The Governor continued to address the commandant. "You brought him here?" incisively.

"Yes; your Excellency; a stupid fellow we arrested below for making trouble with his dolls, and--but with her ladyship's permission--"

awkwardly turning to the Governor's daughter, "I will explain."

To this appeal the girl, however, made no answer; as if fascinated, watched them, the commandant, her father, the still, white figure at one side--not far away!

"I think," the Governor spoke softly, "you will do that, anyway!"

"Exactly, your Excellency! It happened in this wise," and not without evidence of constraint and hesitation, the officer slowly related the story of the disturbance on the platform; the taking into custody of the rogues and knaves, and my lady's interest in the vagabond clown whose play had occasioned the riot.

"Because it was seditious, designed to set authority at naught?"

interrupted the listener, grimly eying for an instant the motionless form of the mountebank.

"On the contrary, your Excellency!" quickly. "Her ladyship a.s.sured me it was the loyal and faithful sentiments of the play that caused the unruly rascallions to make trouble, and that the clown deserved no punishment, because he had intended no mischief."

"Her ladyship?" The Governor's brows went suddenly up. "How," he asked at length in a voice yet softer, "should her ladyship have known about the 'loyal and faithful sentiments' of a piece, given in the town, before a crowd of brawlers?"

"Because I was a spectator!" said his daughter, a red spot now on her cheek; changing lights in her eyes.

"A spectator?" repeated, in mild surprise, the Governor.

"I will explain--after!" she added in tones, low, constrained.

"Hum!" His Excellency's glance swept to the commandant.

"Her ladyship was so good," murmured the latter in some embarra.s.sment and yet feeling obliged to speak, with that bright insistent gaze of the high official of the Mount fastened upon him, "as to inform me that, desiring to mingle with the people, and, knowing it might not be expedient to do so--in her own proper character--her ladyship saw fit to a.s.sume a humbler costume--that of a Norman peasant maid--"

From the Governor's lips fell an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n; he seemed about to speak sternly, but the words failed on his lips; instead, "Continue!" he said curtly.

"That, I believe, is all, your Excellency, except that her ladyship expressed the desire the stupid fellow be set at liberty on the morrow, as not worth the keeping--and--"

The mountebank started, as expecting now the Lady Elise to speak; to denounce him, perhaps; but it was his Excellency who interrupted.

"You were going to do so? To set him at liberty?"

"I, your Excellency? The _auberge des voleurs_ is so full of the sc.u.m of the sands, there is hardly room for them to squirm; but if your Excellency wishes all these paltry ragam.u.f.fins and beggars brought before you--"

"Well, well!" The Governor looked down; his hand crushed impatiently the paper he held. "Here is much ado about nothing! Have you," to his daughter, "aught to add?"

She lifted her head. Standing in a careless pose, apparently regardless of what was taking place, the mountebank, at the Governor's question, shot a quick glance from him to her. Although but an instant his look met my lady's, in that brief interval she read all that was lost on the other two; the sudden, desperate purpose, the indubitable intention, his warning glance conveyed. At the same time she noticed, or fancied she did, the hand thrust into his breast, as if grasping some weapon concealed there, draw out a little, while simultaneously, lending emphasis to the fact, he moved a shade nearer the Governor, her father!

"Nothing," said the girl hastily; "nothing!"

"Then," his Excellency waved a thin, aristocratic hand, "take him away!"

"And your--her ladyship's instructions?" murmured the commandant.

"Are to be obeyed, of course!" answered the Governor, complacently regarding his letter.

"You hear, fool?" said in a low voice the commandant, as he approached the clown. "Thank his Excellency! Don't you know enough? Clod!

Dolt!"

But the man made at first no effort to obey; immovable as a statue, seemed not to see the speaker, and once more, the officer half whispered his injunction.

"Eh?" The Governor turned.

"I thank your Excellency! Your Excellency is most kind!" said the mountebank in a loud, emphatic tone.

"And her ladyship?" prompted the officer.

The clown looked at the girl; her breath came fast through her parted lips.

"Speak, fool! To her ladyship you also owe much."

"Much!" repeated the clown, a spark in the dull gaze still fastened upon her.

"Is that all you can say?"

"Take him away!" My lady spoke almost wildly.

"Yes; take him away!" With a querulous gesture his Excellency put an end to the matter. "Am I to be interrupted in important affairs by every miserable _farceur_, or buffoon, you pick up on the beach? To the devil with the fellow!"

When the door had closed on the mountebank and the commandant, he turned to his daughter. "A madcap trick!" Frowningly his Excellency regarded her. "To have gone into the town and mingled with the rabble!

But," shaking his head and then suffering that expression of disapproval to relax into severity, "say no more about it! Here,"

indicating the letter, "is something of greater moment, to be attended to and answered!"

CHAPTER XX

THE MOUNTEBANK AND THE SOLDIER

As the mountebank walked out of the apartment of the Governor's daughter, he drew himself up with an air of expectancy, like a man preparing for some sudden climax. Once beyond the threshold, his eyes glanced furtively back at the closed door, and, descending the stairs to the floor below, he carried his head a little forward, as if intent to catch unwonted sound or outcry. But no raised voice or unusual noise reached his ear, and his footsteps, as the party issued forth into the street, responded briskly to the soldiers' pace. Still with the same air of strained attention, now mingled with a trace of perplexity, he followed his guard until called upon to stop.

"You are to sleep here!" As he spoke, the commandant opened the door of what seemed a low out-building, not very far from the general barracks, and motioned the mountebank to enter. The latter, after glancing quickly at the speaker and the soldiers behind, bent to step across the dark threshold, and, still stooping, on account of the low roof, looked around him. By the faint glimmer of light from a lantern one of the soldiers held, the few details of that squalid place were indistinctly revealed: A single stall whose long-eared occupant turned its head inquiringly at the abrupt appearance of a companion lodger; bits of harness and a number of traps hanging from pegs on the wall, and, near the door, on the ground, a bundle of gra.s.s, rough fodder from the marshes close by the sh.o.r.e. This last salt-smelling heap, the officer, peering in with a fastidious sniff, indicated.

"That's your bed! A softer one than you would have had but for the Lady Elise!"

The prisoner returned no answer, and in the voice of a man whose humor was not of the best, the commandant uttered a brief command. A moment or two the light continued to pa.s.s fitfully about the stable; then it and the moving shadows vanished; a key grated in the door, and the sound of the officer's receding footsteps was followed by the diminishing clatter of men's heels on the flagging stone. Not until both had fairly died away in the distance and the silence was broken only by certain indications of restiveness from the stall, did the prisoner move.

First, to the door, which he tried and shook; then, avoiding the pile of fodder, to the wall, where, feeling about the rough masonry with the energy of one who knew he had no time to spare, his hands, ere long, encountered the frame of a small window. Any gratification, however, he might have experienced thereat found its offset in the subsequent discovery that the window had heavy iron blinds, closed and fastened, and was further guarded by a single strong bar set in the middle, dividing the one inconsiderable aperture into two s.p.a.ces of impa.s.sable dimensions. But as if spurred by obstacles to greater exertions, fiercely the man grasped the metallic barrier, braced himself, and put forth his strength. In its setting of old masonry, the rod moved slightly; then more and more, and the prisoner, breathing a moment hard, girded himself anew. A wrench, a tug, and the bar, partly disintegrated, snapped in the middle, and holding the pieces, the prisoner fell somewhat violently back. Armed now with an implement that well might serve as a lever, he, nevertheless, paused before endeavoring to force the formidable fastenings of the blinds; paused to tear off the tight-fitting clown's cap; to doff the costume of the mountebank covering the rough, dark garments beneath, and vigorously to rub his face with some mixture he took from his pocket. He had made but a few pa.s.ses to remove the distinguishing marks of paint and pigment, when a sound without, in the distance, caused him to desist.

Footsteps, that grew louder, were coming his way, and, gripping his bar tighter the prisoner grimly waited; but soon his grasp relaxed. The sound was that of a single person, who now paused before the entrance; fumbled at the lock, and, with an impatient exclamation, set something down. At the same time the prisoner dropped his weapon and stooped for the discarded garments; in the dark, they escaped him and he was still searching, when the bolt, springing sharply back, caused him to straighten.

"Are you there, Monsieur Mountebank?" The door swung open; an uncertain light cast sickly rays once more within, and beneath the lantern, raised above his head, innocent of the danger he had just escaped, the round visage of the good-natured soldier who had escorted the mountebank to the _auberge des voleurs_ looked amicably and inquiringly into the darksome hovel.

"Yes; what do you want?" the answer came more curt than courteous.