds. We are in great danger. We have
+enemies."
+
+Flora stared at her wild-eyed. "Who are your enemies?"
+
+Gabrielle looked about her, as if to be assured that no one was within
+hearing, and then whispered into Flora's ear: "Henri will never tell me,
+but they hunt us down. Ever since I was a child we have fled from place
+to place, hiding. I have often been roused at night by clash of swords
+and Henri's voice, crying: 'I am here!' But his sword is always the
+strongest, and we have always escaped."
+
+"Surely you will be safe in Paris," Flora said.
+
+Gabrielle sighed. "Why, it seems we dare not enter Paris yet. When we
+left Madrid in your company Henri told me we were journeying to Paris,
+but now we linger here outside the walls until Henri has seen some one--I
+know not who; and while we linger here I must keep in-doors."
+
+Flora looked mischievous. "Perhaps Henri is jealous, and tells this tale
+to keep you to himself."
+
+Gabrielle sighed again: "Henri only thinks of me as a child."
+
+Flora still was mischievous. "But you know you are not his child, and I
+am sure you do not think of him as a father."
+
+Gabrielle turned upon her friend with an air of dainty imperiousness.
+"Flora, Flora, you may be a witch, but there are some thoughts of mine
+you must not presume to read."
+
+Flora laughed. "You command like a great lady. 'Must not,' indeed, and
+'presume'! Let me tell you, pretty Gabrielle, that I am the great lady
+here."
+
+Gabrielle was instantly winning and tender again. "You are my sweet
+friend, and I did not mean to command you."
+
+Flora laughed good-humoredly. "You should have seen your air of
+greatness. But I am speaking seriously. I believe I am the long-lost
+daughter of a great lord."
+
+Gabrielle stared, amazed. "Really, Flora, really? Are you in earnest?
+Tell me all about it."
+
+Flora looked like a gypsy sphinx. "Oh, but I may not. I should not have
+spoken of it at all, but I am so mad and merry at the good news that out
+it slipped."
+
+Gabrielle softly patted her cheek. "I am glad of anything that makes you
+happy."
+
+Flora tried to look magnificent. "Do not you envy me? Would not you like
+to be a great lady, too? I am afraid you look more like it than I do."
+
+Gabrielle spoke again in a whisper: "I will tell you my secret in return
+for yours. So long as I can be by Henri's side I envy no one--ask nothing
+better of fortune."
+
+Flora smiled knowingly. "Do you call that a secret? I have known that
+ever since I first saw you look at him."
+
+Gabrielle looked pained. "Am I so immodest a minion?"
+
+Flora protested: "No, no. But your eyes are traitors and tell me tales."
+
+"I must be wary," Gabrielle said, "that they tell no tales to--to
+others."
+
+Flora shrugged her pretty shoulders. "Lovers are droll. A maid may love a
+man, and a man may love a maid, and neither know that the other is sick
+of the same pip, poor fowls."
+
+"What do you mean, witch?" Gabrielle questioned.
+
+Flora twirled a pirouette before she replied: "Nothing--less than
+nothing. I dance here by-and-by to please a grandee. Will you peep
+through your lattice?"
+
+"Perhaps," Gabrielle answered, cautiously. Then she gave a little start.
+"Some one is coming," she said, and, indeed, some one was coming. A man
+had just mounted the bridge from the Neuilly road and stood there for an
+instant surveying the two girls. He was a modish young gentleman, very
+splendidly attired, who carried himself with a dainty insolence, and he
+now came slowly towards the girls with an amiable salutation.
+
+"Exquisite ladies," he said, "I give you good-day."
+
+At the sound of his voice and the sight of his figure Gabrielle had
+disappeared into the Inn as quickly as ever rabbit disappeared into its
+hole. Flora had no less nimbly run down to the caravan; but when she
+reached it she paused on the first step, attracted by the appearance of
+the handsomely dressed young gentleman, who appealed to her earnestly:
+"Why do you scatter so rashly? I should be delighted to talk with you."
+
+Flora mocked him: "Perhaps we do not want to talk to you."
+
+The new-comer would not admit the possibility. "Impossible," he
+protested. "Let me present myself. I am the Marquis de Chavernay. I am
+very diverting. I can make love to more ladies at the same time than any
+gentleman of my age at court."
+
+Flora laughed. "Amiable accomplishment," she said, mockingly; but while
+she mocked her quick eyes were carefully noting every particular of the
+stranger's appearance, from the exquisite laces at his throat and wrists
+to the jewels on his fingers, and finding all very much to her taste, and
+the appropriate adornments for a young gentleman of so gallant a carriage
+and so pleasantly impertinent a face. She had never cast her eyes upon
+any youth in Madrid that had captivated her fancy so mightily, and she
+thought to herself that when the time came for her to have a lover here
+was the very lover she would choose. And then she remembered, with a
+fluttering heart, that she was likely to become a great lady and the peer
+of this fascinating dandiprat. As for him, he returned her gaze with a
+bold stare of approval.
+
+The Marquis de Chavernay agitated his dainty hands in delicate assurance.
+"Agreeable, believe me," he asserted; and then asked: "Why has your
+sister nymph retreated from the field? I could entertain the pair of
+you."
+
+As Flora's only answer to this assurance was a further, though perhaps
+not very earnest, effort to enter the caravan, he restrained her with
+appealing voice and gesture: "Please do not go."
+
+Flora looked at him quizzically. "Why should I stay, pretty gentleman?"
+
+The little marquis made her a bow. "Because you can do me a service,
+pretty lady. Is there an inn hereabouts at the sign of the Three
+Graces?"
+
+Flora was curious. "Why do you want to know?"
+
+The little marquis wore a mysterious look, as if all the political
+secrets of the period were shut in his heart or head, and he lowered his
+voice as he answered: "Because I am commissioned to ascertain its
+whereabouts for a friend."
+
+Flora laughed, and pointed to the Inn into which Gabrielle had retreated.
+"You have not far to seek to oblige your friend," she said. "There it
+stands behind you."
+
+Chavernay swung round on his heels, and surveyed the modest little
+hostelry with amusement. "The shelter of the fugitive nymph. Oh, now I
+understand my friend's anxiety! Pretty child, my duty forces me to leave
+you when my inclination would fling me into your arms. If I may wait upon
+you later--"
+
+This time Flora had evidently made up her mind that it would be
+indiscreet of her further to prolong the colloquy. She dipped him a
+courtesy, half mocking and half respectful, wished him good-day, and,
+diving into the caravan, slammed the door in his face. The little marquis
+seemed at first astonished at the austerity of the gypsy girl.
+
+"Dido retires to her cave," he thought to himself. "Shall AEneas pursue?"
+He made for a moment as if to advance and force his company upon the
+seeming reluctant damsel. Then his volatile thoughts flickered back to
+the girl who had entered the Inn. "Methinks," he reflected, "I would as
+soon play Paris to yonder Helen. But I must not keep his Majesty waiting.
+No wonder he seeks the Inn of the Three Graces." For it was plain to the
+little gentleman that he had now discovered the reason why his august
+master and sovereign had done him the honor to select him as scout to
+find out the whereabouts of the unknown tavern.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+"I AM HERE!"
+
+
+Pleased at the success of his mission, although disappointed at not
+having made further progress in the graces of the two girls whom he was
+pleased to regard as shepherdesses, he cast his eye first to the shut
+door of the caravan and then to the silent face of the tavern, and was
+about to rejoin his illustrious master with all speed when his attention
+was arrested by a singular figure advancing towards him from the Paris
+road. This person was tall and thin and bony, with a weakly amiable face
+fringed with flaxen hair, and timid eyes that blinked under pink eyelids.
+He was dressed in black clothes of an extreme shabbiness, and the only
+distinguishing feature of his appearance was a particularly long and
+formidable sword that flapped against his calves. The fellow was at once
+so fantastic and so ridiculous that Chavernay, whose sense of humor was
+always lively, regarded him with much curiosity and at the same time with
+affected dismay.
+
+"Is this ogre," he wondered to himself, "one of the protecting giants who
+guard the fair nymphs of this place, or is he rather some cruel guardian
+appointed by the enchanter, who denies them intercourse with agreeable
+mankind?" Thus Chavernay mused, affecting the fancies of some fashionable
+romance; and then, finding that his attentions appeared strangely to
+embarrass the angular individual in black, he turned on his heels to make
+for the bridge, and again came to a halt, for on the bridge appeared
+another figure as grotesque as the first-comer, but grotesque in a wholly
+different manner.
+
+This second stranger was as burly as the first was lean, and as gaudy in
+his apparel as the first was simple. The petals of the iris, the plumes
+of the peacock seemed to have been pillaged by him for the colors that
+made up his variegated wardrobe. A purple pourpoint, crimson breeches, an
+amber-colored cloak, and a huge hat with a blue feather set off a figure
+of extravagantly martial presence. Where the face of the first-comer was
+pale, insignificant, and timid, that of the second-comer was ruddy,
+assertive, and bold. The only point in common with his predecessor was
+that he, too, swung at his side a monstrous rapier. The sight of this
+whimsical stranger was too much for Chavernay's self-restraint, and he
+burst into a hearty fit of laughter, which he made no effort to control.
+
+"What a scarecrow!" he muttered, looking back at the individual in black.
+"What a gorgon!" he continued, as his eyes travelled to the man in
+motley. "Gog and Magog, by Heavens!" he commented, as he surveyed the
+astonishing pair.
+
+Then, still laughing, he ran across the bridge and left the two objects
+of his mirth glaring after him in indignation. Indeed, so indignant were
+they, and so steadily did they keep their angry eyes fixed upon the
+retreating figure of the marquis, while each continued his original
+course of progression, that the two men, heedless of each other, ran into
+each other with an awkward thump that recalled to each of them the fact
+that there were other persons in the world as well as an impertinent
+gentleman with nimble heels. The man in black and the man in many colors
+each clapped a hand to a sword-hilt, only to withdraw it instantly and
+extend it in sign of amicable greeting.
+
+"Passepoil!" cried the man in many colors.
+
+"Cocardasse!" cried the man in black.
+
+"To my arms, brother, to my arms!" cried Cocardasse, and in a moment the
+amazing pair were clasped in each other's embrace.
+
+"Is it really you?" said Cocardasse, when he thought the embrace had
+lasted long enough, holding Passepoil firmly by the shoulders and gazing
+fixedly into his pale, pathetic face.
+
+Passepoil nodded. "Truly. What red star guides you to Paris?"
+
+Cocardasse dropped his voice to a whisper. "I had a letter."
+
+Passepoil whispered in reply: "So had I."
+
+Cocardasse amplified: "My letter told me to be outside the Inn of the
+Three Graces, near Neuilly, on a certain day--this day--to serve the
+Prince of Gonzague."
+
+Passepoil nodded again. "So did mine."
+
+Cocardasse continued: "Mine enclosed a draft on the Bank of Marseilles to
+pay expenses."
+
+Passepoil noted a point of difference: "Mine was on the Bank of Calais."
+
+"I suppose Gonzague wants all that are left of us," Cocardasse said,
+thoughtfully.
+
+Passepoil sighed significantly. "There aren't many."
+
+Cocardasse looked as gloomy as was possible for one of his rubicund
+countenance and jolly bearing. "Lagardere has kept his word."
+
+"Staupitz was killed at Seville," Passepoil murmured, as one who begins a
+catalogue of disasters.
+
+Cocardasse continued: "Faenza was killed at Burgos."
+
+Passepoil went on: "Saldagno at Toledo."
+
+Cocardasse took up the tale: "Pinto at Valladolid."
+
+Passepoil concluded the catalogue: "Joel at Grenada, Pepe at Cordova."
+
+"All with the same wound," Cocardasse commented, with a curious solemnity
+in his habitually jovial voice.
+
+Passepoil added, lugubriously: "The thrust between the eyes."
+
+Cocardasse summed up, significantly: "The thrust of Nevers."
+
+The pair were silent for an instant, looking at each other with something
+like dismay upon their faces, and their minds were evidently busy with
+old days and old dangers.
+
+Passepoil broke the silence. "They didn't make much by their
+blood-money."
+
+"Yes," said Cocardasse; "but we, who refused to hunt Lagardere, we are
+alive."
+
+Passepoil cast a melancholy glance over his own dingy habiliments and
+then over the garments of Cocardasse, garments which, although glowing
+enough in color, were over-darned and over-patched to suggest opulence.
+"In a manner," he said, dryly.
+
+Cocardasse drew himself up proudly and slapped his chest. "Poor but
+honest."
+
+Passepoil allowed a faint smile, expressive of satisfaction, to steal
+over his melancholy countenance. "Thank Heaven, in Paris we can't meet
+Lagardere."
+
+Cocardasse appeared plainly to share the pleasure of his old friend. "An
+exile dare not return," he said, emphatically, with the air of a man who
+feels sure of himself and of his words. But it is the way of destiny very
+often, even when a man is surest of himself and surest of his words, to
+interpose some disturbing factor in his confident calculations, to make
+some unexpected move upon the chess-board of existence, which altogether
+baffles his plans and ruins his hopes. So many people had crossed the
+bridge that morning that it really seemed little less than probable that
+the appearance of a fresh pedestrian upon its arch could have any serious
+effect upon the satisfactory reflections of the two bravos. Yet at that
+moment a man did appear upon the bridge, who paused and surveyed
+Cocardasse and Passepoil, whose backs were towards him, with a
+significant smile.
+
+The new-comer was humbly clad, very much in the fashion of one of those
+gypsies who had pitched their camp so close to the wayside tavern; but if
+the man's clothes were something of the gypsy habit, he carried a sword
+under his ragged mantle, and it was plain from the man's face that he was
+not a gypsy. His handsome, daring, humorous face, bronzed by many suns
+and lined a little by many experiences--a face that in its working
+mobility and calm inscrutability might possibly have been the countenance
+of a strolling player--was the face of a man still in the prime of life,
+and carrying his years as lightly as if he were still little more than a
+lad. He moved noiselessly from the bridge to the high-road, and came
+cautiously upon the swashbucklers at the very moment when Passepoil was
+saying, with a shiver: "I'm always afraid to hear Lagardere's voice cry
+out Nevers's motto."
+
+Even on the instant the man in the gypsy habit pushed his way between the
+two bandits, laying a hand on each of their shoulders and saying three
+words: "I am here!"
+
+Cocardasse and Passepoil fell apart, each with the same cry in the same
+amazed voice.
+
+"Lagardere!" said Cocardasse, and his ruddy face paled.
+
+"Lagardere!" said Passepoil, and his pale face flushed.
+
+As for Lagardere, he laughed heartily at their confusion. "You are like
+scared children whose nurse hears bogey in the chimney."
+
+Cocardasse strove to seem amused. "Children!" he said, with a forced
+laugh, and it was with a forced laugh that Passepoil repeated the word
+"Bogey."
+
+For a moment the good-humor faded from the face of Lagardere, and he
+spoke grimly enough: "There were nine assassins in the moat at Caylus.
+How many are left now?"
+
+"Only three," Cocardasse answered.
+
+Passepoil was more precise. "Cocardasse and myself and AEsop."
+
+Lagardere looked at them mockingly. "Doesn't it strike you that AEsop will
+soon be alone?"
+
+Cocardasse shuddered. "It's no laughing matter."
+
+Lagardere still continued to smile. "Vengeance sometimes wears a
+sprightly face and smiles while she strikes."
+
+Passepoil was now a sickly green. "A very painful humor," he stammered.
+
+There was an awkward pause, and then Cocardasse suddenly spoke in a
+decisive tone. "Captain, you have no right to kill us," he growled, and
+Passepoil, nodding his long head, repeated his companion's phrase with
+Norman emphasis.
+
+Lagardere looked from one to the other of the pair, and there was a
+twinkle in his eyes that reassured them. "Are you scared, old knaves? No
+explanations; let me speak. That night in Caylus, seventeen years ago,
+when the darkness quivered with swords, I did not meet your blades."
+
+Cocardasse explained. "When you backed Nevers we took no part in the
+scuffle."
+
+"Nor did we join in hunting you later," Passepoil added, hurriedly.
+
+Lagardere's face wore a look of satisfaction. "In all the tumult of that
+tragic night I thought I saw two figures standing apart--thought they
+might be, must be, my old friends. That is why I have sent for you."
+
+"Sent for us?" Cocardasse echoed in astonishment.
+
+"Was it you who--" Passepoil questioned, equally surprised.
+
+"Why, of course it was," Lagardere answered. "Sit down and listen."
+
+He led the way to the very table at which, such a short time before, AEsop
+had sat with Peyrolles. Now he and Cocardasse and Passepoil seated
+themselves, the two bravos side by side and still seemingly not a little
+perturbed, Lagardere opposite to them and studying them closely, resting
+his chin upon his hands.
+
+"Ever since that night I have lived in Spain, hunted for a while by
+Gonzague's gang, until, gradually, Gonzague's gang ceased to exist."
+
+"The thrust of Nevers," Cocardasse commented, quietly.
+
+Lagardere smiled sadly. "Exactly. I had only one purpose in life--to
+avenge Nevers and to protect Nevers's child. I abandoned my captaincy of
+irregulars when the late cardinal quarrelled with Spain. I did not like
+the late cardinal, but he was a Frenchman, and so was I. Since then I
+have lived as best I could, from hand to mouth, but always the child was
+safe, always the child was cared for, always the child was in some
+obscure hands that were kind and mild. Well, the child grew up, the
+beautiful child dawned into a beautiful girl, and still I kept her to
+myself, for I knew it was not safe to let Gonzague know that she lived.
+But the girl is a woman now; she is the age to inherit the territories of
+Nevers. The law will shield her from the treason of Gonzague. The king
+will protect the daughter of his friend."
+
+The Norman shook his head, and the expression of his face was very
+dubious. "Gonzague is a powerful personage."
+
+Cocardasse did not appear to be so much impressed by the power of
+Gonzague, but then it must be remembered that he came from Marseilles,
+while Passepoil arrived from Calais, which is more impressed by Paris.
+What the Gascon wanted to know was how his old friend and one-time enemy
+had contrived to appear so opportunely.
+
+"How did you get here?" he asked.
+
+Lagardere explained. "There was a gypsy lass in Madrid of whom by chance
+Gabrielle had made a friend. Poor girl, she could not have many friends.
+One day this girl told us that she and her tribe were going to Paris on
+some secret business of their own. Here was an opportunity for the exiles
+to return, unseen, to France. As gypsies, we travelled with the gypsies.
+I have been a strolling player, and as a strolling player I helped to pay
+my way. Before we left Madrid I wrote you those letters. As a result of
+all this delicate diplomacy, here I am, and here you are."
+
+Cocardasse still was puzzled. "But our letters spoke of the service of
+Gonzague?"
+
+Lagardere laughed as he answered the riddle. "Because, dear dullards, I
+want you to enter the service of Gonzague. If I return to France to right
+a wrong, I know the risk I run and the blessing of you two devils to help
+me."
+
+Each of the two bravos extended his right hand. "Any help we can give,"
+protested Cocardasse--"is yours," added Passepoil.
+
+Lagardere clasped the extended hands confidently. "I take you at your
+words. Gonzague is at the fair yonder in attendance upon the king. You
+may get a chance to approach him. He can hardly refuse you his favor."
+
+"Hardly," said Cocardasse, grimly, and--"hardly," echoed Passepoil, with
+a wry smile.
+
+Lagardere rose to his feet. "Go now. I shall find means to let you know
+of my whereabouts and my purposes later. Till then--"
+
+"Devotion!" cried Cocardasse.
+
+"Discretion!" cried Passepoil, and each of the men saluted Lagardere with
+a military salute. Then the two bravos, linking arms, crossed the bridge
+together and made for the fair, conversing as they went of the wonderful
+chance that had brought Lagardere back to Paris and their own
+good-fortune in having been able to prove themselves innocent of
+complicity in the murder of Nevers.
+
+When they were gone, Lagardere walked slowly up and down beneath the
+trees, reflecting deeply. He had gained one point in the desperate game
+he had set himself to play. He had found two adherents upon whose hands,
+whose hearts, and whose swords he could count with confidence, and he
+felt that he had succeeded, in a measure, in planting adherents of his
+own in the enemy's camp. But he had another point in his desperate game
+to win that morning. He had written a letter, he had requested a favor,
+he had made an appointment. Immediately on arriving in the neighborhood
+of Paris he had caused a letter to be despatched to the king's
+majesty--not to the king direct, indeed, but to the king's private
+secretary, whom Lagardere knew by repute to be an honorable and loyal
+gentleman, who could be, as he believed, relied upon, if he credited the
+letter, to keep it as a secret between himself and his royal master. It
+was a bold hazard, although the letter was weighted with the talisman of
+a name that must needs recall an ancient friendship. Would that letter be
+answered? Would that favor be granted? Would that appointment be kept?
+
+For some time Lagardere paced the grass thoughtfully; for some
+time--perhaps for a quarter of an hour--his solitude was undisturbed. At
+the end of that time he emerged from the shadow of the trees, and,
+standing at the foot of the bridge, surveyed the road that led to
+Neuilly. What he saw upon the road seemed to give him the greatest
+satisfaction. Three gentlemen were walking together in the direction of
+the Inn. One was a very dandy-like young gentleman, very foppishly
+habited, who seemed to skip through existence upon twinkling heels.
+Another was a stiff, soldierly looking man of more than middle age, whom
+Lagardere knew to be Captain Bonnivet, of the Royal Guards. The third,
+who was the first of the group, was a man who, though still in the early
+prime of life, looked as if he were fretted with the cares of many more
+years than were his lot. He was a slender personage, with a long, pale
+face. He was clad entirely in black, in emphasis of a mourning mind, and
+as he walked he coughed from time to time, and shivered and looked about
+him wistfully. But at the same time he seemed to affect a gay manner with
+his companions, as one that aired a determination to be entertained. It
+was seventeen years since Lagardere had seen the king, and he was
+saddened at the change that the years had made in him. He could only pray
+that those changing years had wrought no alteration in the affection of
+Louis of France for Louis of Nevers.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+THE 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.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+SHADOWS
+
+
+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 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.
+
+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
+AEsop'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. AEsop 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
+AEsop had not been, as now he was, a dangerous and unexpected enemy in his
+path.
+
+AEsop, 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 AEsop," 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 AEsop, 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 AEsop 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 AEsop.
+
+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 AEsop, 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 AEsop
+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 the _Luxurious Sonnets_
+of 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 AEsop'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 AEsop.
+
+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 AEsop.
+
+"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."
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+THE FACTION OF GONZAGUE
+
+
+A little later in the day a company of joyous gentlemen made their way
+from the fair of Neuilly and came to a halt opposite the tavern whose
+green arbors seemed inviting enough after the heat of the dusty road. All
+of the company were richly dressed, most of the company were young--the
+joyous satellites of the central figure of the party. This was a tall,
+graceful Italianate man, who carried his fifty years with the grace and
+ease of thirty. He had a handsome face; those that admired him, and they
+were many, said there was no handsomer man at the court of the king than
+the king's familiar friend Louis de Gonzague. A man of the hour and a man
+of the world, Gonzague delighted to shine almost unrivalled and quite
+unsurpassed in the splendid court which the cardinal had permitted the
+king to gather about him. Something of a statesman and much of a scholar,
+Gonzague delighted to be the patron of the arts, and to lend, indirectly,
+indeed, but no less efficaciously, his counsels to the service of the
+cardinal during the cardinal's lifetime, and to the king now that the
+cardinal was gone. A man of pleasure, Gonzague was careful to enjoy all
+the delights that a society which found its chief occupation in the
+pursuit of amusement afforded. Even the youngest cavalier in Paris or
+Versailles would have regretted to find himself in rivalry with Gonzague
+for the favors of the fair. But in his pleasures, as in his policy,
+Gonzague was always discreet, reserved, even slightly mysterious, and
+though rumor had linked his name time and time again with the names of
+such gracious ladies as the cardinal had permitted to illuminate the
+court of the king, Gonzague had always been far too cautious, or too
+indifferent, to drift into anything that could in the least resemble an
+enduring entanglement. Indeed, there was an element of the Oriental in
+his tastes, which led him rather to find his entertainment in such light
+love as came and went by the back ways of palaces or could be sequestered
+in cheerful little country villas remote from curious eyes. This,
+however, was a matter of gossip, rumor, speculation. What was certainly
+known about Louis de Gonzague was that he delighted always to be
+surrounded by young gentlemen of blood and spirit, with whom his
+exquisite affability seemed at once to put him on a footing of equal age,
+and whose devotion to himself, his person, and his purposes he was always
+careful to acquire by a lavish generosity and that powerful patronage
+which his former friendship with the cardinal and his present influence
+over the king allowed him to extend.
+
+Perhaps the most remarkable proof of Gonzague's astuteness, of Gonzague's
+suppleness, was afforded by the manner in which he had succeeded in
+holding the favor of the great cardinal through all the long years of
+Richelieu's triumph, and yet at the same time in retaining so completely
+the friendship of the king. When the cardinal died, and many gentlemen
+that served the Red Robe found themselves no longer in esteem, Gonzague
+passed at once into the circle of the king's most intimate friends.
+Gonzague, as the comrade of a ruling potentate, proved himself a master
+of all arts that might amuse a melancholic sovereign newly redeemed from
+an age-long tutelage, and eager to sate those many long-restrained
+pleasures that he was at last free to command. Gonzague's ambition
+appeared to be to play the Petronius part, to be the Arbiter of
+Elegancies to a newly liberated king and a newly quickened court.
+
+Very wisely Gonzague had never made himself a politician. He had always
+allowed himself to appear as one that was gracefully detached, by his
+Italianate condition, from pledge to any party issues, and so in his
+suave, affable fashion he went his way, liked by all men who knew him
+slightly, counted on by the few men who believed they knew him well, and
+hugely admired by that vast congregation of starers and gapers who
+passionately display their approval of an urbane, almost an austere,
+profligacy.
+
+In the long years in which Gonzague had contrived to establish for
+himself the enviable reputation of the ideal of high gentlehood, he had
+very quietly and cautiously formed, as it were, a kind of court within a
+court--a court that was carefully formed for the faithful service of his
+interests. He managed, by dexterously conferring obligations of one kind
+or another, to bind his adherents to him by ties as strong as the ties of
+kinship, by ties stronger than the ties of allegiance to an unsettled
+state and a shadowy idea of justice. There was a Gonzague party among the
+aristocracy of the hour, and a very strong party it promised to be, and
+very ably guided to further his own ends by the courteous, so seeming
+amiable gentleman who was its head.
+
+About him at this moment were grouped some of the joyous members of that
+jovial sodality. There was Navailles, the brisk, the dissolute, the
+witty, always ready to risk everything, including honor, for a cast of
+the dice, for a kiss, for a pleasure or a revenge. There was Noce,
+pleasure-loving, pleasure-giving, always good-tempered, always
+good-humored, always serenely confident that the world as it existed was
+made chiefly for his amusement and the amusement of his friends. There
+was Taranne, a darker spirit, as ready as the rest of the fellowship to
+take the wine of life from the cup of joy in the hands of the
+dancing-girl, but a less genial drinker, a less cheerful and perhaps more
+greedy lover and feaster, as one who dimly and imperfectly appreciates
+that the conditions of things about him might not be destined to endure
+forever, and was, therefore, resolved to get as much of his share of the
+spoil of the sport while it lasted as any bandit of them all. There, too,
+was Oriol, the fat country gentleman, at once the richest and most
+foolish of the company. There, too, was Albret, who loved women more than
+wine; and Gironne, who loved wine more than women; and Choisy, who never
+knew which to love the best, but with whom both disagreed.
+
+At the present moment the party was extremely hilarious. Its members had
+ransacked the toy-shops of the fair, and every man was carrying some
+plaything and making the most of it, and extolling its greater virtues
+than the playthings of his fellows. Taranne carried a pea-shooter, and
+peppered his companion's legs persistently, grinning with delight if any
+of his victims showed irritation. Oriol had got a large trumpet, and was
+blowing it lustily. Noce had bought a cup-and-ball, and was trying, not
+very successfully, to induce the sphere to abide in the hollow prepared
+for it. Navailles had got a large Pulcinello doll that squeaked, and was
+pretending to treat it as an oracle, and to interpret its mechanical
+utterances as profound comments on his companions and prophecies as to
+their fortunes. Albret was tripping over a skipping-rope; Gironne puffed
+at a spinning windmill; Choisy played on a bagpipes, and Montaubert on a
+flute. In the background Monsieur Peyrolles watched all this mirthfulness
+with indifference and his master's face with attention.
+
+Gonzague looked round upon his friends with the indulgent smile of a
+still youthful school-master surrounded by his promising pupils. "Well,
+gentlemen, does the fair amuse you?" he asked, urbanely.
+
+Navailles turned to his doll for inspiration, made it give its metallic
+squeak, and then, as if repeating what Pulcinello had whispered to him,
+replied: "Enormously."
+
+Oriol trumpeted his approval loudly, and the expressions of the others
+bore ample testimony to their enjoyment.
+
+"Well, gentlemen," said Gonzague, "I hope and think that I reserved the
+best for the end." He made a sign to Peyrolles, who approached him.
+"Where is the girl?" he questioned, in a low voice.
+
+Peyrolles pointed to the caravan. "Shall I bring her?" he asked.
+
+Gonzague nodded. Peyrolles crossed the grass, his course followed
+curiously by the eyes of Gonzague's friends, till he halted at the
+caravan and knocked at the door. Flora put out her head, and, recognizing
+Peyrolles, greeted him with an eager smile.
+
+"The time has come," said Peyrolles, in a low voice, "for you to dance to
+this gentleman."
+
+Flora touched him eagerly on the arm. "Which is my prince?" she asked.
+
+Peyrolles gave a jerk of his head in the direction of Gonzague, and
+answered: "He in black with the star."
+
+In a moment Flora had retired within the caravan, and emerged again with
+a pair of castanets in her hands. She advanced to Gonzague and made him a
+reverence. "Shall I dance for you, pretty gentleman?" she asked.
+
+Gonzague watched her curiously, seeing in one swift, incisive glance that
+she might very well serve for his purpose. "With all my heart," he
+answered, courteously.
+
+He seated himself at a table under the trees, with his little court
+grouped about him, and Flora began to dance. It was such a dance as only
+a Spaniard trained in the gypsy school could dance--a dance whose
+traditions go back to days when the Roman Empire was old, to days when
+the Roman Empire was young. Now active, now languid, by turns passionate,
+daring, defiant, alluring, a wonderful medley of exquisite
+contradictions, the girl leaped hither and thither, clicking her
+castanets and sending her bright glances like arrows towards the admiring
+spectators. She moved like a flame fluttered by the wind, like a
+butterfly, like a leaf, like any swift, volatile, shifting, shimmering
+thing. She seemed as agile as a cat, as tireless as a monkey, as free as
+a bird. Suddenly the dance that was all contradiction ended in a final
+contradiction. At the moment when her exuberance seemed keenest, her
+vitality fiercest, her action most animated, when her eyes were shining
+their brightest, her lips smiling their sweetest, and her castanets
+clicking their loudest, she suddenly became rigid, with arms extended,
+like one struck motionless by a catalepsy, her face robbed of all
+expression, her limbs stiff, her arms extended. She stood so for a few
+seconds, then a smile rippled over her face, her arms dropped to her
+sides, and she seemed to swoon towards the ground in a surrendering
+courtesy. The dance was at an end.
+
+The delighted gentlemen applauded enthusiastically. All would have been
+eager to seek closer acquaintance with the gypsy, but all refrained
+because Gonzague himself rose from his seat and advanced towards the
+girl, who watched him, respectful and excited, with lowered lids.
+
+Gonzague laid his hand on her shoulder with a caress that was almost
+paternal while he spoke: "I know more about you than you know yourself,
+child. Go back now. I have long been looking for you."
+
+Flora could scarcely find breath to stammer: "For me?" She ventured to
+look up into the face of this grave and courtly gentleman, and she found
+something very attractive in the dark eyes that were fixed upon her with
+a look of so much benevolence. Gonzague pointed to Peyrolles, who was
+standing a little apart from the group of gentlemen.
+
+"Peyrolles will come for you presently," he said. "Peyrolles will tell
+you what to do. Obey him implicitly."
+
+Flora made him another courtesy. "Yes, monseigneur," she faltered, and,
+turning, ran swiftly to the caravan and disappeared within its depths.
+Each of the young gentlemen gladly would have followed her, but, as
+before, they were restrained by the action of Gonzague, who seemed to
+have taken the girl under his protection, and no one of them was
+foolhardy enough to dream of crossing Gonzague in a pleasure or a
+caprice.
+
+But during the progress of the dance there had been an addition to the
+little group of gentlemen. Chavernay had come over the bridge, with,
+curiously enough, Cocardasse and Passepoil at his heels. When he saw that
+a dance was toward, he made a sign to his followers to remain upon the
+bridge, while he himself mingled with his habitual companions. When the
+dance was over and Flora had disappeared, Chavernay advanced to Gonzague.
+He, at least, was foolhardy enough for anything. "I give you my word,
+cousin," he said, "that I have already lost the half of my heart to your
+dancer. Are we rivals with the gypsy lass, cousin?"
+
+Gonzague looked urbanely and yet gravely at his impudent kinsman. "You
+must look for love elsewhere," he said, decisively. "I have reasons,
+though not such reasons as yours; but you will oblige me."
+
+Chavernay laughed contentedly. "My faith! there are plenty of pretty
+women in the world, and plenty of ugly men, as it would seem. I have
+brought you some friends of yours."
+
+He made a signal as he spoke, and Cocardasse and Passepoil, descending
+from their post upon the bridge, advanced towards the brilliant group,
+bowing grotesquely as they did so, with their big hats in their hands and
+their long rapiers tilting up their ragged cloaks. All the party gazed in
+amazement at the whimsical apparitions, to the great indignation of
+Cocardasse, who whispered angrily to his companion: "Why the devil do
+they stare at us so?" While to him his companion replied, soothingly:
+"Gently, gently."
+
+The gentlemen were screaming with laughter. Taranne fired a volley of
+peas, which rattled harmlessly against the long boots of Passepoil.
+Navailles consulted his oracle, and declared that he liked the big one
+best. Oriol, with a flourish of his trumpet, announced that he preferred
+the smug fellow. Peyrolles, with a look of horror on his face, rushed
+forward and attempted to intercept the new-comers, but he was too late.
+Cocardasse was already in front of Gonzague, and had made him a
+tremendous obeisance. "We have the honor to salute your highness," he
+said, sonorously.
+
+Gonzague observed him with well-restrained astonishment, and questioned
+Chavernay: "Who are these--gentlemen?"
+
+Chavernay was eager to explain that he had come across them in the fair,
+and had taken a great fancy to them. After some conversation he found
+that they were seeking the Prince de Gonzague, and thereupon he had
+consented to be their guide and to present them. At this point Peyrolles
+interposed. Coming close to Gonzague, he whispered something to him which
+caused for a moment a slight expression of dislike, almost of dread, to
+disturb the familiar imperturbability of his countenance. Then he looked
+at the bravos. "Gentlemen," he said, "I believe it is your wish to serve
+me. A man can never have too many friends. Gentlemen, I accept your
+services." He turned to his familiar, and ordered: "Peyrolles, get them
+some new clothes."
+
+Peyrolles hurriedly beckoned Cocardasse and Passepoil apart, and could be
+seen at a little distance transferring money from his pocket to their
+palms, giving them instructions, and finally dismissing them.
+
+Chavernay looked at Gonzague. "I congratulate you on your new friends."
+
+Gonzague shook his head. "Judge no man by his habit. Hearts of gold may
+beat beneath those tatters."
+
+Chavernay smiled. "I dare say they are no worse than most of your
+friends."
+
+Taranne, Noce, Navailles, Oriol, Albret, Choisy, Gironne, and Montaubert
+caught him up angrily. They seemed offended at the suggestion. Gonzague
+placated them with a phrase: "Our dear Chavernay includes himself, no
+doubt."
+
+Chavernay accepted the suggestion. "Oh yes; there is devilishly little to
+choose between any of us."
+
+The impertinence of the answer and the impertinence of the speaker's
+carriage were not calculated to smooth the ruffled feelings of the
+gentlemen, but Chavernay was never one to bridle his speech in deference
+to the susceptibility of his cousin's satellites. He now eyed them
+mockingly, even provokingly, full of amusement, while they fumed and
+fretted, and hands crept to hilts. Cheerfully courageous, Chavernay was
+prepared at any moment to back his words with his sword. Gonzague,
+studying the lowering faces of his adherents, and smiling compassionately
+at the boyish insolence of Chavernay, interposed and stifled the
+threatened brawl. "Come, gentlemen," he said, graciously, "let there be
+no bickering. Chavernay has a sharp tongue, and spares no one, not even
+me, yet I am always ready to forgive him his impudence."
+
+A word of Gonzague was a command--a wish, a law--to his faithful
+followers, and their countenances cleared as he spoke. Gonzague went on:
+"His Gracious Majesty the King will be leaving the fair soon, though I am
+glad to think that it seems to have diverted his majesty greatly. Let us
+attend upon him, gentlemen." Gonzague emphasized his words by leading the
+way across the bridge, and Chavernay and the others followed at his
+heels, a laughing, chattering, many-colored company of pleasure-seekers.
+Only Peyrolles remained behind.
+
+When the last of them had crossed the bridge and was far away upon the
+road to Neuilly, a man came to the door of the Inn and looked
+thoughtfully after them.
+
+The man was clad in black from head to foot, and his body was heavily
+bowed. As he moved slowly across the grass, Peyrolles hastened towards
+him, seeming to recognize him. "I was looking for you, Master AEsop," he
+cried; "I have good news for you."
+
+The hunchback answered, quietly: "Good news is always welcome." And to
+the ears of Peyrolles the voice was the voice of AEsop, and to the eyes of
+Peyrolles the form and the face of the speaker were the form and the face
+of AEsop.
+
+Peyrolles went on: "His highness the Prince de Gonzague is delighted with
+the girl you have found; she will pass admirably for the girl of
+Nevers."
+
+The seeming AEsop nodded his head and said, quietly: "I am glad to hear
+it."
+
+"The Prince wishes to see you," Peyrolles continued. "The Prince wishes
+you to enter his service. Master AEsop, Master AEsop, your fortune is made,
+thanks to me."
+
+"Thanks to me, I think," the hunchback commented, dryly.
+
+Peyrolles shrugged his shoulders. "As you please," he said. "Come to the
+Hotel de Gonzague to-morrow, and ask for me."
+
+"I will come," the hunchback promised. Then Peyrolles hastened over the
+bridge, and made all speed to rejoin his master.
+
+When he was well on his way the hunchback drew himself into a chair,
+laughing heartily. "Oh, AEsop, AEsop," Lagardere murmured to himself, "how
+vexed you would be if you knew how useful you prove to me!"
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+THE HALL OF THE THREE LOUIS
+
+
+One of the handsomest rooms in the Palace of Gonzague, as the Palace of
+Nevers was now called, was known as the Hall of the Three Louis. It was
+so called on account of the three life-sized portraits which it
+contained. The first was the portrait of the late duke, Louis de Nevers,
+in all the pride of that youth and joyousness which was so tragically
+extinguished in the moat of Caylus. His fair hair fell about his
+delicate, eager face; his left hand rested upon the hilt of the sword he
+knew how to use so well; his right hand, perhaps in the pathos, perhaps
+in the irony of the painter's intention, was pressed against his heart,
+for Louis de Nevers had been a famous lover in his little day, but never
+so true a lover as when he wooed and won the daughter of the hostile
+house of Caylus. A heavy curtain by the side of the picture masked an
+alcove sacred to the memory of Nevers.
+
+Facing the portrait of the dead duke was the portrait of his successor,
+of the present master of the house. Louis de Gonzague, in all other
+things a contrast to Louis de Nevers, contrasted with him most
+flagrantly in appearance. Against the fair, boyish face of Nevers you had
+to set the saturnine Italianate countenance of Gonzague. The brilliancy
+of Louis de Nevers was all external, bright as summer is bright, gay as
+summer is gay, cheerful as summer is cheerful. The brilliancy of Louis de
+Gonzague showed more sombrely, as melting gold flows in a crucible. No
+one who saw the picture could fail to deny its physical beauty, but many
+would deny it the instant, the appealing charm which caught at the heart
+of the spectator with the first glance he gave to the canvas that
+portrayed Louis de Nevers. In contrast, too, were the very garments of
+the two men, for the dead duke affected light, airy, radiant
+colors--clear blues, and clear pale-yellows, and delicate reds with
+subtle emphasis of gold and silver; but the splendor of Gonzague's
+apparel was sombre, like his beauty, with black for its dominant note,
+and only deep wine-colored crimsons or fierce ambers to lighten its
+solemnity.
+
+The third picture, which was placed between Louis de Nevers and Louis de
+Gonzague, was the portrait of Louis, not as he now looked, being King of
+France in reality, but as he looked some seventeen years earlier, when
+the cardinal was beginning his career, and when the peevishness of youth
+had not soured into the yellow melancholy of the monarch of middle age.
+
+It was in this room, consecrated to the memory of his dead friend, to the
+honor of his living friend, and to the glory of his own existence, that
+Louis de Gonzague loved to work. It was a proof of his well-balanced
+philosophy that he found nothing to trouble him in the juxtaposition of
+the three pictures. The great double doors at one end of the room served
+to shut off a hall devoted for the most part to the private suppers which
+it was Louis de Gonzague's delight to give to chosen friends of both
+sexes, and when, as often happened, supper ended, and a choice company of
+half-drunken women and wholly drunken men reeled through the open doors
+into the room where the three Louis reigned, Gonzague, who himself kept
+always sober, was no more than cynically amused by the contrast between
+the noisy and careless crew who had invaded the chamber and the sinister
+gravity with which the portraits of the three Louis regarded one
+another.
+
+The king himself, who sometimes since his freedom surreptitiously made
+one at these merry gatherings, where a princely fortune and a more than
+princely taste directed all that appealed to all appetites--the king
+himself, coming flushed from one of these famous suppers into the sudden
+coolness and quiet of the great room, would appear to be more impressed
+than his host at the sudden sight of the three canvases. Then, in a voice
+perhaps slightly unsteady, but still carrying in its flood the utterance
+of a steady purpose, Louis of France would catch Louis de Gonzague by the
+wrist, and, pointing to the bright, smiling image of Louis de Nevers,
+would repeat for the twentieth, the fiftieth, the hundredth time his
+oath of vengeance against the assassin of his friend if ever that
+assassin should come into his power. And hearing this oath for the
+twentieth, the fiftieth, the hundredth time, Louis de Gonzague would
+always smile his astute smile and incline his head gravely in sign of
+sympathy with the king's feelings, and allow his fine eyes to be dimmed
+for an instant with a suggestion of tears.
+
+The room was an interesting room to any one curious as to the concerns of
+the Prince de Gonzague for other reasons than the presence of the three
+pictures, for to any one who knew anything about the arrangements of the
+palace this room represented, as it were, a kind of debatable land
+between the kingdom of Gonzague on the one side and the kingdom of Nevers
+on the other. A door on the left communicated with the private apartments
+of Louis de Gonzague. Cross the great room to the right, and you came to
+a door communicating with the private apartments of Madame the Princess
+de Gonzague. The Prince de Gonzague never passed the threshold of the
+door that led to the princess's apartments. The Princess de Gonzague
+never passed the threshold of the door that led to the prince's
+apartments. Ever since their strange marriage the man and the woman had
+lived thus apart; the man, on his part, always courteous, always
+deferential, always tender, always ready to be respectfully affectionate,
+and the woman, on her part, icily reserved, wrapped around in the
+blackness of her widowhood, inexorably deaf to all wooing, immovably
+resolute to be alone.
+
+What rumor said was, for once, quite true. The young Duchess de Nevers,
+on the night of her marriage to Prince Louis de Gonzague, had warned him
+that if he attempted to approach her with the solicitations of a husband
+she would take her life, and Louis de Gonzague, who, being an Italian,
+was ardent, but who, being an Italian, was also very intelligent, saw
+that the young wife-widow meant what she said and would keep her word,
+and desisted discreetly from any attempt to play the husband. After all,
+he had his consolations: he controlled the vast estates of his dead
+friend and kinsman, and though he felt for the lady he had married a
+certain animal attraction, which easily cooled as the years went on, his
+passion for the wealth of Nevers was more pronounced than his passion for
+the wife of Nevers, and he contented himself easily enough with the part
+assigned to him by his wife in the tragi-comedy. Every day he requested,
+very courteously, through Monsieur Peyrolles, permission to wait upon the
+princess, and every day the princess, also through a servant, expressed
+her regret that the state of her health would not allow her the pleasure
+of receiving his highness. So it had been through the years since Louis
+de Nevers was done to death in the moat of Caylus.
+
+On the day after the fair at Neuilly, Louis de Gonzague was seated in the
+room of the Three Louis busily writing at a table. By his side stood
+Peyrolles, his gorgeous attire somewhat unpleasantly accentuating the
+patent obsequiousness with which he waited upon his master's will. For a
+while Gonzague's busy pen formed flowing Italian characters upon the page
+before him. Presently he came to an end, reread his letter, shook over
+the final writings some silver sand, then folded it and sealed it
+leisurely. When he had done he spoke to Peyrolles:
+
+"This letter is to go to his majesty. Send Dona Flora here. Stay! Who is
+in the antechamber?"
+
+Peyrolles answered with a bow: "The Chevalier Cocardasse and the
+Chevalier Passepoil, monseigneur."
+
+Gonzague made a faint grimace. "Let them wait there."
+
+Peyrolles inclined profoundly. "Yes, monseigneur," he said, and waited.
+The long knowledge of his master's manner, the long study of the
+expression on his master's face, told him he had not done with him, and
+he was right, for in a moment Gonzague spoke to him again:
+
+"This gypsy girl will serve the turn to perfection. She is dark, as
+Gabrielle de Caylus was dark. She is beautiful, not so beautiful as
+Gabrielle de Caylus indeed, but, bah! filia pulchra, matre pulchrior.
+Before the king to-day I will produce her. The princess cannot but accept
+her. If afterwards a charming young girl should die of a decline--many
+die so--the fortune of Louis de Nevers becomes the fortune of Louis de
+Gonzague, who will know very well what to do with it, having the
+inestimable advantage of being alive."
+
+Peyrolles indulged in the privilege of a faint little laugh at this
+witticism of his master, but apparently the applause did not please
+Gonzague, who gave him a gesture of dismissal. "Send the girl to me at
+once," he said; and with a still more humble salute Peyrolles quitted the
+apartment. When Gonzague was alone he sat for a few minutes staring
+before him like one who dreams waking. Then he turned and glanced at the
+picture of Louis de Nevers, and an ironical smile wrinkled, more than
+time had ever done, his handsome face. Evidently the contemplation of the
+picture seemed to afford him a great deal of satisfaction, for he was
+still looking at it, and still wearing the same amused smile, when the
+door behind him opened and Flora came timidly into the room. She was not
+in appearance the same Flora who had dwelt in the caravan and danced for
+strangers on the previous day. She was now richly and beautifully dressed
+as a great lady should be, but she seemed more awkward in her splendid
+garments than she had ever seemed in the short skirts of the gypsy.
+Gonzague, whose every sense was acute, heard her come in, though she
+stepped very softly, and abandoned his contemplation of the picture of
+Louis de Nevers. He turned round and rose to his feet, and made her one
+of his exquisite salutations. The girl drew back with a little gasp and
+pressed her hands to her bosom.
+
+Gonzague smiled paternally. "Are you afraid of me?"
+
+The girl shook her head dubiously, and there was suspicion in her dark
+eyes as she asked: "What do you want of me?"
+
+Gonzague smiled more paternally than before. "I want you to love me," he
+said; and then, seeing that the gypsy lifted her brows, he continued,
+leisurely: "Do not misunderstand me. Women still are sometimes pleased to
+smile on me. I do not want such smiles from you, child. There is another
+fate for you. Are you content with your new life?"
+
+Flora answered him with a weary tone in her voice and a weary look on her
+pretty face. "You have given me fine clothes and fine jewels. I ought to
+be content. But I miss my comrades and my wandering life."
+
+Gonzague was still paternal as he explained: "You must forget your
+wandering life. Henceforward you are a great lady. Your father was a
+duke."
+
+Flora gave a little gasp, and questioned: "Is my father dead?"
+
+Gonzague allowed his chin to fall upon his breast and an expression of
+deep gloom to overshadow his face. "Yes," he said, and his voice was as a
+requiem to buried friendship.
+
+Flora's heart was touched by this display of friendship. "And my mother?"
+she asked.
+
+Gonzague's face lightened. "Your mother lives."
+
+Flora questioned again, this time very timorously: "Will she love me?"
+
+Gonzague seemed to look at the girl sympathetically, but really looked at
+her critically. He found her so pleasing to his eye that he almost
+regretted that she had been chosen for the part she had to play, but also
+he found her on the whole so suited to that part that he felt bound to
+stifle his regret. "Surely," he said, and smiled kindly upon her.
+
+Flora gave a little sigh of satisfaction. "I have always dreamed that I
+should be a great lady. And dreams come true, you know--the dreams that
+gypsies dream."
+
+Gonzague raised his hand to check her speech. "Forget the gypsies. Forget
+that the gypsies called you Flora. Your name is Gabrielle."
+
+Flora gave a start of surprise. "Gabrielle!" she said. "How strange! That
+is the name of my dearest friend."
+
+It was Gonzague's turn to be surprised, but he never was known to betray
+an emotion. It was with an air of complete indifference that he asked:
+"Who is she?"
+
+And Flora answered, simply: "A girl I knew and loved when we were living
+in Spain."
+
+Gonzague knew that he was agitated; and that he had every reason to be
+agitated, but he knew also that no one beholding him would know of his
+agitation. "What became of her?" he asked, still with the same apparent
+indifference.
+
+And Flora answered as readily as before: "We travelled to France
+together."
+
+"Travelled to France together!" echoed Gonzague.
+
+Perhaps, in spite of himself, some hint of keenness was betrayed in the
+voice he was so studious to keep indifferent, for this time Flora gave
+question for question, suspiciously: "Why does all this interest you?"
+
+Gonzague's voice was perfectly indifferent when he replied: "Everything
+that concerns you interests me. Tell me; was this other Gabrielle a
+Spaniard like you?"
+
+Flora shook her head. "Oh no. She was French."
+
+"Was she, too, an orphan?" Gonzague asked.
+
+"Yes," said Flora; "but she had a guardian who loved her like a father."
+
+The gypsy girl could not guess what raging passions were masked by the
+changeless serenity of Gonzague's face. "Who was that?" he asked, as he
+might have asked the name of some dog or some cat.
+
+And he got the answer he expected from the girl: "A young French
+soldier."
+
+Perhaps, again, Gonzague's voice was keener with his next question:
+"Whose name was--"
+
+In this case Flora, suddenly recalling her conversation with Gabrielle on
+the previous day, became as suddenly cautious. "I have forgotten his
+name," she said, and looked as if nothing could rekindle her memory.
+
+Gonzague affected to be busy with some of the papers that lay before him,
+and then, at a venture, and as if with no particular purpose in his
+thoughts, he said: "I wish I could get this Gabrielle to be your
+companion, child."
+
+Flora clapped her hands, and forgot her caution in her joy at the
+prospect. "Well, that might be done. I will tell you a secret. Gabrielle
+and her guardian are in Paris."
+
+Underneath the table, and hidden from the girl's sight, Gonzague's hands
+clinched tightly, as if they were clinching upon the throat of an enemy;
+but his face was still quite tranquil as he said, carelessly: "Where are
+they?"
+
+Flora's voice was full of regret. "Ah! I do not know; but they were at
+the fair where we were playing, and I know that they are coming to
+Paris."
+
+Gonzague rose to his feet and took both the girl's hands affectionately
+in his. His eyes looked affectionately into hers, and his voice was full
+of kindness. "If your friend can be found, be sure that I will find her
+for you. And now go. I will send for you when the time comes for the
+meeting with your mother."
+
+Flora clasped her hands nervously. "My mother! Oh, what shall I say to
+her?" she cried.
+
+Gonzague's smile soothed her fears. "Hide nothing from her, for I am sure
+you have nothing to hide. Speak the loving words that a mother would like
+to hear."
+
+With a grateful look at her newly found protector, Flora darted from the
+room, and Gonzague was left alone.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+A CONFIDENTIAL AGENT
+
+
+Gonzague was left alone, indeed, only in a sense, for on a sudden the
+great hall with its famous pictures had become the theatre of fierce
+emotions and menacing presences. Just at the moment when Gonzague
+believed his schemes to be at their best and his fortunes to be nearing
+their top, he was suddenly threatened with the renewal of the old terror
+that had been kept at bay through all the years that had passed since the
+night of Caylus. Through all these years Lagardere had been kept from
+Paris, at the cost, indeed, as he believed, of many lives, but that was a
+price Louis de Gonzague was always prepared to pay when the protection of
+his own life was in question. Now it would seem as if Lagardere had
+broken his exile, had forced his way through the thicket of swords, and
+was again in Paris. Nor was this the worst. Just when Gonzague, after all
+his failures to trace the missing child of his victim, just when he had
+so ingeniously found a substitute for that missing child, it would really
+seem as if the child herself, now a woman, had come to Paris to defy him
+and to destroy his plans. He sat huddled with black thoughts for a time
+which seemed to him an age, but was in reality not more than a few
+moments; then, extending his hand, he struck a bell and a servant
+entered.
+
+"Tell Peyrolles I want him," the prince commanded, and was again alone
+with his dreads and his dangers until Peyrolles appeared. Gonzague turned
+to his factotum. "I have reason to suspect that Lagardere is in Paris. If
+it be true, he will come too late. The princess will have accepted the
+gypsy as her child, the mother's voice will have spoken. If Lagardere is
+in Paris, he and the girl must be found, and once found--"
+
+The ivory-like face of Peyrolles was quickened with a cunning look. "I
+have a man who will find him if any one can."
+
+Gonzague turned upon him sharply. "Who is it?"
+
+"Monseigneur," said Peyrolles, "I have at my disposal, and at the
+disposal of your highness, a very remarkable man, the hunchback AEsop. He
+was in the moat of Caylus that night. He, with those two you saw
+yesterday, are the only ones left, except--"
+
+Peyrolles paused for a moment, and his pale face worked uncomfortably.
+Gonzague interpreted his thought. "Except you and me, you were going to
+say."
+
+Peyrolles nodded gloomily. "As AEsop," he said, "has been in Spain all
+these years hunting Lagardere--"
+
+"Yes," Gonzague interrupted, "and never finding him."
+
+Peyrolles bowed. "True, your highness, but at least up to now he has kept
+Lagardere on the Spanish side of the frontier, kept Lagardere in peril of
+his life. AEsop hates Lagardere, always has hated him. When the last of
+our men met with"--he paused for a moment as if to find a fitting phrase,
+and then continued--"the usual misfortune, I thought it useless to leave
+AEsop in Spain, and sent for him. He came to me to-day. May I present him
+to your highness?"
+
+Gonzague nodded thoughtfully. Any ally was welcome in such a crisis.
+"Yes," he said.
+
+Peyrolles went to the door that communicated with the prince's private
+apartments, and, opening it, beckoned into the corridor. Then he drew
+back into the room, and a moment later was followed by a hunchbacked man
+in black, who wore a large sword. The man bowed profoundly to the Prince
+de Gonzague.
+
+Peyrolles introduced him. "This is the man, monseigneur."
+
+Gonzague looked fixedly at the man. He could see little of his face, for
+the head was thrust forward from the stooping, misshapen shoulders, and
+his long, dark hair hung about his cheeks and shaded his countenance. The
+face seemed pale and intelligent. It was naturally quite unfamiliar to
+Gonzague, who knew nothing of AEsop except as one of the men who had
+played a sinister part in the murder at Caylus.
+
+Gonzague addressed him. "You know much, they tell me?"
+
+The man bowed again, and spoke, slowly: "I know that Lagardere is in
+Paris, and with the child of Nevers."
+
+"Do you know where he is?" Gonzague questioned.
+
+The man answered, with laconic confidence: "I will find out."
+
+"How?" asked Gonzague.
+
+The hunchback laughed dryly. "That is my secret. Paris cannot hold any
+mystery from me."
+
+Gonzague questioned again: "Is it to your interest that Lagardere should
+die?"
+
+"Indeed, yes," the hunchback answered. "Has he not sworn to kill every
+man who attacked Nevers that night? Has he not kept his word well? I am
+the last that is left--I and Monsieur Peyrolles, for, of course, I except
+your Excellence. I promise you I will find him, but I shall need help."
+
+"Help?" Gonzague echoed.
+
+The hunchback nodded. "He is a dangerous fellow, this Lagardere, as six
+of us have found to our cost. Are there not two of our number newly in
+your highness's service?"
+
+"Cocardasse and Passepoil," Peyrolles explained.
+
+The hunchback rubbed his hands. "The very men. Will your highness place
+them under my orders?"
+
+"By all means," Gonzague answered, and, turning to Peyrolles, he said:
+"They are in the antechamber; bring them in."
+
+Peyrolles turned to obey, when the hunchback delayed him with a gesture.
+"Your pardon, highness," he said; "but I think there is another service I
+can render you to-day."
+
+"Another service?" Gonzague repeated, looking at the hunchback with some
+surprise.
+
+The hunchback explained: "Your highness, as I understand, has summoned
+for this afternoon a small family council, ostensibly for the purpose of
+considering the position of affairs between madame the princess and
+yourself."
+
+The hunchback paused. Gonzague nodded, but said nothing, and the
+hunchback resumed: "Your real purpose, however, as I understand, is to
+present to that council the young lady, the daughter of Nevers, whom I
+have been fortunate enough to discover in Spain. You wish this discovery
+to come as a surprise to madame the princess."
+
+Still Gonzague nodded, still Gonzague kept silence.
+
+"I believe that you have requested madame the princess to attend this
+family council, and that up to the present you have not succeeded in
+obtaining her assent."
+
+"That is so," said Gonzague.
+
+"I was about to suggest," the hunchback went on, "if your highness will
+permit me, that you should employ me as your ambassador to madame the
+princess. I believe I could persuade her to be present at the family
+gathering."
+
+Gonzague looked at the man in astonishment. "What persuasions could you
+employ," he asked, "which would be likely to succeed where mine have
+failed?"
+
+Again AEsop made an apologetic gesture as he pleaded his former excuse.
+"That is my secret," he repeated; "but, prince, if you employ me you must
+let me attain my ends by my own means, so long as you find that those
+ends give you satisfaction and are of service to your purposes. Though I
+am by no means"--here he laughed a little, bitter laugh--"an attractive
+person, I believe I have a keen wit, and I think I have a clever tongue,
+thanks to which I have often succeeded in difficult enterprises where
+others have failed ignominiously--at least, it will be no harm to try."
+
+"Certainly," Gonzague agreed, "it will be no harm to try. If the princess
+persists, I could, of course, in the end compel her by a direct order
+from the king himself, who is good enough to honor us with his presence
+to-day."
+
+"But," the hunchback interrupted, "it would be far more agreeable to you
+if the princess could be induced to come of her own accord?"
+
+"Certainly," Gonzague agreed.
+
+"Then," said the hunchback, "have I permission to approach madame the
+princess and endeavor to persuade her to act in conformity to your
+wishes?"
+
+"You have," said Gonzague, decisively. Something in the hunchback's
+manner attracted him. The suggestion of mysterious influences appealed to
+his Italian spirit, and the confidence of the hunchback inspired him
+with confidence. He pointed to the curtained alcove.
+
+"Madame the princess," he said, gravely, "comes every day at this hour to
+spend some moments in contemplation and in prayer beside the picture of
+her former husband. That alcove shrines his sword. By virtue of a mutual
+understanding, this room is always left empty daily at this same time,
+that madame the princess may fulfil her pious duty untroubled by the
+sight of any who might be displeasing to her."
+
+Here Gonzague sighed profoundly and summoned to his face the expression
+of a much-wronged, grievously misappreciated man. After an interval,
+which the hunchback silently respected, Gonzague resumed:
+
+"If she were to find you here the princess might be, would be, pained;
+but if, indeed, you think you have any arguments that would serve to
+influence her mind, you could explain your presence as owing to ignorance
+due to the newness of your service here."
+
+AEsop nodded sagaciously. "I understand," he said. "Leave it to me. And
+now if your highness will place those two fellows at my disposal, I will
+give them their instructions."
+
+The prince rose and turned to Peyrolles. "Send the men to Master AEsop,"
+he commanded.
+
+Peyrolles went to the door of the antechamber, and returned in an instant
+with Cocardasse and Passepoil, now both gorgeously dressed in an
+extravagantly modish manner, which became them, if possible, less than
+their previous rags and tatters. Both men saluted Gonzague profoundly,
+and both started at seeing the hunchback standing apart from them with
+averted face.
+
+Gonzague pointed to the hunchback. "Obey Master AEsop, gentlemen, as you
+would obey me." The two bravos bowed respectfully. Gonzague turned to the
+hunchback and spoke in a lower tone: "Find this Lagardere for me, and we
+will soon break his invincible sword."
+
+"How?" the hunchback questioned, with a faint note of irony in his
+voice.
+
+Gonzague continued: "By the hands of the hang-man, Master AEsop. Do your
+best. Those who serve me well serve themselves."
+
+The hunchback answered, slowly: "Whenever you want me, I am here."
+
+Gonzague, in spite of himself, started at the hunchback's last words, but
+the demeanor of AEsop was so simple and his bearing so respectful that
+Gonzague was convinced that their use was purely accident. He looked at
+his watch. "I must prepare for the ceremony," he said. "Come with me,
+Peyrolles," and the prince and his henchman quitted the apartment.
+
+The hunchback muttered to himself: "The sword of Lagardere has yet a duty
+to perform before it be broken." Then he turned to Cocardasse and
+Passepoil where they stood apart: "Well, friends, do you remember me?"
+
+Cocardasse answered him, thoughtfully: "'Tis a long time since we met,
+AEsop."
+
+Passepoil, as usual, commented on his comrade's remark: "It might have
+been longer with advantage."
+
+Indifferent to the bravos' obvious distaste for his society, the
+hunchback continued: "I have news for you. Lagardere and I met
+yesterday."
+
+Cocardasse whistled. "The devil you did!"
+
+The hunchback coolly continued: "We fought, and I killed him."
+
+Cocardasse's air of distaste was suddenly transmuted into a raging,
+blazing air of hatred. He swore a great oath and sprang forward. "Then,
+by the powers, I will kill you!"
+
+"So will I!" cried Passepoil, no less furious than his friend, and
+advanced with him. But when the pair were close upon the hunchback he
+suddenly drew himself up, flung back the hair from his face, and faced
+them, crying, "I am here!"
+
+Cocardasse and Passepoil paused, gasping. Both had one name on their
+lips, and the name was the name of Lagardere. In another moment Lagardere
+was stooping again, the long hair was falling about his face, and the two
+men could scarcely believe that AEsop was not standing before them. "Hush!
+To you both, as to all the world, I am AEsop, Gonzague's attendant devil.
+Now I have work for you. Go to-night at eleven to No. 7, Rue de Chantre."
+As he spoke he drew a letter from his coat and gave it to Cocardasse.
+"Give this letter to the young lady who lives there. I have warned her of
+your coming. I have told her what she is to do. She will accompany you
+unquestioningly. I have to trust to you in this, friends, for I have my
+own part to play, and, by my faith, it is the hardest part I have ever
+played in my life." He laughed as he spoke; then he drew from his breast
+another packet and handed it to Passepoil. "Here," he said, "are three
+invitations for the king's ball to-night--one for the girl you will
+escort, one for each of you. When you go to the house you will wait till
+the girl is ready, and then you will escort her to the king's ball in the
+Palais Royal at midnight, and bring her into the presence of the king by
+the royal tent near the round pond of Diana."
+
+"I will do that same," said Cocardasse, cheerfully.
+
+"Never let her out of your sight at the ball," Lagardere insisted.
+
+"Devil a minute," Passepoil affirmed.
+
+"Let no one speak to her," Lagardere continued.
+
+"Devil a word," said Cocardasse.
+
+As the hunchback seemed to have no further instructions for them, the
+pair made to depart, but Lagardere restrained them, saying: "Ah, wait a
+moment. We are all the toys of fate. If any unlucky chance should arise,
+come to me in the presence of the king and fling down your glove."
+
+"I understand," said Cocardasse.
+
+Lagardere dismissed them. "Then, farewell, old friends, till to-night."
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+THE PRINCESS DE GONZAGUE
+
+
+When Lagardere was left alone he placed himself at the table where
+Gonzague had been sitting so short a time before, and, taking pen and
+paper, wrote rapidly a short letter. When he had folded and sealed this,
+he rose, and, crossing the room, went to the door which opened on the
+antechamber to the princess's apartments. Here he found a servant
+waiting, wearing the mourning livery of Nevers, to whom he gave the
+letter, telling him that it was urgent, and that it should be delivered
+to the princess at once. When he had done this he returned to the great
+room and walked slowly up and down it, surveying in turn each of the
+three pictures of the three friends who had been called the Three Louis.
+He paused for a moment before the picture of Louis de Nevers. "Louis de
+Nevers," he said, softly, "you shall be avenged to-night."
+
+He moved a little away, and paused again before the portrait of the king.
+"Louis of France," he said, "you shall be convinced to-night."
+
+A third time he resumed his walk, and a third time he paused, this time
+before the portrait of the Prince de Gonzague. Here he stood a little
+while longer in silence, studying curiously the striking lineaments of
+his enemy, that enemy who, through all the change of years, had retained
+the grace and beauty represented on the canvas. "Louis de Gonzague," he
+murmured, "you shall be judged to-night."
+
+Then he resumed his steady pacing up and down the room, with his hands
+clasped lightly behind his humped shoulders, busy in thought. For,
+indeed, he had much to think of, much to plan, much to execute, and but
+little time in which to do what he had to do. Fortune had greatly favored
+him so far. The friends he had summoned had come at his call. One more of
+his enemies had been swept from his path, and by the destruction of that
+enemy he had been able, thanks to his old training as a play-actor, to
+enter unsuspected into the household and the councils of the man who most
+hated him, of the man whom he most hated. But, though much was done,
+there was yet much to do, and it needed all his fortitude, all his
+courage, and all his humor to face without hesitation or alarm the
+problems that faced him.
+
+His reflections were interrupted by the opening of a door, and, turning
+rapidly, he found himself in the presence of a woman clad entirely in
+black, whom he knew at once, in spite of the ravages that time and an
+unchanging grief had wrought upon her beauty, to be the Princess de
+Gonzague, the widow of Nevers. The princess was accompanied by a
+lady-in-waiting, a woman older than herself, and, like herself, clad
+wholly in black, on whose arm she leaned for support. Lagardere bowed
+respectfully to the woman he had last seen so many years before in the
+short and terrible interview in the moat at Caylus.
+
+"You requested to see me," the princess said, gravely and sternly.
+
+"I requested permission to wait upon you," Lagardere answered,
+deferentially.
+
+"You are," the princess continued, "I presume, in the service of the
+Prince de Gonzague?"
+
+Lagardere bowed in silence.
+
+"It is not my custom," the princess said, "to receive messengers from his
+highness, but it is my custom daily to visit these rooms for a few
+moments at this time to look at one of the pictures they contain, and at
+this time his highness leaves the room at my disposal. From the
+earnestness of your letter, I have, therefore, consented to see you here
+in the course of this, my daily pilgrimage. What have you got to say to
+me?"
+
+"Your highness," said Lagardere, "I am, as you imagine, in the service of
+his highness the Prince de Gonzague, but I have been out of France for
+many years, and know little or nothing of the events which have taken
+place in my absence. I understand, however, that there is to be a family
+council held in the palace to-day, and that it is my master's earnest
+wish that you should be present at that council."
+
+The princess drew herself up and surveyed the hunchback coldly. "There
+is no need," she said, "for any such council nor any need for my
+presence. I have told your master so already, and do not see why I should
+be importuned to repeat my words."
+
+Lagardere bowed again, and made as if to retire. Then, as if suddenly
+recollecting something, he drew from his breast a small, sealed package.
+"As I was coming to the Hotel de Gonzague this morning," he said, "a man
+whom I do not know stopped me in the street and gave me this package,
+with the request that I should deliver it to your highness. I explained
+to the man that I was in the service of his highness the Prince de
+Gonzague, and had not the honor of being included among your highness's
+servants. But the man still pressed me to take charge of this packet,
+asking me to deliver it to the care of one of your highness's women, and
+I should have done so but that I thought upon reflection it might be
+better, if possible, to deliver it into your own hands."
+
+As he spoke he extended the package, which the princess received in
+silence and scrutinized carefully. It was addressed to her in a
+handwriting that was wholly unfamiliar, and carefully sealed with seals
+in black wax, that bore the impression of the word "Adsum." The princess
+looked keenly at the hunchback, who stood quietly before her with bent
+head in an attitude of respectful attention.
+
+"Do you know anything further respecting this package?" the princess
+asked.
+
+Lagardere shook his head. "I have told your highness," he said, "all I
+know of the matter. I never saw the man who gave it to me. I do not think
+I should know him again."
+
+The princess again examined the packet closely, and then, advancing to
+the table, seated herself for a moment and broke the seals. The contents
+of the packet seemed to startle her, for she suddenly turned to her
+waiting-woman and beckoned her to her side. Then, with a gesture, she
+motioned to Lagardere to stand farther apart. Lagardere withdrew to the
+remotest corner of the apartment, and seemed lost in contemplation of the
+portrait of Louis de Gonzague.
+
+The princess spoke to her companion in low, hurried tones. "Brigitte,"
+she said, "here is something strange." And she showed her a little book
+which she had taken from the packet. "This is the prayer-book which I
+gave to my husband at Caylus seventeen years ago, and see what is written
+in it." And she pointed to some words which were written on the blank
+page inside the cover in the same handwriting as that in which the packet
+was addressed. These words the princess read over to her companion:
+
+"'God will have pity if you have faith. Your child lives and shall be
+restored to you to-day. Distrust Gonzague more than ever. Remember the
+motto of Louis de Nevers. During the council sit near his picture, and at
+the right time, for you and for you alone, the dead shall speak.'" These
+words were signed, "Henri de Lagardere."
+
+The princess turned and beckoned to the hunch-back, who immediately
+approached her. "You are my husband's servant," she said. "Are you much
+in his confidence?"
+
+"Madame," Lagardere replied, "I am too new to Paris to consider myself in
+any sense the confidential servant of his highness, but I can assure you
+that I hope to serve him as he deserves to be served."
+
+The princess seemed thoughtful, then she asked again: "Did you ever hear
+of a man named Henri de Lagardere?"
+
+The hunchback appeared agitated. "Madame," he replied, "Henri de
+Lagardere is the enemy of my master, and he is my enemy. I have been
+seeking him unsuccessfully for many years, both in my master's interests
+and in my own."
+
+The princess rose. "Enough, sir," she said. "I will consider his
+highness's wishes. Come, Brigitte."
+
+Holding the packet in her hand and leaning on her companion's arm, she
+went towards the picture of Louis de Nevers and knelt for a moment in
+prayer. Then she rose and silently quitted the room, still leaning on
+Brigitte's arm.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+THE FAMILY COUNCIL
+
+
+Lagardere remained alone for a while in the room, pensively contemplating
+the portraits of the Three Louis. Then the sound of footsteps came to his
+ears, footsteps advancing from many directions, footsteps all making
+towards the great hall. He smiled as a man smiles who is prepared to
+encounter cheerfully great odds, and then, as if there were observing
+eyes upon him, though indeed no eyes beheld him save those that were
+painted in the canvases of the three friends, he slouched across the
+room, more markedly the hunchback than ever, till he came to the
+curtained door by the side of the picture of Louis de Nevers. He lifted
+the curtain, glanced round him for a moment at the empty room, and then
+dipped behind the curtain.
+
+The curtain fell, the room was empty, save for the painted presences of
+the Three Louis. But the room was not empty long. A few moments later
+Gonzague entered the room respectfully escorting his illustrious master
+and friend, Louis of France. At their heels followed a little crowd of
+notabilities, eminent lawyers, eminent ecclesiastics, all of whom had
+claim, by virtue of their kinship or by virtue of their authority on
+delicate, contested family matters, to a seat and a voice in the council
+that Louis of Gonzague had been pleased to summon. After these again came
+Gonzague's own little tail of partisans, Navailles and Noce, Taranne and
+Oriol, Choisy and Gironne, Albret and Montaubert, with Chavernay
+fluttering about them like an impudent butterfly, laughing at them,
+laughing at his august cousin, laughing at the king, laughing at
+himself--laughing at everything. To him such a family gathering as this
+which he attended was almost the most ridiculous thing imaginable on the
+face of the whole world, and therefore deserving of consideration, if not
+of serious consideration.
+
+The king took his place upon the kind of little throne which had been set
+apart for him. The rest of the company arranged themselves with
+instinctive sense of precedence upon the chairs that were ranged behind
+it. To Chavernay the whole thing looked like a pompous parody of a trial
+where there was nobody to be tried, and he made unceasing jokes to his
+neighbors, which compelled them to laugh. This earned for him a
+disapproving glance from the dark eyes of Gonzague, which had no effect
+whatever in depressing his spirits.
+
+When all the guests were duly seated, Gonzague gravely rose, and, turning
+towards the king, saluted him respectfully. "I thank your majesty," he
+said, "for honoring us on this occasion, when matters of great moment to
+me and to the lady whom I am proud to call my wife, and to the great
+family with which I am associated at once by ties of blood and alliance,
+are in question. Your majesty will readily understand that nothing but
+the gravest sense of duty could have urged me to bring together so
+learned, so just, so brilliant an assembly of men to deal with delicate
+matters which have perhaps been too long left undealt with. Such
+differences of opinion as may perhaps be admitted to exist between madame
+the Princess de Gonzague and myself, however trivial in the beginning,
+have in a sense grown with the passing of time into an importance which
+calls imperatively for some manner or form of adjustment."
+
+He paused in his speech, as if to control his emotions and to collect his
+thoughts. The king leaned forward and addressed him. "Does any one," he
+asked, "appear here for madame the Princess de Gonzague?"
+
+Gonzague looked about him with a melancholy glance. "I had hoped, sire,"
+he said, "that madame the princess would have chosen some one to
+represent her." But even as he spoke he paused, for the door that led to
+the princess's apartment was thrown open, and the Princess de Gonzague
+appeared, clad in black as usual, and as usual leaning upon the arm of
+her faithful Brigitte.
+
+As the princess entered the room, every one rose, and all eyes were fixed
+upon the stately figure and melancholy features of the still beautiful,
+if prematurely aged, widow of Nevers. The princess made a deep
+inclination to the king, and then spoke: "Your majesty, I need no one to
+represent me. I am here."
+
+Gonzague allowed his features to betray the satisfaction he felt at the
+presence of his consort. He hastened to advance to her as she seated
+herself close to the curtained alcove, saying as he did so: "Madame, you
+are indeed welcome." And there was a sincerity in his tone not always
+characteristic of his utterances.
+
+The king bowed in his courtliest manner to the unhappy lady, and
+addressed her: "Princess, you know why we are assembled here?"
+
+Slowly the princess inclined her head. "I do," she said, and said no
+more, but sat looking fixedly before her, the image of a patience that
+shielded a strong purpose and a resignation that was now kindled by a new
+hope.
+
+The king turned to his friend and host: "Prince de Gonzague, we await
+your pleasure."
+
+Louis de Gonzague rose to his feet and surveyed his assembled guests with
+a grave countenance that seemed to suggest boldness without effrontery
+and a grief nobly borne. All present admired his beauty, his dignity, the
+proud humility of his carriage towards the great lady who was in name his
+wife. Many sympathized with him in what they knew to be his strange
+position, and felt that the princess was indeed to blame in refusing
+friendship and sympathy to such a man.
+
+Gonzague bowed respectfully to the king, and his eyes travelled over the
+whole range of his audience as he spoke. "Sire," he said, "I have to
+speak to-day of the sorrow that has haunted me, as it has haunted your
+majesty, for seventeen years. Louis de Lorraine, Duke de Nevers, was my
+cousin by blood, my brother by affection. His memory lives here, eternal
+as is the grief of his widow, who has not disdained to wear my name after
+wearing his."
+
+He paused for a moment, and in that pause the princess spoke in a voice
+that was shaken with emotion, in spite of her determination to be firm:
+"Do not speak of that. I have passed those seventeen years in solitude
+and in tears."
+
+Gonzague paid to her and her sorrow the homage of a bow; then he resumed:
+"When madame the princess did me the honor to accept my name, she made
+public her secret but legitimate marriage with the late Duke de Nevers
+and the birth of a daughter of that union. This child disappeared on the
+night of Nevers's death. The registration of its birth is torn out of the
+chapel register and lost. For seventeen years the princess has patiently
+sought for her lost child, and has sought in vain."
+
+The princess sighed: "Alas!" Gonzague paused for a moment as if to allow
+the princess to say more, and then, seeing she kept silent, he continued:
+"Calumniators have hinted that it was my wish that the child should not
+be found. Have they not, madame?"
+
+"Such things have been said," the princess replied, gravely.
+
+Again Gonzague spoke: "There were even those who hinted that my hand
+might strike at a child's life. Is not that so?"
+
+Again the princess repeated her former phrase: "Such things have been
+said."
+
+Now Gonzague questioned her directly: "And you believed the accusation?"
+
+The princess inclined her head: "I believed it."
+
+At this reply a murmur not to be repressed ran through the assembly.
+Those that sympathized with Gonzague before now sympathized more deeply
+on hearing such an answer come so coldly from his wife's lips. Gonzague
+allowed himself the luxury of a little, patient sigh, the privileged
+protest of the good and just under an intolerable suspicion.
+
+"I am not surprised. The princess does not know me. For seventeen years
+the princess and I have been strangers. Now, for the first time, I can
+show myself to my wife as I am." He addressed himself directly to the
+princess: "Through all these seventeen years I, too, have been seeking
+what you sought; but, more fortunate than you, I have succeeded where you
+have failed."
+
+He turned to Peyrolles, who was standing close to his master's side, and
+commanded: "Bring in Mademoiselle Gabrielle de Nevers."
+
+In a moment Peyrolles had vanished from the room, leaving every man in
+the assembly impressed and startled by Gonzague's statement. The king
+looked from Gonzague, whose face he had been studying while he spoke with
+admiration and approval, and fixed his keen gaze upon the princess. She
+alone, of all those in the room, seemed unmoved by the momentous tidings
+that her husband had communicated. The younger men whispered among
+themselves, the elders kept silence, but it was plain that their
+curiosity was very great.
+
+In a few moments Peyrolles returned to the room escorting Flora, now very
+beautifully attired in a dress of simple richness.
+
+Chavernay could not restrain his surprise as she entered. "The little
+dancing-girl," he whispered to his right-hand neighbor, Choisy, but he
+said no more. Even his airy nature was impressed by the stillness of the
+company and the gravity of the situation.
+
+Gonzague took the hand of Flora and conducted her across the room to the
+princess. "Madame," he said, "I restore your child."
+
+The princess looked fixedly at the girl, her thin hands clasping the arms
+of her chair convulsively, and it could be seen that she was trembling
+from head to foot. She was waiting for a voice, she was wondering if she
+would hear a voice, and as she waited and wondered she heard a voice from
+behind the curtain near where she sat apart, a voice which reached her
+ears, a voice with a mysterious message--"I am here."
+
+The princess clasped her hand to her heart. "Ah!" she murmured, "will
+the dead speak? Is this my child?" And again the voice spoke and
+answered: "No."
+
+By this time Gonzague and the girl had reached the princess, who now rose
+to her feet and confronted the pair as she spoke. "My child should have
+with her a packet containing the page torn away from the register of the
+chapel of Caylus, torn away with my own hands." She turned to Flora and
+questioned her: "Have you that packet?"
+
+Flora dropped on her knees and stretched out her hands with a pretty,
+pathetic air of supplication. "Madame, I have nothing. Ah, madame, the
+poor little gypsy girl asks of you neither wealth nor station; she only
+entreats you to love her as she loves you."
+
+The princess prayed silently: "Oh, Heaven help me! Heaven inspire me!"
+
+Gonzague was startled by this sudden hostility to his scheme, but spoke
+with respectful earnestness: "Madame," he said, slowly, "we have
+depositions, sworn to and duly attested in Madrid, that this girl, then a
+year-old child, was given to a band of gypsies by a man whose description
+coincides exactly with that of one of the men believed to have been
+concerned in the attack upon Louis de Nevers in the moat of Caylus. We
+have their statements that in their hearing the man called the child
+Gabrielle, that he said to the head gypsy that she was of noble birth,
+and that he gave her up to them because he wished the child to suffer
+for the hate he bore her father. All this and more than this we can
+prove. For my part, I say that in this girl's lineaments I seem to see
+again the features of my dear dead friend. Madame, to reject the child
+whom we believe to be the daughter of Nevers, you must have reasons grave
+indeed--the strongest proofs. Have you such reasons, such proofs?"
+
+From behind the curtain a voice travelled to the princess's ears,
+murmuring, "Yes," and the princess repeated, "Yes," confidently.
+
+Gonzague drew himself up with a look of pain and sorrow. "I understand,
+madame. Some impostor, speculating upon your sorrow, has told you that he
+has found your child."
+
+Chavernay whispered behind his hand to Navailles: "Our cousin is losing
+his temper."
+
+As the princess kept silent, Gonzague pressed his question: "Is that not
+so, madame? Speak! Is this not so? Some one has told you that she is
+alive?"
+
+The princess heard the voice behind the curtain whisper: "She lives."
+Looking steadily at Gonzague, she said: "She lives, in spite of you, by
+the grace of God."
+
+The agitation of the audience was very great. The king directly addressed
+the princess: "Can you produce her?"
+
+Again the voice whispered to the Princess, "Yes," and again the Princess
+repeated, "Yes," as confidently as before.
+
+"When?" asked the king, to whom Gonzague had at once yielded the
+privilege of question.
+
+The voice whispered, "To-night," and the princess repeated the words.
+
+The voice whispered again, "At the ball in the Palais Royal," and again
+the Princess echoed it, "At the ball in the Palais Royal."
+
+The king had no more to say; he was silent. Gonzague groaned aloud as he
+turned to Flora. "My poor child, only God can give you back the heart of
+your mother."
+
+The girl, with the quick impulsiveness of her race, again flung herself
+on her knees before the princess, while she cried: "Madame, whether you
+are my mother or not, I respect you, I love you!"
+
+The princess laid her hand gently on the girl's dark hair. "My child, my
+child, I believe you are no accomplice of this crime. I wish you well."
+
+Flora was now sobbing bitterly, and seemed unable to rise. Peyrolles
+hastened to her side, hastened to lift her to her feet, and hurriedly
+conducted the weeping girl from the room. The princess, holding her head
+high, turned and addressed the king: "Your majesty, my mourning ends
+to-day. I have recovered my daughter. I shall be your guest to-night,
+sire."
+
+The king bowed profoundly. "Believe that we shall be most proud to
+welcome you."
+
+The princess made him a reverence and turned to leave the room. The king
+quitted his chair, hastened to her side, and gave her his arm to the
+door. When she had departed, Louis of France hastened to Gonzague where
+he stood alone, the centre of wondering eyes. "What is the meaning of
+this double discovery?" he asked.
+
+Gonzague shook his head with the air of one who is faced by a shameful
+conspiracy, but who is not afraid to face it. "I have found Nevers's
+child. Who the impostor is I do not know, but I shall know--and then--"
+
+He paused, but his menacing silence was more impressive than any speech.
+The king wrung his friend's hand warmly. "I hope you may. Till to-night,
+gentlemen."
+
+All were standing now. The king embraced the company in a general
+salutation and went out, followed by his friends. The lawyers, the
+ecclesiastics took their leave. Only the friends of Gonzague remained in
+the room, and they stood apart, eying their master dubiously, uncertain
+whether he would wish them to go or to stay. Chavernay took it upon
+himself, with his usual lightness of heart, to play their spokesman. He
+advanced to Gonzague and addressed him.
+
+"Can we condole with you on this game of cross-purposes?"
+
+Gonzague turned to Chavernay, and his countenance was calm, bold, almost
+smiling. "No. I shall win the game. We shall meet to-night. Perhaps I
+shall need your swords."
+
+"Now, as ever, at your service," Navailles protested, and the rest
+murmured their agreement with the speaker. Then Gonzague's partisans
+slowly filed out of the room, Chavernay, as usual, smiling, the others
+unusually grave. Gonzague turned to Peyrolles, who had returned from his
+task of convoying Flora to her apartments. "Who has done all this?" he
+asked.
+
+He thought he was alone with his henchman, but he was mistaken. AEsop had
+quietly entered the room, and was standing at his side. AEsop answered the
+question addressed to Peyrolles. "I can tell you. The man you can neither
+find nor bind."
+
+Gonzague started. "Lagardere?"
+
+AEsop nodded. "Lagardere, whom I will give into your hands if you wish."
+
+Gonzague caught at his promise eagerly. "When?" he asked.
+
+"To-night, at the king's ball," AEsop answered.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+THE KING'S BALL
+
+
+The gardens of the Palais Royal made a delightful place for such an
+entertainment as the king's ball. In its contrasts of light and shadow,
+in its sombre alleys starred with colored lights, in its blend of courtly
+pomp and sylvan simplicity, it seemed the fairy-like creation of some
+splendid dream. Against the vivid greenness of the trees, intensified by
+the brightness of the blazing lamps, the whiteness of the statues
+asserted itself with fantastic emphasis. Everywhere innumerable flowers
+of every hue and every odor sweetened the air and pleased the eye, and
+through the blooming spaces, seemingly as innumerable as the blossoms and
+seemingly as brilliant, moved the gay, many-colored crowd of the king's
+guests. The gardens were large, the gardens were spacious, but the king's
+guests were many, and seemed to leave no foot of room unoccupied. Hither
+and thither they drifted, swayed, eddied, laughing, chattering,
+intriguing, whispering, admiring, wondering, playing all the tricks,
+repeating all the antics that are the time-honored attributes and
+privileges of a masquerade. Here trained dancers executed some elaborate
+measure for the entertainment of those that cared to pause in their
+wandering and behold them; there mysterious individuals, in flowing
+draperies, professed to read the stars and tell the fortunes of those
+that chose to spare some moments from frivolity for such mystic
+consultations.
+
+In the handsomest part of the garden, hard by the Pond and Fountain of
+Diana, a magnificent tent had been pitched, which was reserved for the
+accommodation of the king himself and for such special friends as he
+might choose to invite to share his privacy. Around this tent a stream of
+mirth-makers flowed at a respectful distance, envying--for envy is
+present even at a masquerade--those most highly favored where all were
+highly favored in being admitted into the sovereign's intimacy.
+
+At the door of this tent, Monsieur Breant, who had been one of the
+cardinal's principal servants, and who still remained the head custodian
+of the palace, was standing surveying the scene with a curiosity dulled
+by long familiarity. He was unaware that a sombrely clad hunchback, quite
+an incongruous figure in the merry crowd, was making for him, until the
+hunchback, coming along beside him, touched him on the arm and called him
+by name: "Monsieur Breant!"
+
+Breant turned and gazed at the hunchback with some surprise. "Who are
+you?" he asked.
+
+The hunchback laughed as he answered: "Don't you know me? Why, man, I am
+AEsop the Second. My illustrious ancestor laughed at all the world, and
+so do I. He loved the Greek girl Rhodopis, who built herself a pyramid. I
+am wiser than he, for I love only myself."
+
+Breant shrugged his shoulders and made to turn upon his heel. "I have no
+time for fooling."
+
+AEsop detained him. "Don't leave me; I am good company."
+
+Breant did not seem to be tempted by the offer. "That may be, but I must
+attend on his majesty."
+
+AEsop still restrained him. "You can do me a favor."
+
+Breant eyed the impertinent hunchback with disfavor. "Why should I do you
+a favor, AEsop the Second?"
+
+The hunchback explained, gayly: "In the first place, because I am the
+guest of his Majesty the King. In the second place, because I am the
+confidential devil of his Highness the Prince de Gonzague. But my third
+reason is perhaps better."
+
+As he spoke he took a well-filled purse from his pocket and tossed it
+lightly from one hand to the other, looking at Breant with a sneering
+smile. Breant would have been no true servant of the time if he had not
+liked money for the sake of the pleasure that money could give; Breant
+would have been no true servant of the time if he had not been always in
+want of money. He eyed the purse approvingly, and his manner was more
+amiable.
+
+"What do you want?" he asked.
+
+AEsop made his wishes clear. "There is a little lodge yonder in the
+darkness at the end of that alley, hard by the small gate that is seldom
+used. You know the gate, for you sometimes used to wait in that little
+lodge when a late exalted personage chose to walk abroad incognito."
+
+Breant frowned at him. "You know much, Master AEsop."
+
+AEsop shrugged his shoulders. "I am a wizard. But it needs no wizard to
+guess that, as the exalted personage is no longer with us, he will not
+walk abroad to-night, and you will not have to yawn and doze in the lodge
+till he return."
+
+"What then?" asked Breant.
+
+AEsop lowered his voice to a whisper. "Let me have the key of the little
+lodge for to-night."
+
+Breant lifted his hands in protest. "Impossible!" he said.
+
+AEsop shook his head. "I hate that word, Monsieur Breant. 'Tis a vile
+word. Come now, twenty louis and the key of the lodge for an hour after
+midnight."
+
+Breant looked at the purse and looked at the hunchback. "Why do you want
+it?" he asked.
+
+AEsop laughed mockingly. "Vanity. I wish to walk this ball like a
+gentleman. I have fine clothes; they lie now in a bundle on the lodge
+step. If I had the key I could slip inside and change and change again
+and enjoy myself, and no one the worse or the wiser."
+
+The purse seemed to grow larger to Breant's eyes, and his objections to
+dwindle proportionately. "A queer whim, crookback," he said.
+
+AEsop amended the phrase: "A harmless whim, and twenty louis would please
+the pocket."
+
+Breant slipped his hand into a side-pocket, and, producing a little key,
+he handed it to AEsop. "There's the key, but I must have it back before
+morning."
+
+AEsop took the key, and the purse changed owners. "You shall," he
+promised. "Good. Now I shall make myself beautiful."
+
+Breant looked at him good-humoredly. "Good sport, AEsop the Second." He
+turned and disappeared into the tent.
+
+AEsop, looking at the key with satisfaction, murmured to himself: "The
+best."
+
+As he moved slowly away from the king's tent a little crowd of Gonzague's
+friends--Chavernay, Oriol, Navailles, Noce, Gironne, Choisy, Albret, and
+Montaubert--all laughing and talking loudly, crossed his path and
+perceived the hunchback, who seemed to them, naturally enough, a somewhat
+singular figure in such a scene. "Good Heavens! What is this?" cried
+Navailles.
+
+Noce chuckled: "A hunchback brings luck. May I slap you on the back,
+little lord?"
+
+AEsop answered him, coolly: "Yes, Monsieur de Noce, if I may slap you in
+the face."
+
+Noce took offence instantly. "Now, by Heaven, crookback!" he cried, and
+made a threatening gesture against AEsop, who eyed him insolently with a
+mocking smile.
+
+Chavernay interposed. "Nonsense!" he cried. "Nonsense, Noce, you began
+the jest." Then he added, in a lower voice: "You can't pick a quarrel
+with the poor devil."
+
+The hunchback paid him an extravagant salutation. "Monsieur de Chavernay,
+you are always chivalrous. You really ought to die young, for it will
+take so much trouble to turn you into a rogue."
+
+Fat Oriol, staring in amazement at the controversy, questioned: "What
+does the fellow mean?"
+
+Chavernay burst into a fit of laughing, and patted Oriol on the back.
+"I'm afraid he means that you are a rogue, Oriol."
+
+While the angry gentlemen stood together, with the hunchback apart eying
+them derisively, and Chavernay standing between the belligerents as
+peace-maker, Taranne hurriedly joined the group. He was evidently choking
+with news and eager to distribute it.
+
+"Friends, friends," he cried, "there is something extraordinary going on
+here to-night!"
+
+"What is it?" asked Chavernay.
+
+Taranne answered him, with a voice as grave as an oracle: "All the
+sentinels are doubled, and there are two companies of soldiers in the
+great court."
+
+Navailles protested: "You are joking!"
+
+Taranne was not to be put down. "Never more serious. Every one who
+enters is scrutinized most carefully."
+
+"That is easy to explain," said Chavernay; "it is just to make sure that
+they really are invited."
+
+Taranne declined to admit this interpretation of his mystery: "Not so,
+for nobody is allowed on any pretext to leave the gardens."
+
+Oriol flushed with a sudden wave of intelligence: "Perhaps some plot
+against his majesty."
+
+"Heaven knows," Navailles commented.
+
+AEsop interrupted the discussion with a dry laugh, dimly suggestive of the
+cackle of a jackdaw. "I know, gentlemen."
+
+Oriol stared at him. "You know?"
+
+Noce gave vent to an angry laugh. "The hunchback knows."
+
+While this conversation was going on a group of middle-aged gentlemen had
+been moving down the avenue that led to the Pond of Diana. These were the
+Baron de la Hunaudaye, Monsieur de Marillac, Monsieur de Barbanchois,
+Monsieur de la Ferte, and Monsieur de Vauguyon. They had been taking a
+peaceful interest in the spectacle afforded them, had been comparing it
+with similar festivities that they recalled in the days of their youth,
+and had been enjoying themselves tranquilly enough. Perceiving a group of
+young men apparently engaged in animated discussion, the elders quickened
+their pace a little to join the party and learn the cause of its
+animation.
+
+When they arrived AEsop was speaking. "Something extraordinary is going
+on here to-night, Monsieur de Navailles. The king is preoccupied. The
+guard is doubled, but no one knows why, not even these gentlemen. But I
+know, AEsop the Wise."
+
+"What do you know?" asked Navailles.
+
+AEsop looked at him mockingly. "You would never guess it if you guessed
+for a thousand years. It has nothing to do with plots or politics, with
+foreign intrigues or domestic difficulties--"
+
+Oriol thirsted for information. "What is it for, then?"
+
+AEsop answered, gravely, with an amazing question: "Gentlemen, do you
+believe in ghosts?" And the gravity of his voice and the strangeness of
+his question forced his hearers, surprised and uneasy, in spite of
+themselves, to laugh disdainfully.
+
+AEsop accepted their laughter composedly. "Of course not. No one believes
+in ghosts at noonday, on the crowded street, though perhaps some do at
+midnight when the world is over-still. But here, to-night, in all this
+glitter and crowd and noise and color, the king is perturbed and the
+guards are doubled because of a ghost--the ghost of a man who has been
+dead these seventeen years."
+
+The Baron de la Hunaudaye, bluff old soldier of the brave days of the
+dawning reign, was interested in the hunchback's words. "Of whom do you
+speak?" he asked.
+
+AEsop turned to the new-comers, and addressed them more respectfully than
+he had been addressing the partisans of Gonzague: "I speak of a gallant
+gentleman--young, brave, beautiful, well-beloved. I speak to men who knew
+him. To you, Monsieur de la Hunaudaye, who would now be lying under
+Flemish earth if his sword had not slain your assailant; to you, Monsieur
+de Marillac, whose daughter took the veil for love of him; to you,
+Monsieur de Barbanchois, who fortified against him the dwelling of your
+lady love; to you, Monsieur de la Ferte, who lost to him one evening your
+Castle of Senneterre; to you, Monsieur de Vauguyon, whose shoulder should
+still remember the stroke of his sword."
+
+As AEsop spoke, he addressed in turn each of the elder men, and as he
+spoke recognition of his meaning showed itself in the face of each man
+whom he addressed.
+
+Hunaudaye nodded. "Louis de Nevers," he said, solemnly.
+
+Instantly AEsop uncovered. "Yes, Louis de Nevers, who was assassinated
+under the walls of the Castle of Caylus twenty years ago."
+
+Chavernay came over to AEsop. "My father was a friend of Louis de
+Nevers."
+
+AEsop looked from the group of old men to the group of young men. "It is
+the ghost of Nevers that troubles us to-night. There were three Louis in
+those days, brothers in arms. Louis of France did all he could to find
+the assassin of Nevers. In vain. Louis de Gonzague did all he could to
+find the assassin of Nevers. In vain. Well, gentlemen, would you believe
+it, to-night Louis of France and Louis de Gonzague will be told the name
+of the assassin of Nevers?"
+
+"And the name?" asked Chavernay.
+
+Choisy plucked him impatiently by the sleeve. "Don't you see that the
+humpbacked fool is making game of us?"
+
+AEsop shrugged his shoulders. "As you please, sirs, as you please; but
+that is why the guards are doubled."
+
+He turned on his heel, and walked leisurely away from the two groups of
+gentlemen. The elders, having little in common with Gonzague's friends,
+followed his example, and drifted off together, talking to one another in
+a low voice of the gallant gentleman whose name had suddenly been
+recalled to their memories at that moment. Gonzague's gang stared at one
+another, feeling vaguely discomfited.
+
+"The man is mad," said Gironne.
+
+"There seems a method in his madness," said Chavernay, dryly.
+
+Albret interrupted them. "Here comes his majesty."
+
+"And, as I live, with the Princess de Gonzague!" Montaubert cried,
+amazed.
+
+Oriol elevated his fat palms. "Wonders will never cease!"
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+THE ROSE-COLORED DOMINO
+
+
+All the party bowed respectfully as the king came slowly down the great
+walk, giving his arm to the Princess de Gonzague. Then, anxious to avoid
+any appearance of intruding upon the privacy of the monarch, they drifted
+off in search of fresh amusement.
+
+Louis addressed the princess, indicating the gayety around him with a
+wave of his arm. "After so long an absence from the world, all this folly
+must worry you a little."
+
+The princess looked at him sadly. "The world and I have little more to
+say to each other. I come here to-night to meet one who has promised to
+tell me of my husband, of my child."
+
+"Lagardere?" said the king, gravely.
+
+And as gravely the princess answered: "Lagardere."
+
+"At midnight?" asked the king.
+
+"Yes," said the princess.
+
+The king looked at his watch. It was half-past eleven. "Will you rest in
+my pavilion, princess, until the time comes?"
+
+Louis conducted the princess into the tent, where he was followed by his
+escort. As they did so, Gonzague, coming slowly down the avenue, watched
+them thoughtfully. It was strange, indeed, to see his wife in such a
+place and in such company. It was strange to feel that her passive
+hostility through all these years was now turned suddenly into action.
+
+"Bah!" he said to himself; "it is my word against that of an adventurer
+who has hidden for twenty years."
+
+Peyrolles, pushing his way through the crowd and peering to right and
+left, caught sight of his master and hurriedly joined him. "Well," said
+Gonzague, "have you found the girl?"
+
+Peyrolles made a gesture of despair. "We have searched Paris without
+success. Not a sign of her, nor of him."
+
+Gonzague frowned. "She must be here. If she be the real child, the
+princess may recognize her."
+
+"And all is lost," said Peyrolles, with a groan.
+
+Gonzague almost smiled. "No. We will charge Lagardere with having
+assassinated the father and stolen the child for his own ends. He shall
+be hanged out of hand. Dona Flora will seem the commendable error of my
+over-zealous heart, and as for the new princess--well, even princesses
+are mortal."
+
+Peyrolles had always admired his master, but never perhaps so much as
+now. "Your Excellency is a man of genius," he said, enthusiastically.
+
+Gonzague smiled. "Forethought, my good Peyrolles--only forethought. But
+it would save trouble if the girl were out of the way."
+
+Peyrolles bowed. "I will do my best, monseigneur."
+
+"Good," said Gonzague. "I must wait upon his majesty. And upon the
+princess," he added.
+
+Gonzague, whose intimacy with the king always made him the first to be
+bidden to any special festivity, entered the tent unchallenged, and was
+warmly welcomed by Louis. Peyrolles remained outside, walking up and
+down, immersed in distasteful reflections. He had failed to find the
+girl; he had failed to get on the traces of Lagardere; he had seen
+nothing of AEsop. The ball, so pleasant to everybody else, seemed to him
+full of menace, and he eyed with some disapproval the jolly, noisy folk
+that thronged the alleys and shook the night with laughter. Swollen with
+sour humors, he leaned against a tree, cursing in his heart the folly of
+those swordsmen who had failed to get rid of a cursed enemy. Enveloped,
+as it were, in bitterness, he failed to notice a not unnoticeable group
+that detached itself from the crowd beyond and came slowly down the alley
+towards the Fountain of Diana. The group was composed of a woman in a
+rose-colored domino and mask, accompanied by two tall, masculine figures
+muffled from head to heels in black dominos, and their features
+completely hidden by bearded black masks. The pink domino and the twin
+black dominos seemed to be seeking their way.
+
+"This," said the bigger of the black dominos, and his voice was the
+voice of Cocardasse--"this must be the Fountain of Diana."
+
+The second of the black dominos pointed to the statue shining in the
+many-tinted water, and spoke with the voice of Passepoil: "There's some
+such poor heathen body."
+
+The woman in the rose-pink domino turned to Cocardasse and asked: "Is
+Henri here?" And her voice was the voice of Gabrielle.
+
+"I don't see him yet, mademoiselle," Cocardasse answered.
+
+Gabrielle sighed. "I wish he were come. All this noise and glitter
+bewilder me." And the trio proceeded slowly to make the tour of the
+fountain.
+
+But if Peyrolles, propped against his tree, was too preoccupied to notice
+the not unnoticeable group, light-hearted Chavernay was more alert.
+Drifting, as every one drifted that night, again and again, towards the
+Fountain of Diana as the centre of festivity, he turned to Navailles and
+pointed to Gabrielle. "Who is that mask in the rose-colored domino? She
+seems to seek some one."
+
+Navailles laughed. "She goes about with two giants like some princess in
+a fairy tale."
+
+Noce was prepared with an explanation. "It is Mademoiselle de Clermont,
+who is looking for me."
+
+Taranne pooh-poohed him. "Nonsense. It is Madame de Tessy, who is looking
+for me."
+
+"It might be Mademoiselle Nivelle, looking for me," Oriol suggested,
+fatuously.
+
+Choisy, Gironne, Albret, Montaubert--each in turn offered a possible name
+for the unknown.
+
+Chavernay would have none of their suggestions. "No, no. That is not any
+one we know. She is neither court lady nor a play actress; she is some
+goddess in disguise, and I am going to reveal divinity."
+
+Then he tripped daintily forward and intercepted Gabrielle and her
+companions as they accomplished their first tour of the pond. "Fair
+lady," said Chavernay, with a graceful bow, "are you looking for some
+one?"
+
+The large arm of Cocardasse was interposed between Chavernay and
+Gabrielle, and the large voice of Cocardasse counselled Chavernay: "Stand
+aside, little man."
+
+Quite indifferent to the counsels of the mighty mask, Chavernay
+persisted: "Fair lady, dismiss this monster and accept my arm."
+
+This time it was Passepoil's turn to intervene. "Out of the way!" he
+commanded, and gave Chavernay a little push.
+
+Instantly Chavernay's hot blood was in a flame, and he clapped his hand
+to his sword. "How dare you, fellow--" he began.
+
+But now Gabrielle, greatly alarmed at the prospect of a brawl in such a
+place, and perfectly recognizing the marquis, removed her mask from her
+face for a moment while she spoke: "Monsieur de Chavernay, you will let
+me pass."
+
+It was only for a moment, but it was long enough to give Chavernay time
+to recognize her, and he fell back with a respectful salutation. It was
+long enough, also, for Peyrolles, leaning against his tree and at last
+roused from saddened thoughts to contemplation of the outer world, to get
+a glimpse of the girl's face and to recognize its extraordinary
+resemblance to the dead duke. He gave a start of surprise. Was fortune
+playing into his hands, after all?
+
+Chavernay bowed. "Your pardon, lady; your path is free," he said, and
+stood aside while Gabrielle moved slowly forward with her escort on a
+second tour of the fountain. Navailles and the others had seen, indeed,
+the lady unmask, but were not near enough to descry her features.
+
+"Well," said Navailles, eagerly, to Chavernay--"well, who was the lady?"
+
+Chavernay answered, coolly: "I do not know."
+
+At this moment the lean form and yellow face of Monsieur de Peyrolles
+intruded itself into the group of Gonzague's friends.
+
+"Monsieur de Chavernay," he said, "my illustrious master is looking for
+you. He is with his majesty."
+
+"I will join him," Chavernay answered, readily. He was, like his kinsman,
+a privileged person with the sovereign, and he, too, was permitted to
+enter the tent unchallenged. He entered it with a graver demeanor than he
+had worn that evening, for he was strangely perplexed by the presence at
+the king's ball this night of the girl whom he had seen at the country
+Inn. As soon as Chavernay had disappeared, Peyrolles, hurriedly
+beckoning, gathered about him Navailles, Noce, and the others, and
+addressed them in an eager whisper:
+
+"Gentlemen, you are all devoted to the interests of the Prince de
+Gonzague?"
+
+Noce spoke for himself and his comrades: "We are."
+
+Peyrolles went on: "Then, as you value his friendship, secure the person
+of that girl whom Monsieur de Chavernay spoke to just now."
+
+"Why?" Navailles questioned.
+
+Peyrolles answered him, sharply: "Don't ask; act. To please our master it
+should be done at once."
+
+"How is it to be done?" asked Taranne.
+
+Peyrolles looked about him. "Is there no other woman here who wears a
+rose-colored domino?"
+
+Navailles pointed to a group in an adjacent arbor. "Cidalise, yonder, is
+wearing a rose-colored domino. She will do anything for me."
+
+"Bring her," Peyrolles said, in a tone of command which he sometimes
+assumed when he was on his master's business, and which no one of his
+master's friends ever took it upon himself to resent. Navailles went
+towards the arbor and came back with Cidalise upon his arm. Cidalise was
+a pretty, young actress, wearing just such a pink domino as that worn by
+Gabrielle.
+
+Navailles formally presented her to Peyrolles. "Monsieur Peyrolles, this
+is the divine Cidalise. What do you want of her?"
+
+Peyrolles unceremoniously took the actress by the wrist, and pointed to
+where Gabrielle and her escort were wandering.
+
+"You see that girl in rose-color, escorted by two giants? Your friends
+will gather about them and begin to hustle the giants. In the confusion
+you will slip between the pair, who will then be left to march off,
+believing that you are their charge, who will, however, be in the care of
+these gentlemen. Do you understand?"
+
+Cidalise nodded. "Perfectly. And if I do this?"
+
+"You may rely upon the generosity of the Prince of Gonzague," Peyrolles
+answered. If he said little, he looked much, and Cidalise understood him
+as she accepted.
+
+"It will be rare sport. Come, gentlemen."
+
+By this time Gabrielle and her companions, having completed their second
+circumnavigation of the pond, were going slowly across the open space
+again. The crowd was very great about them, the noise and laughter made
+everything confused. Gonzague's friends took advantage of the crowd and
+the confusion. They huddled around Gabrielle and her escort, laughing and
+chattering volubly. They hustled Cocardasse, they hustled Passepoil,
+treading on their toes and tweaking their elbows, much to the indignation
+of the Gascon and the Norman, each of whom tried angrily and unavailingly
+to get hold of one of his nimble tormentors. In the jostling and
+confusion, Cidalise slipped neatly between the two bravos, suddenly
+abandoned by their plaguers; while Gabrielle, surrounded by the dexterous
+gentlemen, was, against her will but very steadily, edged towards a side
+alley. Cocardasse and Passepoil, drawing deep breaths such as Io may have
+drawn when freed from her gadfly, looked down and saw, as they believed,
+Gabrielle standing between them. The seeming Gabrielle moved on, on a
+third journey round the Pond of Diana, and her escort accompanied her,
+confident that all was well.
+
+In the mean time, Gabrielle was appealing to the gentlemen who surrounded
+her. "Gentlemen, stand aside!" she said, in a tone partly of entreaty,
+partly of command.
+
+At that moment Peyrolles came to her side and saluted her respectfully.
+"Do not be alarmed. We come from him."
+
+Gabrielle stared in amazement at the unfamiliar face.
+
+Peyrolles bent to her ear and whispered: "From Lagardere."
+
+Gabrielle gave a cry. "Ah! Where is he?"
+
+Peyrolles pointed to the far end of the alley in which they were
+standing. It was a dimmer alley than the others, for, in obedience to a
+suggestion of Peyrolles, Oriol had been busily engaged in putting out the
+lights. "At the end of this alley. He is waiting for you."
+
+He offered her his arm as he spoke, and Gabrielle, believing indeed that
+Lagardere had sent for her, accepted his guidance down the alley, and so
+she disappeared from the noise and mirth and light and color of the
+royal ball.
+
+As the domino in pink and the dominos in black completed their third turn
+round the Fountain of Diana, the domino in pink plucked off her mask,
+and, looking up at her accompanying giants, showed to them, amazed, the
+pretty, impudent, unfamiliar face of Cidalise. "May I ask, gentlemen, why
+you follow me?" she said, merrily.
+
+At the sight of her face, at the sound of her voice, at her question,
+Cocardasse and Passepoil reeled as if they had been struck. Cidalise went
+on: "I have many friends here, and no need for your company." Then she
+laughed and ran away out of sight in a moment in the shifting crowd,
+leaving Cocardasse and Passepoil staring at each other in staggered
+amazement.
+
+"The devil!" said Cocardasse.
+
+"That's what I'm thinking," said Passepoil.
+
+Cocardasse groaned. "What will Lagardere say?"
+
+"Well, we did our best," Passepoil sighed.
+
+Cocardasse groaned again. "What's the good, if we didn't do what he
+wanted?"
+
+"Where shall we find him?" asked Passepoil.
+
+Cocardasse consulted the watch which he owed to the bounty of the Prince
+de Gonzague. "He will be here at midnight. It is nearly that now. Come,
+man, come." And the baffled, bewildered, angry pair plunged despairingly
+into the thickness of the crowd about them, hoping against hope to find
+their lost charge for the moment when Lagardere was to make his
+appearance.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+THE GLOVE OF COCARDASSE
+
+
+For a little longer the noise and revelry continued, until the moment
+came when the king's hospitality, offering supper to his wearied guests,
+emptied the gardens of many of their frequenters. Inside his tent the
+sovereign was supping with his friends. By his side sat the Princess de
+Gonzague, who neither ate nor drank, but waited with an aching heart for
+midnight. At a quarter to twelve Bonnivet entered the tent and advanced
+towards the king.
+
+"Sire," he said, "there is a gentleman here who insists on immediate
+speech with you. He says you have appointed this time and place to meet
+him."
+
+Louis turned to the Princess de Gonzague, whose pale face had suddenly
+flushed. "It is he," he said; and then turned to Bonnivet. "Introduce the
+gentleman."
+
+Bonnivet went to the entrance of the tent, and a moment later Lagardere
+entered. He was wearing his old white coat of the Royal Light-Horse, and
+he advanced composedly, with head erect, towards the king.
+
+"I am here," he said, as he saluted the duke, and all present gazed on
+him with curiosity. Only three knew who he was or why he was there.
+
+Gonzague muttered to himself: "Now for the death-struggle."
+
+The king looked at his visitor. "Who are you?" he asked.
+
+And Lagardere answered: "I am Henri de Lagardere."
+
+At that moment Peyrolles, privileged as his master's henchman, entered
+the tent and made his way to Gonzague's side. "All is well," he
+whispered. "We have got the girl, and the papers are upon her."
+
+The king was addressing Lagardere. "You are here at our pleasure--free to
+come, free to go, free to speak."
+
+Lagardere answered, firmly: "I mean to speak."
+
+The princess turned to him. "Will you give me back my daughter?"
+
+Lagardere made her a bow. "In a few moments she will be in your arms."
+
+At this moment Gonzague rose and interrupted. "Sire," he said, "I can
+tell you something of this man."
+
+Lagardere glanced scornfully at Gonzague. "Sire," he said, "I can tell
+you something of this man." He advanced towards Gonzague and addressed
+him in a low tone: "On that September night I told you that if you did
+not come to Lagardere, Lagardere would come to you. You did not come. I
+am here." Then he turned to the princess. "Madame, here, as in the moat
+of Caylus Castle; here, as by the picture in your palace, I am wholly in
+your service."
+
+Gonzague turned to the king with an appealing gesture. "I implore your
+majesty to let no one leave this place. If Monsieur de Lagardere is
+desirous of darkness and mystery, I ask only for light and truth."
+
+The king spoke, decisively: "If the attack has been secret, the
+justification shall be public."
+
+Gonzague addressed Lagardere: "Where is the woman who calls herself the
+daughter of Louis de Nevers?"
+
+The king also questioned: "Why is she not with you?"
+
+Lagardere answered, composedly: "Mademoiselle de Nevers will be here at
+midnight, and will herself present to your Royal Highness the papers that
+prove her birth."
+
+"What papers?" asked the king.
+
+And Lagardere answered: "The pages torn from the parish register by her
+mother, and confided to me in the moat of Caylus Castle."
+
+The princess leaned forward. "What do you say?" she asked, eagerly, and
+the king echoed her question.
+
+Lagardere replied: "The princess gave those papers to me when she placed
+her child in my arms, believing that I was her husband, Louis de
+Nevers."
+
+Gonzague questioned, with a sneer: "Why should she think you were her
+husband?"
+
+Lagardere looked him full in the face. "Because, thanks to you, I gave
+the signal agreed upon--her husband's motto, 'I am here.'"
+
+The princess clasped her hands. "My God, sire, it is true."
+
+"And these papers are in your hands?" the king asked.
+
+Lagardere answered, quietly: "They are in the hands of Mademoiselle de
+Nevers."
+
+Gonzague looked triumphantly from Lagardere to the king. "Then why is
+this pretended Mademoiselle de Nevers not here?"
+
+Lagardere replied, composedly: "She is to be here at midnight."
+
+Gonzague looked at his watch. "It is midnight now--she is not here. Your
+majesty sees the worth of this man's word."
+
+Louis gazed curiously at Lagardere, whose bearing, in spite of the king's
+prejudices as a friend of Gonzague, impressed him as that of an honest
+man. "Had you not better send for this lady?" he questioned.
+
+On Lagardere's face now some anxiety was depicted, and he answered,
+anxiously: "She will be here; she must be here. Ah!"
+
+In the excitement consequent upon the extraordinary scene that was
+passing in the king's presence, the attention of all the guests was
+riveted upon their host and upon the amazing altercation between Louis of
+Gonzague and the unknown adventurer, and the entrance of the tent was
+left unheeded and unguarded. At this moment the curtains were parted,
+and the figure of Cocardasse appeared for a moment in the opening. As
+Lagardere saw him, Cocardasse lifted his glove in the air and let it fall
+to the ground. Then, in a moment, he had vanished before any one had
+noticed the episode.
+
+Lagardere gave a sharp cry of pain as he turned to the princess. "Madame,
+your child is not here; your child must be in danger!" he cried.
+
+The princess clasped her hands as she cried: "My child! My child!"
+
+Gonzague pointed mockingly at Lagardere. "The impostor is already
+exposed!" he cried, exultingly.
+
+Lagardere turned towards him, fiercely. "Liar! assassin!" he cried, and
+advanced towards Gonzague, but was stopped by Bonnivet.
+
+The king looked at him sternly. "Sir, you have made charges you could not
+prove, promises you could not keep. You shall answer for this before your
+judges."
+
+Bonnivet made as if to arrest Lagardere, but Lagardere held up his hand.
+"Stop!" he cried; "let no man dare to touch me. I have here your
+majesty's safe-conduct, signed and sealed--'free to come, free to
+go'--that was your promise, sire."
+
+Gonzague protested. "A promise won by a trick does not count."
+
+The king shook his head. "I have given my word. The man has forty-eight
+hours to cross the frontier."
+
+Lagardere bowed to the king. "I thank you, sire. You are a true and
+honorable gentleman. But, sire, I give you back your word." As he spoke
+he tore the safe-conduct in two and flung it at his feet. "I ask but
+four-and-twenty hours to unmask the villain who now triumphs over truth
+and justice, and to give back a daughter to her mother. Nevers shall be
+avenged! Make way for me!"
+
+As he spoke he turned upon his heel and passed rapidly from the king's
+presence, the amazed and bewildered guests giving ground before him as he
+passed. Instantly Gonzague turned and whispered to Peyrolles: "He must
+not leave this place alive."
+
+And Peyrolles answered, confidently: "He shall not. Every gate is guarded
+by my spies."
+
+The king rose gravely and addressed the assembly. "Let us disperse,
+friends. What we have seen and heard leaves us in little mood for
+merrymaking." Then he gave his hand to the now weeping princess, and,
+followed by his immediate escort, quitted the tent. It was soon deserted;
+it was soon empty. The king departed in the direction of his palace. News
+that the ball was ended spread rapidly, and in a short while the gardens
+that had been so thronged and brilliant became deserted and desolate. The
+departing guests found that every exit was guarded by soldiers, and that
+their faces were carefully scanned before they were suffered to leave the
+precincts of the Palais Royal.
+
+Gonzague remained alone in the solitude by the Fountain of Diana, waiting
+for Peyrolles, who presently joined him.
+
+"Well?" Gonzague asked, anxiously.
+
+Peyrolles looked disappointed. "He has not left by any of the gates. He
+must be hiding in the gardens."
+
+Gonzague commanded, sharply: "Bid your men seek till they find, and kill
+when they find."
+
+Peyrolles bowed. "Yes, your excellency," he said, and disappeared down
+one of the silent alleys. As he departed, the hunchback emerged from the
+shadow of a tree and approached Gonzague noiselessly. Gonzague started a
+little as he suddenly became aware of the hunchback's presence.
+
+The hunchback bowed. "Is your highness content with the night's work?"
+
+"So far, yes," Gonzague replied. "We have got the girl and got the papers
+safe in my palace."
+
+"Ah! And Lagardere?" the hunchback asked.
+
+Gonzague answered: "Peyrolles is looking for him, with six of the best
+swords in Paris."
+
+AEsop spoke, contemptuously: "Peyrolles is a bungler. Leave it to me. I
+will find Lagardere for you and deal with him as he deserves before an
+hour has passed."
+
+Gonzague caught at his words eagerly. "You promise?"
+
+AEsop answered, proudly: "On the word of a hunchback. Before two o'clock I
+will bring you the news you wish for."
+
+Gonzague gave a cry of triumph. "Then ask and have your own reward." Then
+he turned and hurriedly left the gardens, his breast swelled with
+exultation. When he was out of sight, the hunchback whistled softly, and
+Cocardasse and Passepoil came out of the shadow of the trees. The lights
+were now rapidly dying out, and the gardens lay in darkness checkered by
+the moonlight.
+
+Lagardere turned to his friends. "She is in Gonzague's palace. We must
+rescue her at once."
+
+Passepoil appealed to him, pathetically: "Can you ever forgive us?"
+
+"Yes," Lagardere answered--"yes, on one condition. There is a snake in
+this garden. Kill him for me."
+
+Cocardasse gave a grin of appreciation. "Peyrolles it is."
+
+Even as he spoke there was a tramp of feet and a flare of light in a side
+alley, and Peyrolles came towards them followed by half a dozen men, each
+of whom carried a torch in his left hand and a naked sword in his right.
+Peyrolles came towards the hunchback.
+
+"Well, AEsop, we cannot find him anywhere."
+
+"That," the hunchback answered, coldly, "is because you don't know where
+to look."
+
+Peyrolles turned to his followers. "Seek in all directions," he said, and
+the men with the swords and torches dispersed in twos down the adjacent
+alleys.
+
+The hunchback laid his hand on Peyrolles's shoulder. "I know where to
+find him."
+
+Peyrolles turned in astonishment. "You do?"
+
+"I am here!" the hunchback said, sternly. He drew himself up erect and
+menacing, and flung back the long hair from his face. Peyrolles gave a
+gasp of horror as he recognized the man whom he had seen such a short
+while before in the presence of the king.
+
+"Lagardere!" he cried, and was about to scream for help when Cocardasse
+grasped him by the throat. There was a short struggle, and then
+Cocardasse flung the dead body of Peyrolles at the feet of Lagardere.
+
+Lagardere bent over him and spoke his epitaph: "The last of the lackeys.
+Now for the master."
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+THE REWARD OF AESOP
+
+
+Paris lay quiet enough between the midnight and the dawn. All the noise
+and brilliance and turbulence, all the gayety and folly and fancy of the
+royal ball had died away and left the Palais Royal and the capital to
+peace. Little waves of frivolity had drifted this way and that from the
+ebbing sea to the haven of this great house and that great house, where
+certain of those that had made merry in the king's gardens now made
+merrier still at a supper as of the gods. The Palace of Gonzague was one
+of those great houses. The hall where the Three Louis gazed at one
+another--one so brave, one so comely, one so royal--was indeed a
+brilliant solitude where the lights of many candles illuminated only the
+painted canvases throned over emptiness. But from behind the great gilded
+doors came the sound of many voices, men's voices and women's voices,
+full of mirth and the clatter of glasses. His Highness Prince Louis de
+Gonzague was entertaining at supper a chosen company of friends--flowers
+from the king's garland carefully culled. There were the brilliant,
+insolent youths, who formed the party of Gonzague; there were the light,
+bright, desirable women whom the party of Gonzague especially favored
+among the many of their kind in Paris. Noce was there, and Oriol and
+Taranne and Navailles and the others, and the dainty, daring, impudent
+Cidalise and her sisters of the opera, and Oriol's flame, who made game
+of him--all very pretty, all very greedy, as greedy of food and wine as
+they were greedy of gold and kisses, and all very merry. One face was
+wanting from the habitual familiars of Gonzague. The little, impertinent
+Marquis de Chavernay was not present. Gonzague had not thought fit to
+include him in the chosen of that night. Chavernay was getting to be too
+critical of his kinsman's conduct. Chavernay was not as sympathetic with
+his kinsman's ambitions and wishes as his kinsman would have had him be.
+
+At the head of the table sat the illustrious host, beaming with an air of
+joyousness that astonished even his friends. It was as though the sun
+that had shone for so long upon all their lives, and in whose light and
+heat they had prospered, had suddenly taken upon himself a braver
+radiance, a fiercer effulgence, in the glow of which they all, men and
+women alike, seemed to feel their personal fortunes patently flourishing.
+No one knew why Louis de Gonzague was so gladsome that night; no one, of
+course, ventured to ask the reason of his gayety. It was enough for
+those, his satellites, who prospered by his favor and who battened on his
+bounty that the prince, who was their leader, chose on this occasion to
+show a spirit of careless mirth that made the thought of serving him, and
+of gaining by that service, more than ever attractive.
+
+Outside, in the deserted hall, the Three Louis stared at one another,
+heedless of the laughter behind the gilded doors, indifferent to the
+hilarity, regardless of the license characteristic of a supper-party in
+such a house at such an hour. For long enough the Three Louis kept one
+another company, while the great wax candles dwindled slowly, and the
+noise and laughter beyond seemed interminable. Then the door of the
+antechamber opened, and the hunchback entered the hall and paused for a
+moment, glancing at each of the Three Louis, with a look of love for one,
+a look of hate for the other, and a look of homage for the third. At the
+hunchback's heels came Cocardasse and Passepoil, waiting on events. The
+hunchback stood for a moment listening to the noise and jollity beyond
+the doors. Then he turned to his followers:
+
+"My enemy makes merry to-night. I think I shall take the edge off his
+merriment by-and-by. But the trick has its risks, and we hazard our
+lives. Would you like to leave the game? I can play it alone."
+
+Cocardasse answered with his favorite salute: "I am with you in this if
+it ends in the gallows."
+
+Passepoil commented: "That's my mind."
+
+Lagardere looked at them as one looks at friends who act in accordance
+with one's expectation of them.
+
+"Thanks, friends," he said. Then he sat at Gonzague's table, dipped pen
+in ink, and wrote two hurried letters. One he handed to Cocardasse. "This
+letter to the king, instantly." The other he handed to Passepoil. "This
+to Gonzague's notary, instantly. Come back and wait in the anteroom. When
+you hear me cry out, 'Lagardere, I am here,' into the room and out with
+your swords for the last chance and the last fight."
+
+Cocardasse laid his hand on the sham hump of the sham AEsop. "Courage,
+comrade, the devil is dead."
+
+Lagardere laughed at him, something wistfully. "Not yet."
+
+Passepoil suggested, timidly: "We live in hopes."
+
+Then Cocardasse and Passepoil went out through the antechamber, and
+Lagardere remained alone with the Three Louis. He rose again and looked
+at them each in turn, and his mind was hived with memories as he gazed.
+Before Louis de Nevers he thought of those old days in Paris when the
+name of the fair and daring duke was on the lips of all men and of all
+women, and when he met him for the first time and got his lesson in the
+famous thrust, and when he met him for the second and last time in the
+moat at Caylus and gave him the pledge of brotherhood. Looking now on the
+beautiful, smiling face, Lagardere extended his hand to the painted
+cloth, as if he almost hoped that the painted hand could emerge from it
+and clasp his again in fellowship, and so looking he renewed the pledge
+of brotherhood and silently promised the murdered man a crown of revenge.
+
+He turned to the picture of Louis de Gonzague, and he thought of his
+speech in the moat of Caylus with the masked shadow, and of the sudden
+murder of Nevers, and of his own assault upon the murderer, and how he
+set his mark upon his wrist. The expression on Lagardere's face was cold
+and grave and fatal as he studied this picture. If Gonzague could have
+seen his face just then he would not have made so merry beyond the folded
+doors.
+
+Lagardere turned to the third Louis, the then solemn, the then pale,
+Louis of France, and gave him a military salute. "Monseigneur," he
+murmured, "you are an honest man and a fine gentleman, and I trust you
+cheerfully for my judge to-night." Turning, he advanced to the doors that
+shut him off from the noisy folk at supper, and listened for a moment,
+with his head against the woodwork, to the revelry beyond, an ironical
+smile on his face. Then, as one who recalls himself abruptly to work that
+has to be done, he who had been standing straight when he contemplated
+the images now stooped again into the crippled form of the hunchback and
+shook his hair about his face. Raising his hand, he tapped thrice on a
+panel of the doors, then moved slowly down to the centre of the hall. A
+moment later the doors parted a little, and Gonzague entered the room,
+closing the doors behind him.
+
+He advanced at once to where the hunchback awaited him. "Your news?" he
+cried.
+
+The hunchback made a gesture of reassurance. "Sleep in peace. I have
+settled Lagardere's business."
+
+Gonzague gave a great sigh of satisfaction. "He is dead?" he questioned.
+
+The hunchback spoke, warmly. "As dead as my hate could wish him."
+
+"And his body?" Gonzague questioned.
+
+The hunchback answered: "I have concealed his body very effectively."
+
+Gonzague brought his palms together silently in silent applause.
+"Excellent AEsop! Where is Peyrolles?" he asked.
+
+The hunchback paused for a moment before replying. "He sends his excuses.
+The events of the night have upset him. But I think he will be with you
+soon."
+
+The indisposition of Peyrolles did not seem to affect his master very
+profoundly. What, indeed, did it matter at such a moment to a man who
+knew that his great enemy was harmless at last and that his own plans and
+ambitions were safe? Gonzague came nearer to the hunchback.
+
+"AEsop, there is no doubt that Lagardere's girl is Nevers's daughter. She
+has his features, his eyes, his hair. Her mother would recognize her in a
+moment if she saw her, but--"
+
+He paused, and the hunchback repeated his last word interrogatively:
+"But--?"
+
+Gonzague smiled, not enigmatically. "She never will see her. Nevers's
+daughter is not destined to live long."
+
+Well at ease now, and more than ever in the mood for joyous company,
+Gonzague turned to re-enter the supper-room, but the hunchback clawed at
+him and brought him to a halt. Gonzague stared at his follower in a
+bewilderment which the hunchback proceeded partially to enlighten. "You
+have forgotten something."
+
+"What?" asked Gonzague, in amazement.
+
+The hunchback made a little, appealing gesture. "Little AEsop wants his
+reward."
+
+Gonzague thought he understood now. "True. What is your price?"
+
+The hunchback, more bowed than ever, with his hair more than ever huddled
+about his face, swayed his crippled body whimsically, and when he spoke
+he spoke, apologetically: "I am a man of strange fancies, highness."
+
+Gonzague was annoyed at these preliminaries to a demand, this beating
+about the bush for payment. "Don't plague me with your fancies. Your
+price?"
+
+The hunchback spoke, slowly, like a man who measures his words and enjoys
+the process of measurement: "If I killed Lagardere, it was not solely to
+please you. It was partly to please myself. I was jealous."
+
+Gonzague smiled slightly. "Of his swordsmanship?"
+
+The hunchback protested, vehemently. "No, I was his equal there. I was
+jealous of his luck in love."
+
+Gonzague laughed. "AEsop in love!"
+
+The hunchback seemed to take the laugh in good part. "AEsop is in love,
+and you can give him his heart's desire. She was in Lagardere's keeping.
+She is now in yours. Give her to me."
+
+Gonzague almost reeled under the amazing impudence of the suggestion.
+"Gabrielle de Nevers! Madman!"
+
+He laughed as he spoke, but the hunchback interrupted his laugh. "Wait.
+You have to walk over two dead women to touch the wealth of Nevers. I
+offer to take one woman out of your way. Do not kill Gabrielle; give her
+to me."
+
+Gonzague stared for a while at the hunchback in silence. "I believe the
+rogue is serious," he said, more as a reflection addressed to himself
+than as a remark addressed to the hunchback.
+
+But the hunchback answered it: "Yes, for I love her. Give her to me, and
+I will take her far away from Paris, and you shall never hear of her
+again. She will no longer be the daughter of Nevers; she will be the wife
+of AEsop the hunchback."
+
+The proposition was not unpleasing to Louis of Gonzague. It certainly
+seemed to offer a way of getting rid of the girl without the necessity of
+killing her, and Gonzague was too fastidious to desire to commit murder
+where murder was wholly unnecessary, but the thing seemed impossible.
+"She would never consent," he protested.
+
+The hunchback laughed softly, a low laugh of self-confidence. "Look at
+me, monseigneur," he said, "AEsop the hunchback, but do not laugh while
+you look and damn me for an impossible gallant. Crooked and withered as I
+am, I have power to make women love me. Let me try. If I fail to win the
+girl, do what you please with her, and I will ask no more."
+
+Gonzague looked keenly at the bowed, supplicating figure. "Are you
+thinking of playing me false?" he murmured. "Do you dream of taking the
+girl to give her to her mother?"
+
+The hunchback laughed--a dry, strident laugh. "Would AEsop be a welcome
+son-in-law to the Princess de Gonzague?"
+
+Gonzague seemed to feel the force of the hunchback's reasoning. To marry
+the girl to this malformed assassin was to destroy her more utterly, she
+still living, than to destroy her by taking her life. "Well," he
+said--"well, you shall try your luck. If she marries you, she is out of
+my way. If she refuses you, you shall be avenged for her disdain. We can
+always revert to my first intention."
+
+A slight shudder seemed to pass over the distorted form of the hunchback,
+but he responded with familiar confidence: "She will not disdain me."
+
+Gonzague laughed. "Confident wooer. When do you mean to woo?"
+
+The hunchback came a little nearer to him and spoke, eagerly: "No time
+like the present, highness. I thought that on this night of triumph for
+you I could provide for you and your friends such an entertainment as no
+other man in all Paris could command. I have ventured to summon your
+notary. Let your supper be my wedding-feast, your guests my witnesses.
+Bring the girl and I will win her. I am sure of it--sure."
+
+Gonzague was too well-bred, too scholarly a man not to have a well-bred,
+scholarly sense of humor. His nimble Italian fancy saw at once the
+contrasts between his noisy company of light men and loose women and the
+withered hunchback who was a murderer and the beautiful girl whom he had
+robbed of her birthright and was now ready to rob of her honor. "It will
+be a good jest," he murmured.
+
+The hunchback indorsed his words: "The best jest in the world. You will
+laugh and laugh and laugh to watch the hunchback's courtship."
+
+Gonzague turned again towards the doors. "I must rejoin my guests," he
+said; "but you look something glum and dull for a suitor. You should have
+fine clothes, fellow; they will stimulate your tongue when you come to
+the wooing. Go to my steward for a wedding-garment. Your bride will be
+here when you return."
+
+The hunchback's bowed head came nearer still to earth in his profound
+inclination. "You overwhelm me with kindness."
+
+Gonzague paused, with his hand on the door, to look at him again. "You
+kill Lagardere; you marry Gabrielle. Do I owe you most as bravo or
+bridegroom?"
+
+Again the hunchback abased himself. "Your highness shall decide
+by-and-by." Then he turned and went out through the antechamber and left
+Gonzague alone.
+
+Gonzague rubbed his hands. "AEsop is my good genius." Then he touched a
+bell and a servant entered, to whom he gave instructions. "Tell Madame
+Berthe to come with the girl who was placed in her charge to-night."
+
+The servant bowed and disappeared. Gonzague went to the golden doors and
+threw them open. Standing in the aperture, he summoned his friends to
+join him. Instantly there was a great noise of rising revellers, of
+chairs set back, of glasses set down, of fans caught up, of fluttered
+skirts and lifted rapiers. Men and women, the guests of Gonzague, flooded
+from the supper-room into the great hall, and under the gaze of the Three
+Louis, Oriol with his fancy, Navailles with Cidalise, Taranne, Noce, and
+the others, each with his raddled Egeria of the opera-house and the
+ballet. As they fluttered and flirted and laughed and chattered into the
+great hall, Gonzague held up his hand for a moment, as one that calls for
+silence, and in a moment the revellers were silent.
+
+Gonzague spoke: "Friends, I have good news. Lagardere is dead."
+
+A wild burst of applause greeted these words. The pretty women clapped
+their hands as they would have clapped them in the theatre for some dance
+or song that took their fancy. The men were not less enthusiastic. The
+difference between the men and the women was that the men applauded
+because they knew why their master was pleased; the women applauded
+because their master was pleased without asking the reason why. The name
+of Lagardere meant little or nothing to them.
+
+Noce spoke a short funeral oration: "The scamp has cheated the gallows."
+
+When the applause had died down, Gonzague spoke again: "Also I have good
+sport for you. To-night you shall witness a wedding."
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+AESOP IN LOVE
+
+
+Again the applause broke forth. Oriol, his round eyes growing rounder,
+echoed the last words as a question: "A wedding?"
+
+Gonzague nodded. "A wonderful wedding. The bride is a beauty, and the
+bridegroom is AEsop."
+
+Navailles looked round over his companions and sighed for the absence of
+a choice spirit. "How Chavernay would have laughed!" he said. "I wish he
+were here."
+
+"I did not invite Chavernay," Gonzague replied, coldly.
+
+And even as he spoke the door of the antechamber opened and Chavernay
+made his appearance unannounced, as briskly impudent, as cheerfully
+self-confident as ever. He shook a finger in playful reproof at Gonzague
+as he advanced, wholly unimpressed by the slight frown which knitted the
+brows of his unexpected host. "It was most unkind of you; but another
+makes good your neglect, whose invitation I really had not the strength
+of purpose to refuse."
+
+Gonzague's irritation was not altogether dissipated by the coolness of
+his kinsman, but he judged that any show of anger was unbefitting so
+felicitous an occasion, so he smiled slightly as he asked: "Who invites
+you?"
+
+Chavernay looked all around him, scanning the faces of the men in the
+brilliant group of Gonzague's guests, as if seeking there a countenance
+he failed to find. Then he answered, in a tone of voice that was
+unusually grave for the light-hearted marquis: "Henri de Lagardere."
+
+At the sound of that name a thrill ran through the guests, and all echoed
+with astonishment the name of Lagardere.
+
+Gonzague looked at Chavernay with a pitying smile. "You come too late,"
+he said, "if you come at the summons of such a host. Lagardere is dead."
+
+Chavernay gave a little start of surprise, while the others, to whom the
+news had been good news some little while ago, but was no news at all
+now, laughed boisterously at his expected discomfiture. But Chavernay did
+not seem to be discomfited, and seemed inclined to doubt the tidings.
+"Dead?" he said. "Why, he wrote to me to meet him here at two o'clock."
+
+As he spoke he drew from his breast a folded piece of paper and extended
+it to Gonzague, who took it with a reluctance, even with a repugnance,
+which he controlled because it was so clearly unreasonable. The paper
+contained a few words written in a bold, soldierly hand. They ran thus:
+
+        "Meet me to-night at two o'clock at the palace of the
+        Prince de Gonzague.               HENRI DE LAGARDERE."
+
+Gonzague returned the paper to Chavernay with an ironical smile.
+"Somebody has been hoaxing you," he said. "You will not meet Lagardere
+here."
+
+Taranne consulted his watch. "It is now two o'clock," he said, and showed
+the dial to Chavernay, who looked puzzled, but also unconvinced.
+
+"No one will come," said Navailles, mockingly.
+
+At that moment Chavernay's quick ear caught the sound of footsteps in the
+private passage outside, and called attention to the sound. "Some one is
+coming. Is it Lagardere?"
+
+As he spoke all eyes were fixed upon the door. So firmly had the fear of
+Lagardere emanated from the consciousness of Gonzague to impress the
+hearts of his party that even then, when all present had the assurance
+from their leader that Lagardere was dead and done with, their conviction
+not unsettled, indeed, but somewhat disturbed by Chavernay's words and
+Chavernay's strange message, waited with uneasy expectation for what
+might happen. Then the door opened fully, and the hunchback came into the
+room, dressed now with a splendor of attire which seemed to contrast more
+grotesquely than his wonted sable with his twisted, withered figure. All
+present, including Gonzague, had for the moment forgotten the existence
+of the hunchback. All present, with the exception of Chavernay, burst
+into the loud laughter of relieved nerves as they beheld him.
+
+"This is not Lagardere," said Oriol, holding his fat sides.
+
+The hunchback laughed a mocking laugh in answer to the amusement of the
+company and the amazement of Chavernay. "Who speaks of Lagardere? Who
+remembers Lagardere? AEsop is the hero of this feast; AEsop is a gentleman
+to-night, with a silk coat on his back and a lace kerchief in his
+fingers. He woos a beauty, and the chivalry of France shall witness his
+triumph. Lagardere is dead! Long live AEsop, who killed him!"
+
+The little marquis advanced towards the jesting hunchback with clinched
+hands and angry eyes. "Assassin!" he cried, and seemed as if he would
+take the hunchback by the throat, but Gonzague came between his kinsman
+and his servant, saying, coldly: "Whoever insults AEsop, insults me. AEsop
+marries the girl whom Lagardere called Gabrielle de Nevers."
+
+Chavernay folded his arms and looked fiercely around him. "Now I know why
+Lagardere sent for me--to defend a helpless woman."
+
+The hunchback drolled at him: "She will not need your championship. She
+will accept with joy the hunchback's hand."
+
+Chavernay shook his head scornfully. "That will never happen."
+
+The hunchback answered him, coolly: "That will happen, Monsieur de
+Chavernay."
+
+At that moment the door opposite to the antechamber opened, and the
+figure of a fair girl appeared.
+
+"Your bride approaches," said Gonzague, and moved towards the new-comer,
+suddenly pausing with an angry frown as he perceived that she was not
+alone, for Gabrielle, very pale, but with courage in her eyes and
+determination on her lips, entered the room accompanied by the gypsy girl
+Flora. To Flora Gonzague spoke, angrily: "Why are you here? This is no
+place for you."
+
+The gypsy looked at him defiantly. "This is my place," she said, "for I
+have found my friend, and I think she needs my friendship."
+
+Gonzague spoke, imperiously: "Retire, Mademoiselle de Nevers!"
+
+The gypsy girl gave him no answer, but held her ground mutinously.
+Gabrielle moved a little away from her friend's side. She asserted her
+right firmly. "I am Gabrielle de Nevers."
+
+Again Gonzague addressed Flora: "Mademoiselle de Nevers," he said, "have
+you not undeceived this unfortunate, this misguided girl?"
+
+Flora answered him, steadily: "No, highness, for I believe her."
+
+Gonzague began to lose his patience. He was bound, in the presence of his
+friends, to keep up the assumption of belief in the gentility of Flora,
+in her heirship to Nevers. He addressed her, harshly: "Mademoiselle de
+Nevers, if you are mad enough to wish to abandon your rights to an
+impostor, I am here to protect you, and I order you at once to retire."
+
+Flora gave no sign of obedience, and Gabrielle spoke again: "I am
+Gabrielle de Nevers. Why have I been brought here?"
+
+Gonzague turned to her, and his manner was that of a judge coolly
+courteous to one whom he professed to believe possibly innocent of
+complicity in sin: "You have been brought here because I did not wish to
+deliver you to the stern justice of the law. Your offence is grave, but
+the fault lies with your accomplice, and his alone the penalty."
+
+Gabrielle looked all about her, sustaining bravely the bold stares of the
+dancing-women and the evil admiration of the men. "Where is Henri de
+Lagardere?" she asked; and then, as only silence followed upon her
+question, she cried: "Ah, he must be dead, since he is not here to defend
+me."
+
+Gonzague confirmed her fears: "He is dead."
+
+Chavernay, who had kept resolutely apart from the rest of the guests, now
+advanced to the beautiful girl who stood there alone and friendless, save
+for Flora, and made her a respectful bow. "I will defend you in his
+name," he said, simply.
+
+Flora clapped her hands. "Bravo, little man!" she cried.
+
+Gonzague, with a stern gesture, motioned to Chavernay to stand back. "You
+presume," he said. "I offer this deluded girl protection. It is for me to
+see that she is properly provided for."
+
+Gabrielle gave him a glance that pierced through his specious
+protestations. "You wish the daughter of Nevers to die. If you have
+killed Lagardere, I have no wish to live."
+
+Gonzague answered her, urbanely: "You take the matter too seriously. You
+have shared an imposture. I propose to shield you from punishment. You
+shall tramp the highways no longer. Here is an honest gentleman ready to
+marry you, to forgive and to forget. Advance, AEsop."
+
+At that command the hunchback, who had been leaning against a chair an
+apparently amused spectator of the not untragic scene, shambled slowly
+forward more ungainly than ever in his finery, his long sword swinging
+grotesquely against his legs.
+
+Flora gave a cry of indignation. "Are you mad? That monster!"
+
+The hunchback's answer to her words was a comic bow, which made
+Gonzague's friends laugh. Gabrielle looked at the laughing gentlemen, and
+there was something so brave, so stately in her gaze that the laughter
+died away.
+
+"Gentlemen," she said, "you bear honorable names, you wear honorable
+swords. Gentlemen, the daughter of Nevers appeals to you to protect her
+from insult."
+
+Even Gonzague's band, hardened by the influence of long association with
+their master, could not hear that appeal unmoved, though no man among
+them made any motion of responding to it.
+
+Chavernay, however, rested his hand lightly upon his sword-hilt. "Rely on
+me," he said, boldly.
+
+Gonzague looked at him contemptuously. "No heroics, sir. The lady is free
+to choose between the husband I offer and the law that chastises
+impostors." He turned to the hunchback, who stood near him. "I fear your
+love affair goes ill, AEsop."
+
+The hunchback did not seem at all disheartened. "It will go better when I
+take it in hand myself. Let me speak to the lady alone."
+
+Flora fiercely protested: "No, no, no!"
+
+But Gonzague turned to her with a look so menacing that even her courage
+quailed before it. "For your friend's sake, be quiet, Mademoiselle de
+Nevers," he said. Taking Flora by the hand, he drew her, partly by main
+force and partly by strength of his dominating influence, away from
+Gabrielle. Then he turned to his friends. "Ladies and gentlemen," he
+said, "our good AEsop desires to speak to the lady of his love in private.
+We are all, I am sure, too sympathetic with his amorous ambition to
+interfere with his wishes. Let him ply his wooing untroubled. Stand
+apart, please, and give AEsop a fair field."
+
+Wondering, laughing, whispering, Gonzague's guests drew back and ranged
+themselves against the golden doors, and Gabrielle was left standing
+alone in the middle of the room. The hunchback caught up a chair and
+carried it to where she stood, making a gesture which requested her to be
+seated.
+
+Gabrielle looked at him scornfully. "I have nothing to say to you. I
+trust to the justice of France."
+
+The hunchback spoke to her in a low voice, so evenly calculated that
+every syllable of what he said was clear to the girl's ears, though no
+syllable reached the others: "Do not start; do not show surprise."
+
+Gabrielle had the strength of spirit to control the wonder, the joy, the
+hope at the sound of the loved voice thus brought her so suddenly; but
+she trembled, and her strength seemed to fail her. She sank into the
+chair which the hunchback had offered her. "My God!" she murmured, and
+then said no more, but sat with clasped hands and rigid face.
+
+The hunchback spoke again, in the same low, measured tones: "Seem to
+listen against your will. A sign may betray us both."
+
+"Henri!" Gabrielle murmured.
+
+The hunchback went on: "Seem as if you were enchanted at my words, by my
+gestures. They are watching us."
+
+Now the hunchback walked slowly in a circle round the chair on which
+Gabrielle was seated, making as he did so fantastic gestures with his
+hands over her head--gestures which suggested to the amazed spectators
+some wizard busy with his horrid incantations.
+
+Taranne nudged Oriol. "She listens."
+
+"She seems pleased," Oriol answered.
+
+Chavernay muttered, angrily: "This must be witch-craft."
+
+Noce, leaning forward a little, called to the hunchback: "How speeds your
+suit?"
+
+The hunchback paused for a moment in his round to make a motion for
+silence. "Famously, gentlemen, famously. But you must not disturb my
+incantations."
+
+Navailles touched Noce on the shoulder. "Let the dog have his day."
+
+The hunchback was again at the side of Gabrielle, still indulging in
+extravagant antics of gesticulation, speaking softly the while.
+"Gabrielle, they think me dead, but I live and hope to save you. But we
+face danger, dear, but we face death, and must be wary. Will you do
+whatever I tell you to do?"
+
+"Yes," Gabrielle answered.
+
+The hunchback went on: "God knows how this night will end. I have told
+them that I can make you love me."
+
+Almost Gabrielle smiled. "You have told them the truth."
+
+The hunchback continued: "I have told them that I can persuade you to
+marry me."
+
+Gabrielle said again: "You have told them the truth."
+
+The hunchback sighed. He was still cutting his strange capers, waving his
+extended fingers over the girl's head and making grotesque genuflections,
+but he spoke, and his voice was full of passion and his voice was full of
+pain as he whispered: "Gabrielle, Gabrielle, I have always loved you,
+shall always love you. But you must not love me, that would never do.
+Nevers's daughter cannot, may not, love the soldier of fortune."
+
+"Yet you ask me to marry you?" Gabrielle said.
+
+The hunchback answered: "To save you from Gonzague. You would have died
+to-night but for this mad plan of mine. Once you are safe, you can easily
+be set free from me."
+
+There was that in Gabrielle's eyes which the hunchback could not see.
+There was that in Gabrielle's heart which the hunchback could not read.
+Gabrielle appreciated the nobility of the man who was trying to save her,
+but Gabrielle also understood the strength of her own love and her own
+determination, but she showed nothing of this in her words. All she said
+was: "Well, I am not safe yet. What do you want me to do?"
+
+The hunchback instructed her. "Just say yes to the questions I shall ask
+you now aloud. Speak as if you were in a dream."
+
+He drew back now a little from the girl, and turned triumphantly to the
+others, with the air of one who has accomplished a very difficult task.
+Then he approached Gabrielle again.
+
+"Do you love me?" he asked, in a clear voice which carried to all parts
+of the room.
+
+And the girl, looking straight before her like one that spoke in a
+trance, answered, clearly: "I love you with all my heart, for ever and
+ever and ever."
+
+Gonzague, who had been watching the proceedings with cynical curiosity,
+was the most amazed of the amazed spectators. "Here is a miracle."
+
+"I'll not believe it," Chavernay protested.
+
+The hunchback made an angry gesture to command silence. "Hush!" he said,
+and then again addressed the girl: "Will you be my wife?"
+
+Gabrielle answered as clearly as before: "I will be your wife gladly. In
+joy and in sorrow, I will be your wife so long as I live."
+
+The hunchback turned triumphantly to the company. "Gentlemen, gentlemen,
+you see that my suit prospers. The poor hunchback was no boaster."
+
+Flora, seated near to Gonzague, and conquered by his domination and by
+the horror of the scene, covered her face with her hands and shuddered.
+"It's too horrible," she moaned.
+
+The hunchback nodded to her ironically. "You are severe," he said, dryly.
+Then he turned to Gonzague. "There is a friend of mine at the door," he
+said. "May I introduce him?"
+
+Gonzague nodded, and the hunchback advanced to the door of the
+antechamber.
+
+Chavernay looked after him with haggard eyes. "What spell has the devil
+got?" he muttered.
+
+Gonzague shrugged his shoulders. "I am amazed; but the knave has my
+faith, and, if the lady's taste limps, shall we say her nay?"
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+THE SIGNATURE OF AESOP
+
+
+By this time the hunchback had opened the door and introduced to the
+company a dapper, affable gentleman who was habited, as became his
+calling, for the most part in black; but he lent an air of smartness to
+his notarial garb by reason that the black of his coat and breeches was
+of silk, and that he wore a quantity of costly lace. This was Master
+Griveau, one of the principal notaries of Paris, and a man that had been
+employed not a little by the Prince de Gonzague. For this reason his face
+was familiar to most of those present, and the faces of most of those
+present were familiar to Master Griveau, and Master Griveau nodded and
+bowed and smirked and smiled, and showed in a hundred little ways with a
+hundred little airs and graces that he was quite the man of the world and
+quite at home in fashionable circles. He was accompanied by two of his
+clerks, who seemed as anxious to efface themselves as their master was to
+assert his personality.
+
+The hunchback patted the notary on the back with a pat that made him give
+at the knees and look somewhat ruefully about him as if an earthquake
+had occurred, and introduced him to the company: "Here, sirs, is my
+Cupid--nay, better than Cupid, for Cupid had no pockets, whereas Maitre
+Griveau has, and my marriage contract in one of them."
+
+Master Griveau, with the air of one who could take a joke as well as any
+man if the joke were proffered in august company, produced a large,
+folded paper bound about with green ribbon. He bowed profoundly to
+Gonzague. "In accordance," he said, "with monseigneur's instructions, as
+conveyed to me by monseigneur's"--he halted for a moment, and then
+continued--"Monseigneur's friend, the deed is prepared and ready for
+signature. Have I monseigneur's permission to make a few preparations for
+the interesting ceremony?"
+
+Gonzague nodded, and the brisk little man, with the aid of his two
+clerks, pushed a table into place, arranged writing materials, and,
+seating himself with a great air of formality, investigated a quill pen,
+spread out his contract, and surveyed the company with the air of one who
+should say: "I have done, and done well, all that it becometh me to do;
+it is now for you to play your part in this ceremony."
+
+Gonzague addressed the notary: "Have you entered the names of groom and
+bride?"
+
+Master Griveau gave a little, protesting cough. "I do not know them, your
+highness. I have left blank spaces for the names."
+
+Gonzague pointed to Gabrielle, where she sat apart. "The lady is
+Mademoiselle de Lagardere." Then he turned to the hunchback. "And you,
+what is your lawful name, AEsop?"
+
+The hunchback made an appeal to Gonzague. "Highness, humor my jest to the
+end. I have kept my real name a secret long enough; let me keep it secret
+a little longer. Will you and your friends honor me by signing as
+witnesses? Then I will fill in the blanks and set down my own name--a
+name that will make you laugh."
+
+Oriol gave a grin. "AEsop is comic enough."
+
+Lagardere nodded to him. "AEsop is a nickname. My true name will divert
+you more. Sign, sirs, sign."
+
+Master Griveau, with due solemnity, unfolded the contract and spread it
+before him. Then he dipped a pen in the ink, and stood waiting for the
+illustrious company to sign the contract.
+
+"Give me the pen," said Gonzague. He was beginning to tire a little of
+the comedy, in spite of its element of marvel, and to wish the girl well
+out of his sight with her hunchback husband. He signed his name and held
+up the pen. It was eagerly sought for. Taranne gained the privilege of
+taking it from the fingers of his master. Taranne signed, Noce signed,
+Oriol signed, Gironne signed, Choisy signed, Albret signed, Montaubert
+signed. When the pen was offered to Chavernay, Chavernay put his hands
+behind his back and shook his head. It came to Navailles to sign last.
+
+"Now for the happy pair," Navailles said. As he spoke he turned to where
+the hunchback and Gabrielle stood together silent, a strangely contrasted
+bride and bridegroom--youth and age, so it seemed, beauty and ugliness,
+sin and purity. Truly, it appeared to be what Chavernay thought it and
+called it--a damnable alliance.
+
+While the signing had been toward the hunchback had spoken softly one
+sentence to his bride. "Gabrielle," he said, "if I die here, I die as I
+have lived--your lover."
+
+And Gabrielle had answered him in the heart of her heart: "I love you, my
+lover."
+
+Now, when Navailles addressed him, the hunchback moved forward, and waved
+away the little, glittering crowd of gentlemen that gathered about Master
+Griveau at the table, ordering them to move. "Make space, sirs, for my
+wife and me. I need elbow-room for my signature."
+
+He advanced to the table, holding Gabrielle by the hand, and still,
+though the humor of the situation had endured so long, even the
+wine-flushed men and the wine-flushed women seemed almost as conscious as
+Chavernay of the tragedy that underlay the humor of the play. All fell
+back and left a free table for the hunchback and his bride. Master
+Griveau settled himself comfortably in his seat and took up his pen.
+Turning to the hunchback, he began: "Give me your names, your surnames,
+your birthplaces--"
+
+The hunchback interrupted him: "Have you signed?"
+
+"Certainly," Master Griveau answered, something astonished at being thus
+carelessly treated.
+
+"Then, by your leave," said the hunchback, and dexterously edged the
+indignant notary out of the chair. "Leave the rest to me. Back, friends,
+till I finish." Pushing the chair aside, he restrained with a sweep of
+his arm the advancing crowd of gentlemen eager to see the name that AEsop
+would acknowledge.
+
+While Master Griveau, with a very much offended air, edged himself into
+the circle of Gonzague's friends as one that had earned the right to move
+freely in such company, the hunchback began rapidly to fill in the blank
+spaces on the parchment before him.
+
+Master Griveau felt it his duty to say a few words of protest on behalf
+of the slightly offended majesty of the law. "A very extraordinary
+ceremony, highness."
+
+Gonzague smiled ironically, but cared nothing for the offended majesty of
+the law, so long as his own purposes were being served. "AEsop is an
+extraordinary man," he said.
+
+The hunchback, who had overheard this conversation, pointed with the
+feather of the pen he had just been using to Gonzague. "You are right,
+prince," he said. Then he gave the pen to Gabrielle and whispered to her,
+so low that no one heard him: "Sign Gabrielle de Nevers."
+
+The girl took the pen from his hand and signed boldly, though she signed
+that signature for the first time in her young life.
+
+The hunchback took the pen from her fingers. "Now my turn." Deliberately
+and swiftly he signed his name and flung down the pen. Then he moved back
+a little way from the table and drew Gabrielle behind him. He turned to
+the expectant company. "Come and see, sirs. You will stare, I promise
+you."
+
+All were eager to press forward and read the signature, but all
+restrained their desire until the curiosity of the master of the house
+was satisfied. Gonzague advanced leisurely to the table, relieved to
+think the comedy had come to an end, and that he had satisfactorily rid
+himself of an incubus. He bent carelessly over the parchment, and then
+sprang back with face as pale and eyes as wild and lips as trembling as
+if on the pitiful piece of sheepskin he had seen some terror as dread as
+the face of Medusa. His twitching mouth whispered one word, but that word
+was "Lagardere!" and that word was repeated on the lips of every man and
+woman that watched him.
+
+Before the eyes of all present a new miracle happened, more marvellous
+than its predecessor, for the hunchback suddenly stiffened himself and
+became erect and soldierly; the hunchback swept back the grizzled locks
+that had so long served to conceal his features; the hunchback stood
+before them a strong and stalwart man, with drawn sword in his hand.
+Stretching out his arm, he extended the sword between Gonzague and the
+parchment and touched with its point the signature that was still wet
+upon its surface.
+
+In a terrible voice he cried: "Lagardere, who always keeps his tryst! I
+am here!"
+
+For a moment that seemed sempiternal a kind of horrible silence reigned
+over the room. It was hard to understand what had happened. The startled
+guests stared at one another, terrified by the terror on Gonzague's face,
+amazed at the metamorphosis of the hunchback, shuddering at the name of
+Lagardere. The first to recover courage, composure, and resolution was
+Gonzague himself. He sprang from the table to where his friends stood
+together and drew his sword.
+
+Pointing to where Lagardere stood, with Gabrielle clinging to his arm, he
+cried: "He must not escape! Your swords, friends! It is but one man!"
+
+But even as he spoke, and while Lagardere was waiting with lifted sword
+for the inevitable attack, Chavernay crossed the room and stood at
+Lagardere's side. "We shall be two!" he cried, and drew his sword.
+
+At the same moment the doors of the antechamber opened, and Cocardasse
+and Passepoil, with their naked swords in their hands, entered and ranged
+themselves on the side of Lagardere.
+
+"We shall be three!" said Cocardasse.
+
+"We shall be four!" said Passepoil.
+
+The situation was changed, but the situation was still perilous. On the
+one side of the splendid room stood Lagardere, with Chavernay,
+Cocardasse, and Passepoil, their gleaming weapons ready for attack. On
+the other side, with a great gap of space between the two parties, stood
+Gonzague and his cluster of light friends, every man of whom had bared
+his rapier and was ready to obey the summons of his chief. Behind these
+the women huddled together, some screaming, but the most part too
+frightened to scream. Flora, overstrained, had fainted.
+
+Lagardere taunted Gonzague. "Come, monseigneur," he said, "are you
+afraid? The odds are not so favorable as they were at Caylus."
+
+With a writhing face Gonzague screamed to his friends: "Charge!"
+
+And Lagardere answered with a ringing cry: "I am here!"
+
+In another moment the two parties would have met and blended in battle;
+but before Gonzague's followers could obey his command and follow his
+lead, they were stiffened into immobility by a sudden knocking at the
+golden doors. At that unexpected sound every sword was lowered, and then
+from beyond a stern voice came, commanding: "Open, in the king's name!"
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+THE DEAD SPEAKS
+
+
+Immediately the golden doors were flung open, and Bonnivet entered from
+the supper-room, followed by a company of soldiers.
+
+Gonzague turned to Bonnivet, indignant and bewildered. "What does this
+mean?" he gasped.
+
+Bonnivet's answer was to salute with his sword, as he announced: "His
+majesty the king!" And through the double line of soldiers Louis of
+France entered the room with the Princess de Gonzague on his arm.
+
+The king looked with astonishment at the strange scene before him--the
+fainting women, the two camps of armed men, the scattered furniture. The
+Princess de Gonzague looked only at the girl, who now hung so lovingly
+upon the arm of Lagardere.
+
+"Why have I been sent for?" the king asked.
+
+And instantly Lagardere answered him: "To witness my restoration of
+Mademoiselle Gabrielle de Nevers to her mother." As he spoke he moved
+towards the princess, and gave Gabrielle to her out-stretched arms.
+
+The Princess gave a cry of joy. "She has the face of Louis! She is my
+child!"
+
+Gonzague tried to speak, and failed; tried to speak again, and succeeded:
+"Your highness, I again declare that I gave the true Gabrielle de Nevers
+to her mother. I have the page torn from the register of the chapel of
+Caylus in this sealed packet." As he spoke he held out a small sealed
+packet, which he had drawn from his breast.
+
+The king turned to Lagardere. "What do you say to this?"
+
+Lagardere answered: "That I have kept my word. I have given back her
+daughter to the princess. I will now unmask the murderer."
+
+Again the king questioned him: "Where are your witnesses?"
+
+Lagardere turned and pointed with his drawn sword to Gonzague: "You are
+the first."
+
+Gonzague, trying hard to recover his composure, raged at him: "Madman!"
+
+Lagardere turned to the king and spoke more solemnly: "The second is in
+the grave."
+
+Gonzague laughed. "The dead cannot speak."
+
+Lagardere still looked menacingly at Gonzague. "To-night the dead will
+speak. The proofs of your guilt are in that sealed packet, stolen from me
+by assassins in your pay."
+
+Gonzague turned to the king, protesting: "Sire!"
+
+Lagardere interrupted him: "Monseigneur, he is going to say that that
+packet contains only the birth-lines of Mademoiselle de Nevers--but
+there is more than that."
+
+Louis of Orleans turned his steady gaze on Louis of Gonzague, and read
+little to comfort him in the twitching face of his life-long friend.
+"Break the seals, Louis," he commanded.
+
+Lagardere spoke, exultingly: "Yes, break the seals and read your doom,
+assassin. The packet contains only the birth-lines of Mademoiselle de
+Nevers, but still it contains the proof I ask. As Nevers lay dying in my
+arms, he dipped his finger in his blood and traced on the parchment the
+name of his murderer. Open the packet and see what name is there."
+
+Now, while he was speaking, Gonzague began to tremble like a man that has
+the trembling sickness; but as Lagardere continued he seemed by a
+desperate effort to stiffen himself, and, moving slowly, unobserved by
+those present, who were for the most part busy with looking upon
+Lagardere, he neared a candelabrum. As Lagardere uttered his last
+command, Gonzague thrust the packet that he held into the flame of the
+candle, and in a moment the flame ran along the paper, lapping it and
+consuming it. The king and Lagardere both saw the despairing deed.
+
+The king was the first to speak. "Louis!" he cried, and could say no
+more.
+
+Gonzague dropped the burning paper from his fingers, and it fell in ashes
+upon the floor.
+
+Lagardere lifted his sword in triumph. "The dead speaks! There was
+nothing written on that paper. His name was not there, but his own deed
+has set it there."
+
+The eyes of all were fixed upon the face of Gonzague, and the face of
+Gonzague was an ugly sight to see. Hatred and despair struggled there for
+mastery--hatred and despair, and the hideous sense of hopeless,
+ignominious, public failure after a lifetime of triumphant crime.
+
+"Louis!" cried the king again. "Louis! Assassin!"
+
+In a moment Gonzague's sword was unsheathed, and he leaped across the
+space that divided him from Lagardere, striking furiously for Lagardere's
+heart. But Lagardere was ready for him, and, with a familiar trick of the
+fencing-schools, wrenched Gonzague's weapon from his fingers and flung it
+to the floor. A dozen hands seized Gonzague--the hands of those that once
+had been proud to call themselves his friends.
+
+Lagardere turned to the king, appealingly: "Monseigneur, I cry a favor.
+Let me support this quarrel with my sword, and God defend the right."
+
+The king was silent for a few seconds, trying to set himself right with a
+world that had suddenly changed for him. Surely, it would be better to
+let it end so, whatever came of it. He turned to Lagardere, and bowed his
+head in silent approval: "As you will."
+
+Suddenly, then, the Princess de Gonzague, clinging to the child in her
+arms, cried out, calling to Chavernay: "Monsieur de Chavernay, in yonder
+alcove lies the sword of my dead husband. Fetch it, and give it to
+Monsieur de Lagardere."
+
+In a frightful silence Chavernay crossed the room, entered the alcove,
+and came forth holding the sword of Louis de Nevers in his hand--the
+sword that Louis de Nevers had used so valiantly on the night of Caylus.
+Silently he offered it to Lagardere, and silently Lagardere, giving the
+weapon he held to Cocardasse, took the sword of Nevers from the hands of
+Chavernay. Thereafter Lagardere stooped and picked up the fallen sword of
+Gonzague. Then, advancing towards his enemy, he made a sign to those that
+held him to release their captive--a sign that was immediately obeyed. He
+held out the weapon by its blade to Gonzague, who caught it. In another
+moment the two men were engaged in combat.
+
+On the walls the impassive portraits of the Three Louis looked on while
+one of the Three Louis fought for his shameful life, while another of the
+Three Louis sat in heart-broken judgment upon him, and while the widow of
+another of the Three Louis sat clasping in her arms the child she had
+surrendered in the moat of Caylus so many years ago.
+
+Gonzague was a fine swordsman, and Gonzague fought for his life, but he
+did not fight long. Suddenly Lagardere's arm and Lagardere's sword seemed
+to extend, the blade gleamed in the flare of the flambeaux, and Gonzague
+reeled and dropped.
+
+"Nine," said Cocardasse, thoughtfully.
+
+Passepoil placed his forefinger between his brows. "The thrust of
+Nevers," he murmured.
+
+Lagardere lifted his blood-dyed sword and saluted the picture of Louis of
+Nevers. "After the lackeys the master. Nevers, I have kept my word."
+
+Then he let fall his weapon, for the soft arms of Gabrielle were about
+his neck.
+
+                               THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Duke's Motto, by Justin Huntly McCarthy
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