And she went rapidly into the chateau, giving me no time in which to a.s.sure her that there was no reason for immediate alarm.

I wished to consider Marianne's news before communicating it to any of my men. I had to inquire of myself whether it called for any immediate action on my part. So that my meditations might not be interrupted, I left the chateau and walked into the forest.

For hours I considered the possible relations of the governor's arrival to mademoiselle's safety and my own, to that of my men and our cause, and to my intention of delivering M. de Varion from prison. But I could arrive at no conclusion, for I knew neither the governor's intentions, nor what information he had concerning me. There were so many probabilities and so many possible combinations of them, that at last I threw the whole matter from my mind, determining to await events. On the way back to the chateau I reproached myself for having wasted so much time in making useless guesses, for when I found myself at the gate it was night, and the moon had risen.

I stopped at the entrance and stood still to listen to the voice of Blaise, which rose in the courtyard in the words of a psalm. He sang it with a gentleness the very reverse of the feeling his voice had expressed in the war hymn a few hours earlier. From a sound that came between the words now and then, I knew that he was engaged in one of his favorite occupations, that of polishing his weapons.

Pleased to hear him singing in the moonlight, I stood at the gate, lest by entering I might interrupt the psalm.

Presently, at the end of the stanza, I heard another voice from the doorway of the chateau.

"Ah, Blaise," said Jeannotte, "it is the spirit of your mother that controls you now."

He made no answer, nor did he resume his singing. Then I recalled that for the past few days he had not shown his former susceptibility to the maid's charms; he had, indeed, exhibited towards her a kind of disapproving shyness. I had not attached any importance to this.

"Why do you not go on singing your psalm?" Jeannotte asked, coming nearer to him.

His answer was a strange one. It was spoken with a kind of contemptuous irony and searching interrogation. The words were:

"Mademoiselle's boy Pierre has not yet come back to us."

"What has that to do with your singing?" said Jeannotte. "We all know it very well. Poor Pierre! To think that he may have been taken by Monsieur de Berquin!"

"It is well that he did not know the place of our destination when he went away," said Blaise, in the same insignificant tone, "else M. de Berquin might torture the secret out of him, and carry it to the governor of the province, for M. de Berquin knows now that my master is La Tournoire. It would not be well for the boy, or any one else, to be the means of the governor's learning La Tournoire's hiding-place!"

After which words, spoken with a kind of ominous menace, Blaise abruptly left the girl, and strode around the corner of the chateau. The maid stood still a few moments, then went into the chateau.

Completely mystified, I crossed the courtyard and called Blaise.

"M. de la Chatre is at Clochonne," I said, abruptly, as soon as he was before me.

He stood still, returning my gaze. Presently he said:

"Do you think that he has learned where you are?"

"Through M. de Berquin?" I said, as if completing his question.

"Or any one else?" he said, in a low voice. "There was the boy who disappeared, for instance."

"But he did not know our hiding-place when he left. He did not know how near we then were to it. He did not then know that I was La Tournoire."

"But there was much talk of La Tournoire on the journey. Did you at any time drop any hint of this place, and how it might be reached?"

"None that could have reached his ears. I told only Mlle. de Varion, and we were quite alone when I did so."

Blaise looked at the ground in silence. After some time he gave a heavy sigh, and, raising his eyes, said:

"Monsieur, I have been thinking of many things of late. Certain matters have had a strange appearance. But,--well, perhaps my thoughts have been absurd, and, in short, I have nothing to say about them except this, monsieur, it is well to be on one's guard always against every one!"

I was about to ask him whether he meant that the boy Pierre had been guilty of eavesdropping and treachery, and to reprove him for that unworthy suspicion, when there was a noise at the gate. Looking thither, I saw two of my men, Sabray and Roquelin, conducting into the courtyard three starved-looking persons, who leaned wearily on one another's shoulders, and seemed ready to drop with fatigue.

"We found these wretches in the woods," explained Sabray. "They are Catholics, although that one tried to hide his cross and shouted, 'Down with the ma.s.s!' when we told them to surrender in the name of the Sieur de la Tournoire."

"It is true that I was a Catholic," whined the bedraggled fop who had belonged to De Berquin's band of four; "but I was just about to abjure when these men came up."

"I will abjure twice over, if it pleases monsieur," put in the tall Spanish-looking ruffian. "Nothing would delight me more than to be a Huguenot. By the windpipe of the Pope, for a flagon of wine I would be a Jew!"

"And I a d.a.m.ned infidel Turk," wearily added their fat comrade, "for a roast fowl, and a place to lay my miserable body!"

At this moment the fop's eyes fell on Blaise.

"Saint Marie!" he cried, falling to his knees. "We are dead men. It is the big fellow we trussed up at the inn!"

"Belly of Beelzebub, so it is!" bellowed Blaise, pulling out his sword.

Turning to Jeannotte, who had just reappeared in the courtyard, he roared: "It is now my father's spirit that controls me!"

Whereupon he fell to belaboring the three poor, weary, hungry, thirsty rascals with the flat of his sword, till all of them yelled in concert.

They were too limp to resist or even to run, and he had his way with them until Sabray and Roquelin howled with laughter. At last I ordered him to stop, and to confine the men in a chamber, where they should be fed and questioned. So they limped away moaning, driven like cattle by Blaise, who promised them as they went that they should not be put to the trouble of tying up honest people in the dark for some time to come. Jeannotte followed, out of curiosity, as did Sabray and Roquelin.

Left alone in the courtyard, I sat on the stone bench, which was now in part yellow with moonlight, and began to ponder. I could doubtless learn from the three captives whether De Berquin had had any hand in the coming of La Chatre to Clochonne. Anxious as I was to inform myself, I was yet in no mood to question the men at that moment, preferring to wait and hear the result of Blaise's interrogations.

While I was thinking, my arms folded and my eyes turned to the ground at my feet, I suddenly heard a deep sigh very near me.

I looked up and saw Mademoiselle de Varion standing before me in the moonlight. My gaze met hers, and in the delicious glow that her presence sent through me I forgot all in the world but her.

CHAPTER XIII.

HOW DE BERQUIN INVITED DEATH

"Mademoiselle!" I whispered, starting up and taking her hand.

She trembled slightly, and averted her look. But she did not draw away her hand.

"You are still disturbed by Marianne's news," I said. "But you have little more reason to fear when M. de la Chatre is at Clochonne than if he were at the other end of the province."

"Yet I do fear, monsieur," she said, in a low tone, "for your sake."

"Then if you will fear," said I, "I take great happiness in knowing that it is for me. But this is no place or time for fear. Look and listen. The moonlight, the sounds of the forest, the song of the nightingale, all speak of peace."

"The song of the nightingale may give place to the clash of swords and the cries of combat," she replied. "And because you have delayed here with me, you now risk the peril you are in."

"Peril is familiar company to me, mademoiselle," I said, gaily. "It comes and it goes. It is a very welcome guest when it brings with it the sweetest lady in the world."

Talking thus, I led her around the side of the chateau to the old garden appertaining to it, a place now wild with all kinds of forest growth, its former use indicated by a broken statue, a crumbling grotto, and in its centre an old sun-dial overgrown with creepers. The path to the sun-dial was again pa.s.sable, thanks to my frequent visits to the spot since my first arrival at Maury. It was up this path that we now went.