Pa.s.sepoil, who was always interested in affairs of the heart, put in his word. "Why doesn't he marry her?"

aesop was ready to explain that matter also: "Because Gabrielle de Caylus is already secretly married to Louis de Nevers. They were married one year ago in the chapel of Caylus, and the only witnesses were Louis de Gonzague and his factotum, Monsieur Peyrolles, who has summoned us to this tryst."

"Why were they secretly married?" asked the amorous Pa.s.sepoil.

aesop answered him: "An old family feud between the houses of Nevers and Caylus. The marquis would rather kill his daughter than let her marry Louis de Nevers. So they were wedded secretly, without his knowledge, and Louis de Gonzague, that could deny his dear friend and cousin, Louis de Nevers, nothing, helped him to his wife."

"That was generous, at least," Pa.s.sepoil sighed.

aesop sneered. "He hoped, as he believed with reason, that there would be no issue of the marriage, and that by-and-by he would come to what he called his own. But three months ago a daughter was born to the nuptials of Nevers, and that is why we are here to-night. Monsieur Peyrolles would pretend that it is the old marquis who is using us, the old marquis who is suspicious of an amour between his daughter and Nevers. But I know better."

"How do you know all this?" Cocarda.s.se inquired.

aesop shrugged his shoulders. "My good fellow," he said, "it is my business to know everything that is worth knowing in my trade. There are very few n.o.ble houses in France that can hope to hold any secrets from me. You may take my word for it--that is how matters stand."

Staupitz and his five swordsmen sat silent and puzzled, leaving the ball of conversation to be tossed between Cocarda.s.se, Pa.s.sepoil, and aesop.

Cocarda.s.se spoke next: "An ugly job. There's only one man alive to match Louis de Nevers."

Something almost approaching a human smile distorted the wrinkled face of aesop and made it appear more than usually repulsive. "You mean me," he said, and the smirk deepened, only to dissipate quickly as Cocarda.s.se replied:

"Devil a bit. I mean the little Parisian, Henri de Lagardere."

"The best swordsman in Paris!" Pa.s.sepoil cried, enthusiastically.

"The best swordsman in France!" Cocarda.s.se shouted.

Pa.s.sepoil commented again: "The best swordsman in Europe."

Cocarda.s.se, not to be outdone, put the final touch to the picture: "The best swordsman in the world."

The name of Lagardere seemed to make a marked impression upon the company. Every man seemed to have his contribution to make to the history of the little Parisian.

Faenza was the first to speak.

"I met your Lagardere once," he said, "at a fencing-school in Milan, where half a dozen French gentlemen met half a dozen gentlemen of my nationality in a match to test the merits of the French and Italian methods of fence. This Lagardere of yours was the only one whom I had any difficulty in overcoming."

Cocarda.s.se gave an ironic snort. It was evident that he did not in the least believe the latter part of Faenza's narrative. Joel de Jurgan took up the thread of reminiscence.

"If your Lagardere be the same as the man I am thinking of," he said, "I came across him a couple of years ago at the fair of Neuilly. We had a pa.s.sage of arms, and I think I gave him a cut on the head, but it took me some time, I promise you."

Cocarda.s.se glared at the speaker, but said nothing, though the word "liar" was plainly expressed in his scornful glance. Joel, impressed by his angry face, hastened to add, with the air of one that praises an adversary in the handsomest manner, "I swear he was the best fellow, second to myself, that I ever met with the rapier."

"I have met him," grunted Staupitz. "He touched me once in a bout of twelve points. That was a triumph for him, to my thinking."

Pepe added: "He fought with me once in Madrid, and got off without a scratch. That says a good deal for his skill, I'm thinking."

Saldagno and Pinto were silent. They looked curiously at Pepe, but they nodded their heads approvingly.

Thus each of the bravos had his eager tale to tell, and would have told more but that Cocarda.s.se waved them into silence with his large hand.

"There is only one Lagardere," he said, and looked as if the subject were ended.

aesop yawned. "I should like to meet your Lagardere."

Cocarda.s.se eyed him ironically. "Sword in hand?" he questioned. "When that day comes, pray for your soul."

aesop shrugged his shoulders, and with an air of indifference produced a watch and consulted its dial. "Friends," he said, "this is the hour fixed for the arrival of Monsieur Peyrolles, and I think I hear footsteps in the pa.s.sage."

Instantly the Gascon seemed animated by a hurried purpose. He sprang to Staupitz's side, and, catching him by the shoulder, shook him vehemently.

"We must be well paid to face the thrust of Nevers. Let me bargain for you. Back me up, and those that are alive to-night will have money in pocket to-morrow."

III

A BUYER OF BLADES

Staupitz and his companions seemed to place implicit confidence in the superior diplomatic powers of their Gascon comrade, and to have been seriously impressed by the gravity of his statement concerning the thrust of Nevers, so death-dealing, so unwardable, so almost magically fatal, for they readily agreed to his proposition. Places were rapidly found for Cocarda.s.se and Pa.s.sepoil at the table. aesop returned to his seat and his little sinful book. It was deepening dusk by now, but the hunchback knew his Aretino by heart, and the open page was a pretence. So he mused by the window, and sat nursing his knee moodily. Those at the table seemed busy drinking, and heedless of all things save drink, when the side-door of the room, that led through the kitchen to the yard, opened, and the man they were expecting entered. It was characteristic of the man to make his appearance so slyly, surrept.i.tiously, sidling, and roundabout, where another would have stepped in direct. At the heels of the new-comer tiptoed Martine, swinging, for precaution against the thickening dusk, a dingy lantern whose provision of fish-oil emitted a pitiful light that scarcely bettered the growing blackness. This lantern the girl set upon the head of an empty barrel that stood in a corner, and its fitful, shivering rays, faintly illuminating the murkiness around, was at least strong enough to allow any philosopher among the bravos--and aesop was in his way a philosopher--to observe and moralize upon the contrast between the appearance of this Monsieur Peyrolles who employed bravos and the bravos that this Monsieur Peyrolles employed.

Monsieur Peyrolles was a tall, thin, middle-aged man of pale complexion.

Like aesop and like Pa.s.sepoil, he was dressed in black, as became the confidential servant of a master with many confidences; but, unlike the amorous aesop and unlike the amorous Pa.s.sepoil--though the two men were amorous after a very different fashion--his garments were of fine quality and fine cut, with much costly lace at his yellow neck, and much costly lace about the wrists of yellow hands that to a casual glance might, in their affected ease, have pa.s.sed for patrician. Like Pa.s.sepoil, he carried a sword, and, like Pa.s.sepoil, he knew how to use it, although, unlike Pa.s.sepoil, he was really of a timid disposition, and never engaged in any encounter in which he was not certain that his skill was far superior to that of his opponent.

He affected the manners of a fine gentleman, and modelled himself as much as he dared upon the carriage of his master, when his master was not by, and, like the most of such copying apes, he overdid the part. His face was curiously unpleasant, long and yellowish white and inexpressive, with drooping eyelids masking pale, shifty eyes, with a drooping, ungainly nose, and a mouth that seemed like a mistake of nature.

When Martine had placed her lantern to her satisfaction upon its Bacchic pedestal, she slipped from the room as quietly as she had entered it, answering as she went, with a glance of disdain, the pa.s.sion of admiration that glowed in the eyes and twitched in the fingers of Norman Pa.s.sepoil. The people that kept that evil Inn, the people that served that evil Inn, always left their sinister customers to themselves to kiss or kill, as best pleased them.

On the entrance of Monsieur Peyrolles the bravos rose and saluted him ceremoniously. If there was any hidden mockery, any latent contempt, any unconscious hate felt by the brave scoundrels for the cowardly scoundrel in their reverence, it was not evident to the new-comer, who took the greetings with offensive condescension, eying the bandits over the lace edges of his kerchief.

Staupitz advanced some few feet to greet him. "Welcome, Monsieur Peyrolles," he said. Then, pointing with an air of introduction to the fantastic, many-colored, huge-hatted, big-booted gang of ruffians ranged about the table, he added, "My children."

In the dim light Peyrolles peered derisively at the different members of the party. "They seem a choice set of ruffians," he observed, with the labored impertinence that seemed to him a copy of his master's nonchalance.

Staupitz laughed thickly. "No better blades between here and world's end." He pointed first at his comrades, as if to imply that he spoke allegorically; then he pointed to the row of rapiers dangling against the wall, to prove that he also spoke practically and by the card.

"After all," said Peyrolles, "that is the important matter. I come to tell you how to earn your pay."

By this time Staupitz and the others had resumed their seats and were staring fixedly at Peyrolles, something to that worthy personage's embarra.s.sment. Staupitz having said his say, dropped into silence, and Cocarda.s.se leaned forward, a.s.serting himself. "We are all attention," he declared; and Pa.s.sepoil, faithful echo by his side, murmured, "We are all attention," and allowed himself to wonder what had become of Martine, and to regret that business did not permit him to go to look for her.

Peyrolles began to explain. "Wait in the moat to-night at ten o'clock."

Staupitz interrupted him. "Ten o'clock?" he cried. "The devil! it will be pretty dark by ten."

"I think there should be a moon about ten," aesop observed, quietly, with his exasperating air of all knowledge.

"Yes, yes," Peyrolles went on, sharply, irritated at being stayed in his instructions, "there will be a moon, no doubt, but we do not want too much light for this business. Well, then, wait in the moat at ten. I do not think you will have to wait long. Then, or thenabouts, a cavalier coming by the mountain road will tie his horse to a tree beyond the bridge that spans the ravine. He will cross the bridge and walk to yonder window hard by the postern."

Peyrolles paused as if he had nothing more to say, and took it for granted that his hearers understood his drift. But one of them seemed to desire more explicit information.