"And therefore," he retorted, "Madame, whose carriage this is, must not travel with me!"

"No, since she cannot travel without me," I answered with spirit.

He frowned at that; but in a moment, "And why?" he said with a sneer. "Am I not good enough for your excellency's company?"

"It is not a question of goodness," I said bluntly, "but of a pa.s.sport, Monsieur. If you ask me, I do not travel with you because I hold a commission under the present Government, and I believe you to be working against that Government. I have lied for Madame St. Alais and her daughter. She was a woman and I had to save her. But I will not lie for you, nor be your cloak. Is that plain, Monsieur?"

"Quite," he said slowly. "Yet I serve the King. Whom do you serve?"

I was silent.

"Whose is this commission, Monsieur, that must not be contaminated?"

I writhed under the sneer, but I was silent.

"Come, M. le Vicomte," he continued frankly, and in a different tone. "Be yourself, I pray. I am Froment, you have guessed it. I am also a fugitive, and were my name spoken in Villeraugues, a league on, I should hang for it. And in Ganges the like. I am at your mercy, therefore, and I ask you to shelter me. Let me pa.s.s through Sumene and Ganges as one of your party; thenceforth onwards," he added with a smile and a gesture of conscious pride, "I can shift for myself."

I do not wonder I hesitated, I wonder I resisted. It seemed so small a thing to ask, so great a thing to refuse, that, though half a minute before my mind had been made up, I wavered; wavered miserably. I felt my face burn, I felt the pa.s.sionate ardour of Madame's eyes as they devoured it, I felt the call of the silence for my answer. And I was near a.s.senting. But as I turned feverishly in my seat to avoid Madame's look, my hand touched the packet which contained the commission, and the contact wrought a revulsion of feeling. I saw the thing as I had seen it before, and, rightly or wrongly, revolted from that which I had nearly done.

"No," I cried angrily. "I will not! I will not!"

"You coward!" Madame cried with sudden pa.s.sion. And she sprang up as if to strike me, but sat down again trembling.

"It may be," I said. "But I will not do it."

"Why? Why? Why?" she cried.

"Because I carry that commission; and to use it to shelter M. Froment were a thing M. Froment would not do himself. That is all."

He shrugged his shoulders, and magnanimously kept silence. But she was furious. "Quixote!" she cried. "Oh, you are intolerable! But you shall suffer for it. Eh, bien, Monsieur, you shall suffer for it!" she repeated vehemently.

"Nay, Madame, you need not threaten," I retorted.

"For if I would, I could not. You forget that M. de Geol is no more than a league behind us, and bound for Nimes; he may appear at any moment. At best he is sure to lodge where we do to-night. If he finds," I continued drily, "that I have added a brother to my growing family, I do not think that he will take it lightly."

But this, though she must have seen the sense of it, had no effect upon her. "Oh, you are intolerable!" she cried again. "Let me out! Let me out, Monsieur."

This last to Froment. I did not gainsay her, and he let her out, and the two walked a few paces away, talking rapidly.

I followed them with my eyes; and seeing him now, detached, as it were, and solitary in that dreary landscape--a man alone and in danger--I began to feel some compunction. A moment more, and I might have repented; but a touch fell on my sleeve, and I turned with a start to find Denise leaning towards me, with her face rapt and eager.

"Monsieur," she whispered eagerly; before she could say more I seized the hand with which she had touched me, and kissed it fiercely.

"No, Monsieur, no," she whispered, drawing it from me with her face grown crimson--but her eyes still met mine frankly. "Not now. I want to speak to you, to warn you, to ask you----"

"And I, Mademoiselle," I cried in the same low tone, "want to bless you, to thank you----"

"I want to ask you to take care of yourself," she persisted, shaking her head almost petulantly at me, to silence me. "Listen! Some trap will be laid for you. My mother would not harm you, though she is angry; but that man is desperate, and we are in straits. Be careful, therefore, Monsieur, and----"

"Have no fear," I said.

"Ah, but I have fear," she answered.

And the way in which she said that, and the way in which she looked at me, and looked away again like a startled bird, filled me with happiness--with intense happiness; so that, though Madame came back at that moment, and no more pa.s.sed between us, not even a look, but we had to sink back in our seats, and affect indifference, I was a different man for it. Perhaps something of this appeared in my face, for Madame, as she came up to the door, shot a suspicious glance at me, a glance almost of hatred; and from me looked keenly at her daughter. However, nothing was said except by Froment, who came up to the door and closed it, after she had entered. He raised his hat to me.

"M. le Vicomte," he said, with a little bitterness, "if a dog came to my door, as I came to you to-day, I would take him in!"

"You would do as I have done," I said.

"No," he said firmly; "I would take him in. Nevertheless, when we meet at Nimes, I hope to convert you."

"To what?" I said coldly.

"To having a little faith," he answered, with dryness. "To having a little faith in something--and risking somewhat for it, Monsieur. I stand here," he went on, with a gesture that was not without grandeur, "alone and homeless, to-day; I do not know where I shall lie to-night. And why, M. le Vicomte? Because I alone in France have faith! Because I alone believe in anything! Because I alone believe even in myself! Do you think," he continued with rising scorn, "that if you n.o.bles believed in your n.o.bility, you could be unseated? Never! Or that if you, who say 'Long live the King!' believed in your King, he could be unseated? Never! Or that if you who profess to obey the Church believed in her, she could be uprooted? Never! But you believe in nothing, you admire nothing, you reverence nothing--and therefore you are doomed! Yes, doomed; for even the men with whom you have linked yourself have a sort of b.a.s.t.a.r.d faith in their theories, their philosophy, their reforms, that are to regenerate the world. But you--you believe in nothing; and you shall pa.s.s, as you pa.s.s from me now!"

He waved his hand with a gesture of menace, and before I could answer, the carriage rolled on, and left him standing there; the grey landscape, cold and barren, took the place of his face at the door. The light was beginning to fail; we were still a league from Villeraugues. I was glad to feel the carriage moving, and to be free from him; my heart, too, was warm because Denise sat opposite me, and I loved her. But for all that--and though Madame, glowering at me from her corner, troubled me little--the thought that I had deserted him--that, and his words, and one word in particular, hummed in my head, and oppressed me with a sense of coming ill. "Doomed! Doomed!" He had said it as if he meant it. I could no longer question his eloquence. I could no longer be ignorant why they called him the firebrand of Nimes. The hot breath of the southern city had come from him; the pa.s.sion of world-old strifes had spoken in his voice. Uneasily I pondered over what he had said, and recalled the words spoken by Father Benoit, even by Geol, to the same effect; and so brooded in my corner, while the carriage jolted on and darkness fell, until presently we stopped in the village street.

I offered Madame St. Alais my arm to descend. "No, Monsieur," she said, repelling me with pa.s.sion; "I will not touch you."

She meant, I think, to seclude herself and Mademoiselle, and leave me to sup alone. But in the inn there was only one great room for parlour, and kitchen, and all; and a little cupboard, veiled by a dingy curtain, in which the women might sleep if they pleased, but in which they could not possibly eat. The inn was, in fact, the worst in which I had stopped--the maid draggled and dirty, and smelling of the stable; the company three boors; the floor of earth; the windows unglazed. Madame, accustomed to travel, and supported by her anger, took all with the ease of a fine lady; but Denise, fresh from her convent, winced at the brawling and oaths that rose round her, and cowered, pale and frightened, on her stool.

A hundred times I was on the point of interfering to protect her from these outrages; but her eyes, when they made me happy by timidly seeking mine for an instant, seemed to pray me to abstain; and the men, as their senseless tirades showed, were delegates from Castres, who at a word would have raised the cry of "Aristocrats!" I refrained, therefore, and doubtless with wisdom; but even the arrival of Geol would have been a welcome interruption.

I have said that Madame heeded them little; but it presently appeared that I was mistaken. After we had supped, and when the noise was at its height, she came to me, where I sat a little apart, and, throwing into her tone all the anger and disgust which her face so well masked, she cried in my ear that we must start at daybreak.

"At daybreak--or before!" she whispered fiercely. "This is horrible! horrible!" she continued. "This place is killing me! I would start now, cold and dark as it is, if----"

"I will speak to them," I said, taking a step towards the table.

She clutched my sleeve, and pinched me until I winced. "Fool!" she said. "Would you ruin us all? A word, and we are betrayed. No; but at daybreak we go. We shall not sleep; and the moment it is light we go!"

I consented, of course; and, going to the driver, who had taken our place at the table, she whispered him also, and then came back to me, and bade me call him if he did not rise. This settled, she went towards the closet, whither Mademoiselle had already retired; but unfortunately her movements had drawn on her the attention of the clowns at the table, and one of these, rising suddenly as she pa.s.sed, intercepted her.

"A toast, Madame! a toast!" he cried, with a gross hiccough; and reeling on his feet, he thrust a cup of wine in front of her. "A toast; and one that every man, woman, and child in France must drink, or be d----d! And that is the Tricolour! The Tricolour; and down with Madame Veto! The Tricolour, Madame! Drink to it!"

The drunken wretch pressed the cup on her, while his comrades roared, "Drink! Drink! The Tricolour; and down with Madame Veto!" and added jests and oaths I will not write.

This was too much; I sprang to my feet to chastise the wretches. But Madame, who preserved her presence of mind to a marvel, checked me by a glance. "No," she said, raising her head proudly; "I will not drink!"

"Ah!" he cried with a vile laugh. "An aristocrat, are we? Drink, nevertheless, or we shall show you----"

"I will not drink!" she retorted, facing him with superb courage. "And more, when M. de Geol arrives to-night, you will have to give an account to him."

The man's face fell. "You know the Baron de Geol?" he said in a different tone.

"I left him at the last village, and I expect him here to-night," she answered coolly. "And I would advise you, Monsieur, to drink your own toasts, and let others go! For he is not a man to brook an insult!"

The brawler shrugged his shoulders, to hide his mortification. "Oh! if you are a friend of his," he muttered, preparing to slink back to the table, "I suppose it is all right. He is a good man. No offence. If you are not an aristocrat----"

"I am no more of an aristocrat than is M. de Geol," she answered. And, with a cold bow, she turned, and went to the closet.

The men were a little less noisy after that; for Madame had rightly guessed that Geol's name was known and respected. They presently wrapped themselves in their cloaks, and lay down on the floor; and I did the same, pa.s.sing the night, in the result, in greater comfort than I expected.

At first, it is true, I did not sleep; but later I fell into an uneasy slumber, and, pa.s.sing from one troubled dream to another--for which I had, doubtless, to thank the foul air of the room--I awoke at last with a start, to find some one leaning over me. Apparently it was still night, for all was quiet; but the red embers of the fire glowed on the hearth, and dimly lit up the room, enabling me to see that it was Madame St. Alais who had roused me. She pointed to the other men, who still lay snoring.

"Hush!" she whispered, with her finger on her lip. "It is after five. Jules is harnessing the horses. I have paid the woman here, and in five minutes we shall be ready."

"But the sun will not rise for another hour," I answered. This was early starting with a vengeance!

Madame, however, had set her heart upon it. "Do you want to expose us to more of this?" she said, in a furious whisper. "To keep us here until Geol arrives, perhaps?"

"I am ready, Madame," I said.

This satisfied her; she flitted away without any more, and disappeared behind the curtain, and I heard whispering. I put on my boots, and, the room being very cold, stooped a moment over the fire, and drawing the embers together with my foot, warmed myself. Then I put on my cravat and sword, which I had removed, and stood ready to start. It seemed uselessly early; and we had started so early the day before! If Madame wished it, however, it was my place to give way to her.

In a moment she came to me again; and I saw, even by that light, that her face was twitching with eagerness. "Oh!" she said; "will he never come? That man will be all day. Go and hasten him, Monsieur! If Geol comes? Go, for pity's sake, and hasten him!"

I wondered, thinking such haste utterly vain and foolish--it was not likely that Geol would arrive at this hour; but, concluding that Madame's nerves had failed at last, I thought it proper to comply, and, stepping carefully over the sleepers, reached the door. I raised the latch, and in a moment was outside, and had closed the door behind me. The bitter dawn wind, laden with a fine snow, lashed my cheeks, and bit through my cloak, and made me shiver. In the east the daybreak was only faintly apparent; in every other quarter it was still night, and, for all I could see, might be midnight.

Very little in charity with Madame, I picked my way, shivering, to the door of the stable--a mean hovel, in a line with the house, and set in a sea of mud. It was closed, but a dim yellow light, proceeding from a window towards the farther end, showed me where Jules was at work; and I raised the latch, and called him. He did not answer, and I had to go in to him, pa.s.sing behind three or four wretched nags--some on their legs and some lying down--until I came to our horses, which stood side by side at the end, with the lantern hung on a hook near them.

Still I did not see Jules, and I was standing wondering where he was--for he did not answer--when, with a whish, something black struck me in the face. It blinded me; in a moment I found myself struggling in the folds of a cloak, that completely enveloped my face, while a grip of iron seized my arms and bound them to my sides. Taken completely by surprise, I tried to shout, but the heavy cloak stifled me; when, struggling desperately, I succeeded in uttering a half-choked cry, other hands than those which held me pressed the cloak more tightly over my face. In vain I writhed and twisted, and, half-suffocated, tried to free myself. I felt hands pa.s.s deftly over me, and knew that I was being robbed. Then, as I still resisted, the man who held me from behind tripped me up, and I fell, still in his grasp, on my face on the ground.

Fortunately I fell on some litter; but, even so, the shock drove the breath out of me; and what with that and the cloak, which in this new position threatened to strangle me outright, I lay a moment helpless, while the wretches bound my hands behind me, and tied my ankles together. Thus secured, I felt myself taken up, and carried a little way, and flung roughly down on a soft bed--of hay, as I knew by the scent. Then some one threw a truss of hay on me, and more and more hay, until I thought that I should be stifled, and tried frantically to shout. But the cloak was wound two or three times round my head, and, strive as I would, I could only, with all my efforts, force out a dull cry, that died, smothered in its folds.

CHAPTER XVIII.

A POOR FIGURE.

I did not struggle long. The efforts I had made to free myself from the men, and this last exertion of striving to shout, brought the blood to my head; and so exhausted me that I lay inert, my heart panting as if it would suffocate me, and my lungs craving more air. I was in danger of being stifled in earnest, and knew it; but, fortunately, the horror of this fate, which a minute before had driven me to frantic efforts, now gave me the supreme courage to lie still, and, collecting myself, do all I could to get air.

It was time I did. I was hot as fire, and sweating at every pore; however the dreadful sensation of choking went off somewhat when I had lain a while motionless, and by turning my head and chest a little to the side--which I succeeded in doing, though I could not raise myself--I breathed more freely. Still, my position was horrible. Helpless as I was, with the trusses of hay pressing on me, fresh pains soon rose to take the place of those allayed. The bonds on my wrists began to burn into my flesh, the hilt of my sword forced itself into my side, my back seemed to be breaking under the burden, my shoulders ached intolerably. I was being slowly, slowly pressed to death, in darkness, and when a cry--a single cry, if I could raise my voice--would bring relief and succour!

The thought so maddened me that, fancying after an age of this suffering that I heard a faint sound as of some one moving in the stable, I lost control of myself, and fell to struggling again; while groans broke from me instead of cries, and the bonds cut into my arms. But the paroxysm only added to my misery; the person, whoever he was, did not hear me, and made no further noise; or, if he did, the blood coursing to my head, and swelling the veins of my neck almost to bursting, deafened me to the sound. The horrible weight that I had raised for a moment sank again. I gave up, I despaired; and lay in a kind of swoon, unable to think, unable to remember, no longer hoping for relief, or planning escape, but enduring.

I must have lain thus some time, when a noise loud enough to reach my dulled ears roused me afresh; I listened, at first with half a heart. The noise was repeated; then, without further warning, a sharp pain darted through the calf of my leg. I screamed out; and, though the cloak and the hay over my head choked the cry, I caught a kind of echo of it. Then silence.

Stupid as a in an awakened from sleep, I thought for a moment that I had dreamed both the cry and the pain; and groaned in my misery. The next moment I felt the hay that lay on me move; then the truss that pressed most heavily on me was lifted, and I heard voices and cries, and saw a faint light, and knew I was freed. In a twinkling I felt myself seized and drawn out, amid a murmur of cries and exclamations. The cloak was plucked from my head, and, dazzled and half blind, I found half a dozen faces gaping and staring at me.

"Why, mon Dieu! it is the gentleman who departed this morning!" cried a woman. And she threw up her hands in astonishment.

I looked at her. She was the woman of the house.

My throat was dry and parched, my lips were swollen; but at the second attempt I managed to tell her to untie me.

She complied, amid fresh exclamations of surprise and astonishment; then, as I was so stiff and benumbed as to be powerless, they lifted me to the door of the stable, where one set a stool, and another brought a cup of water. This and the cold air restored me, and in a minute or two I was able to stand. Meanwhile they pressed me with questions; but I was giddy and confused, and could not for a few minutes collect myself. By-and-by, however, a person who came up with an air of importance, and pushed aside the crowd of clowns and stable-helpers that surrounded me, helped me to find my voice.

"What is it?" he said. "What is it, Monsieur? What brought you in the stable?"

The woman who kept the inn answered for me that she did not know; that one of the men going to get hay had struck his fork into my leg, and so found me.

"But who is he?" the new-comer asked imperatively. He was a tall, thin man, with a sour face and small, suspicious eyes.

"I am the Vicomte de Saux," I answered.

"Eh!" he said, prolonging the syllable. "And how came you, M. le Vicomte--if that be your name--in the stable?"

"I have been robbed," I muttered.

"Bobbed!" he answered with a sniff. "Bah! Monsieur; in this commune we have no robbers."

"Still, I have been robbed," I answered stupidly.

For answer, before I knew what he was about, he plunged his hand, without ceremony or leave, into the pocket of my coat, and brought out a purse. He held it up for all to see. "Robbed?" he said in a tone of irony. "I think not, Monsieur; I think not!"

I looked at the purse in astonishment; then, mechanically putting my hand into my pocket, I produced first one thing, and then another, and stared at them. He was right. I had not been robbed. Snuff-box, handkerchief, my watch and seals, my knife, and a little mirror, and book--all were there!

"And now I come to think of it," the woman said, speaking suddenly, "there are a pair of saddle-bags in the house that must belong to the gentleman! I was wondering a while ago whose they were."

"They are mine!" I cried, memory and sense returning. "They are mine! But the ladies who were with me? They have not started?"

"They went these three hours back," the woman answered, staring at me. "And I could have sworn that Monsieur went with them! But, to be sure, it was only just light, and a mistake is soon made."

A thought that should have occurred to me before--a horrible thought--darted its sting into my heart. I plunged my hand into the inner pocket of my coat, and drew it out empty. The commission--the commission to which I had trusted was gone!

I uttered a cry of rage and glared round me. "What is it?" said the sour man, meeting my eyes.

"My papers!" I answered, almost gnashing my teeth, as I thought how I had been tricked and treated. I saw it all now. "My papers!"

"Well?" he said.

"They are gone! I have been robbed of them!"

"Indeed!" he said drily. "That remains to be proved, Monsieur."

I thought that he meant that I might be mistaken, as I had been mistaken before; and, to make certain, I turned out the pocket.

"No," he said, as drily as before. "I see that they are not there. But the point is, Monsieur, were they ever there?"

I looked at him.