"Oho, M. de Berquin!" I said to myself, with an inward laugh; "I do not know whether you are bargaining for help to persecute Mlle. de Varion, or to spy on the Sieur de la Tournoire; but it has come to pa.s.s that you can do both at the same time."

CHAPTER IX.

THE FOUR RASCALS

We rode southward at an easy pace, that mademoiselle might not be made to suffer from fatigue. Aside from the desirability of our reaching safe territory, there was no reason for great haste. M. de Varion had not yet been tried, and the attempt to deliver him from prison need not be made immediately. Time would be required in which I might form a satisfactory plan of action in this matter. It would be necessary to employ all my men in it, and to bring them secretly from Maury by night marches, but I must not take the first step until the whole design should be complete in my mind.

I suggested to mademoiselle that we first go to her father's house, in Fleurier, where she might get such of her belongings as she wished to take with her. But she desired to take no more along than was already in the portmanteaus that her boys, Hugo and Pierre, carried with them on their horses. She had come directly from Bourges with this baggage, having been visiting an unmarried aunt, in that city, when news of her father's arrest reached her.

When I questioned her as to her conduct on the reception of that news, her face clouded, and she showed embarra.s.sment and a wish to avoid the subject. Nevertheless, she gave me answers, and I finally learned that her purpose on leaving Bourges had been to seek the governor of the province, immediately, and pet.i.tion for her father's release. It was by accident that she had met M. de la Chatre at the inn, where she had stopped that her horses might be baited. My persistent, though deferential, inquiries elicited from her, in a wavering voice, that she had not previously possessed the governor's acquaintance; that her entreaties had evoked only the governor's wrathful orders to depart from the province on pain of sharing her father's fate; and that La Chatre had refused to allow her even to see her father in his dungeon in the Chateau of Fleurier.

Her agitation as she disclosed these things to me became so great that I presently desisted from pursuing the subject, and sought to restore brightness to the face of one whose tenderness and youth made her misfortune ineffably touching.

I found that, with a woman's intelligence, she had a child's ingenuousness. I had no difficulty in leading her to talk about herself.

Artlessly she communicated to me the salient facts of her life. Her father, the younger son of a n.o.ble family, had pa.s.sed his days in study on his little portion of land near Fleurier. Like myself, she had when very young become motherless. As for her education, her unmarried aunt had taught her those accomplishments which a woman can best impart, while her father had instructed her concerning the ancients, the arts, and the sciences. She had been to Paris but once, and knew nothing of the court.

Most of my conversation with mademoiselle was had while we traversed a deserted stretch of road, where I could, with safety, ride by her side and allow Blaise to take my place with the maid, Jeannotte. I could infer how deeply the good fellow had been smitten with the pet.i.te damsel by the means which he took to impress her in return. Far from showing himself as the wounded, sighing lover, he swelled to large dimensions, a.s.sumed his most martial frown, and carried himself as a most formidable personage.

He boasted sonorously of his achievements in battle.

"And the scar on your forehead," I heard her say, as she inspected his visage with a coquettish side glance; "at what battle did you get that?"

His reply was uttered in a voice whose rancorous fierceness must have set the maid trembling.

"In the battle of the Rue Etienne," he said, "which was fought between myself and a h.e.l.l-born Papist, on St. Bartholomew's night, in 1572. From the next house-roof, I had seen Coligny's body thrown, bleeding, from his own window into his courtyard, for I was one of those who were with him when his murderers came, and whom he ordered to flee. I ran from roof to roof, hoping to reach a house where a number of Huguenots were, that I might lead them back to avenge the admiral's murder. I dropped to the street and ran around a corner straight into the arms of one of the butchers employed by the Duke of Guise that night to decorate the streets of Paris with the best blood in France. Seeing that I did not wear the white cross on my arm, he was good enough to give me this red mark on my forehead. But in those days I was quick at repartee, and I gave him a similar mark on a similar place. Then I was knocked down from behind, and when I awoke it was the next day. The dogs had thought me dead. As for the man who gave me this mark, I have not seen him since, but for thirteen years I have prayed hard to the bountiful Father in Heaven to bring us together again some day, and the good G.o.d in His infinite kindness will surely do so!"

Now and then mademoiselle turned in her saddle to look behind. It was when she did this for the ninth or tenth time that she gave a start, and her lips parted with a half-uttered e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of alarm. I followed her look and saw five mounted figures far behind us, on the road. It was most probable that these were De Berquin, Barbemouche, and the latter's three ragged comrades. But in this sight I found no reason to be disturbed. If mademoiselle was the object of De Berquin's quest, I felt that our party was sufficiently strong to protect her. If he had abandoned the intention of annoying her with further importunities, and was merely proceeding to Clochonne in order to act as the governor's spy against me, there could be no immediate danger in his presence, for he did not suspect that I was the Sieur de la Tournoire.

"Be a.s.sured, mademoiselle," I said, "you have nothing whatever to fear from M. de Berquin."

"I do not fear for myself," she replied, with a pathetic little smile.

"It cannot be possible that, having seen me only once, he should put himself to so much trouble merely to inflict his attentions on me."

"Then you never saw him before the meeting at the inn to-day?" I asked, in surprise.

"Never. When he addressed me and introduced himself, I was surprised that he should already know my name."

I then recalled that the governor's secretary, Montignac, at one time, during his talk with De Berquin outside our window, had pointed towards the inn. Was it, then, of Mlle. de Varion that he had been talking?

Montignac, of course, having witnessed the interview between mademoiselle and the governor, had learned her name. It must have been he who had communicated it to De Berquin. Had the subtle secretary entrusted the unscrupulous cavalier with some commission relative to mademoiselle, as well as with the task of betraying me? It was in vain that I tried to find satisfactory answers to these questions.

I asked mademoiselle whether she had ever known Montignac before this day.

"Never," she answered, with a kind of shudder, which seemed to express both abhorrence and fear. Again she grew reticent; again the shadow and the look of confusion appeared on her face. I could make nothing of these signs. To attempt a solution by interrogating her was only to cause her pain, and rather than do that I preferred to remain mystified.

Once more mademoiselle cast an uneasy look at the riders in the distance rearward.

"Ah!" said I, with a smile, "you have no fear for yourself, yet you continue to look back with an expression that very nearly resembles that of fright."

"I do not fear for myself," she said, quite artlessly; "it is for you that I fear. M. de Berquin will surely try to revenge himself for the humiliation you gave him."

A joyous thrill sent the blood to my cheeks. Without disguising my feelings, I turned and looked at her. Doubtless the gladness that shone in my eyes told her what was in my heart. Realizing that her frank and gentle demonstration of solicitude was a confession to be received with ineffable delight by the man to whom it was tendered, she dropped her eyes and a deep blush overspread her face. For some time no word pa.s.sed between us; enough had been said. I knew that the look in my eyes had told more, a thousand times, than all the extravagant compliments with which I had, half banteringly, deluged her at the inn.

We might, by hard riding, have reached Maury on the night of that day, but mademoiselle's comfort was to be considered, and, moreover, I desired to throw De Berquin off our track before going to our hiding-place.

Therefore, when Clochonne was yet some leagues before us, we turned into a by-way, and stopped at an obscure inn at the end of a small village.

This hostelry was a mere hut, consisting of a kitchen and one other apartment, and was kept by an old couple as stupid and avaricious as any of their cla.s.s. The whole place, such as it was, was at our disposal. The one private room was given over to mademoiselle and Jeannotte for the night, it being decided that I and Blaise should share the kitchen with the inn-keeper and his wife, while the two boys should sleep in an outer shed with the horses.

Roused from sluggishness by the sight of a gold piece, which Blaise displayed, the old couple succeeded in getting for us a pa.s.sable supper, which we had served to us on the end of an old wine-b.u.t.t outside the inn, as the kitchen was intolerably smoky.

"A poor place, mademoiselle," said I, ashamed of having conducted so delicate a creature to this miserable hovel.

"What would you have?" she replied, with a pretty attempt to cover her dejection by a show of cheerfulness. "One cannot flee, for one's liberty, through the forest, and live in a chateau at the same time."

As for the others, hunger and fatigue made any fare and shelter welcome.

Blaise, in particular, found the wine acceptable. Conscious of the glances of Jeannotte, now flashing, now demure, he strove to outdo himself in one of his happiest accomplishments, that of drinking. The two boys, Hugo and Pierre, emulated his achievements, and only the presence of mademoiselle deterred our party from becoming a noisy one.

Blaise became more and more exuberant as he made the wine flow the more generously. Seeing a way of diverting mademoiselle from her sad thoughts, I set him to telling of the things he had done in battle when controlled by the sanguinary spirit of his father. He had a manner of narrating these deeds of slaughter, which took all the horror out of them, and made them rather comical than of any other description. He soon had mademoiselle smiling, the maid laughing, and the two boys looking on him with open-eyed admiration. Finding Jeannotte and the boys so well entertained, mademoiselle allowed them to remain with Blaise when she retired to her room.

I followed her to the inn door, and bade her rest without fear, a.s.suring her that I would die ere the least harm should befall her.

"Nay," she answered smiling, "I would endure much harm rather than buy security at such a price."

For an instant her smooth and delicate fingers lay in mine. Then they were swiftly withdrawn, and she pa.s.sed in, while I stood outside to muse, in the gathering dusk, upon the great change that had come over the world since my first meeting with her, six hours before. The very stars and sky seemed to smile upon me; the moonlight seemed to shine for me consciously with a greater softness; the very smell of the earth and gra.s.s and trees had grown sweeter to me. I thought how barren, though I had not known it, the world had been before this transformation, and how unendurable to me would be a return of that barrenness.

I rejoined the now somewhat boisterous party at the wine-b.u.t.t in time to catch Blaise making an attempt to kiss Jeannotte, who was maintaining a fair pretence of resistance. She seemed rather displeased at my return, for as Blaise, unabashedly, continued his efforts, she was compelled, in order to make her coyness seem real to me, to break from him, and flee into the inn.

Blaise, in whom the spirit of his father was now manifestly gaming the ascendancy, consoled himself for the absence of Jeannotte by drinking more heroically and betaking to song. The boys labored a.s.siduously to keep him company. Finally the stalwart fellow, Hugo, succ.u.mbed to the effects of the wine, and staggered off to the shed. Pierre followed him a few minutes later, and Blaise was left alone with the remains of the wine. The landlord and his wife had retired to rest, on their pallets on the kitchen floor, some time before. Blaise sat on a log, singing to himself and cursing imaginary enemies, until all the wine at hand was exhausted. Then he let me lead him into the kitchen, where he immediately dropped to the floor, rolled over on his back, and began snoring with the vigor that characterized all his vocal manifestations.

Making a pillow of my cloak, I lay down beside him, and tried to sleep; but the stale air of the kitchen, the new thoughts to which my mind clung with delight, the puzzling questions that sought to displace those thoughts, and the tremendous snoring of both the landlord and his wife, as well as of Blaise, made slumber impossible to me. I therefore rose, and went out of the inn. At a short distance away was a smooth, gra.s.sy knoll, now bathed in moonlight. I decided to make this my couch. I had proceeded only a few steps from the inn when the silence of the early night was disturbed by the sound of footsteps on the crisp, fallen leaves in the woods close at hand.

The smallness of the village and the obscurity of the locality gave importance to every sound, proceeding from a human source, at this hour.

I, therefore, dropped behind the thick stump of a tree, where I might see and hear without being observed. Presently a figure emerged from the edge of the wood and moved cautiously towards the inn. It stopped, made a gesture towards the wood, and then continued its course. Three more figures then came out of the wood, one very tall, one exceedingly broad, and the third extremely thin. They came on with great caution, and finally joined the first comer near the inn. By this time I had recognized the leader as my old friend, Barbemouche. The others were his companions.

I awaited their further proceedings with curiosity. Was it in quest of us, at the behest of De Berquin, that they had come hither so cautiously and without their horses? Very probably. Doubtless, from afar, they had seen us turn into the byway which, as one or more of them perhaps knew, led to this inn and to no other. It was not likely that, having certainly made some bargain with De Berquin, and being moneyless, they had quitted his service so soon. Yet, if they were now carrying out orders of his against mademoiselle or against me, the supposed lackey who had incurred his wrath, why was he not with them? I hoped soon to see these questions answered by the doings of the rascals themselves.

The fat ruffian sank down, with a heavy sigh of relief, on the log where Blaise had sat. He pulled down with him the thin fellow, who had been clutching his arm as if for support. The latter had a wavy, yellow beard, a feminine manner, and a dandified air, as if he might once have been a fop at the court before descending to the rags which now covered him. The fat hireling had a face on which both good nature and pugnacity were depicted. At present he was puffing from his exertions afoot. The most striking figure of the group was that of the tall rascal. He was gaunt, angular and erect, throwing out his chest, and wearing a solemn and meditative mien upon his weather-beaten face. This visage, long enough in its frame-work, was further extended by a great, pointed beard. There was something of grandeur about this cadaverous, frowning, Spanish-looking wreck of a warrior, as he stood thoughtfully leaning upon a huge two-handed sword, which he had doubtless obtained in the pillage of some old armory.

"The place seems closed as tight as the gates of Heaven to a heretic,"

growled Barbemouche, scrutinizing the inn.

The tall fellow here awoke from his reverie, and spoke in solemn, deliberate tones:

"Would it not be well to wake up the landlord and try his wine?"

"Wake up the devil!" cried Barbemouche angrily. "n.o.body is to be waked up. We are simply to find out whether they are here, and then go back to the Captain. Your unquenchable thirst will take you to h.e.l.l before your time, Francois."

"It is astonishing," put in the fat fellow, looking at the tall, lean Francois, "how so few gallons of body can hold so many gallons of wine."