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—"