The Touchstone of Fortune Part 43

"And you allowed it to be carried out without telling us?" I asked indignantly.

"I did not know who the lady was till you came to me for help," he answered.

"And you were able to put us on the right track to find her because of knowledge gained from the stars?" I asked, with a sharp note of sarcasm.

"No, no," he replied coolly. "Why trouble the stars for information that may be had as easily and more definitely elsewhere?"

"Then why did you not tell us the true source of your knowledge?" I asked warmly.

"Because I had neither right nor desire to betray the person most actively engaged in the affair. To have done so might have cost me my life. I gave you the information you asked, and you saved the lady through my help, without which you would not have known where to turn.

You would have been helpless. You paid me ten guineas. Were my services worth the fee?"

"Ah, richly," I returned, beginning to see the whole matter of astrology in a new light.

"Then why do you complain?" he asked. "A man, naturally, wants to know where his meat comes from, but knowledge, like a diamond, is good found anywhere."

"I beg your pardon, Doctor Lilly," I answered, waving my hand as a subst.i.tute for hauling down my colors. "I turn you over to Monsieur l'Abbe once more."

"I think we understand each other," remarked the Abbe. "You say the king has employed you to set a figure, and that you are to take the solution to him to-night?"

"Monsieur l'Abbe is correct," returned Lilly.

"I hope the stars may see fit to advise the king to accept my first offer, for it will be the last," said the Abbe. "Possibly the stars may show that in case King Charles sells Dunkirk to London even for a much larger sum than I shall offer, he may be compelled to spend the money and a great deal more in defending the city."

"True, true," agreed Lilly.

"Possibly the stars may indicate that King Louis loves war," continued the Abbe. "They may show that if King Charles refuses my master's offer, England may be compelled to give up Dunkirk for nothing, or spend a vast deal of money and blood in defending it. If the French king lays siege to Dunkirk, the English people will force King Charles to take one of two courses--defence or abdication. In the latter case he might lose his head, as his father did before him. Furthermore, if King Charles refuses my first offer, my master will withdraw, in which case London also will withdraw. Is it not possible that the stars may tell you all this?"

"The conditions you suggest are so probable that one hardly need ask confirmation of the stars, and so reasonably to be expected are the events you predict that, beyond question, stellar revelation will be in accord with your desires. But the stars will say what they will say, and I shall give King Charles the truth from whatever source it comes," said Lilly, lifting his head in righteousness and posing as the embodiment of truth.

"That is all I can ask," returned the Abbe, rising to close the interview.

"All exceedingly reasonable--reasonable," answered Lilly, bowing.

We returned to the parlor, where we found Frances and Bettina awaiting us, not patiently, if I could judge by their looks. I asked Lilly to allow us to occupy the room undisturbed for an hour while the Abbe gave certain instructions to Frances, but the Doctor did better for us. He took us to a room enclosed in gla.s.s on the roof of his house, where we could be by ourselves with the sun and the sky overhead, and all London beneath us.

To this day I am not sure that Lilly did not know Hamilton, but if he did, he concealed his knowledge completely, feeling, doubtless, that it would be a dangerous bit of information to himself and of no benefit to any one else. If George should be discovered by the king, Lilly could honestly disclaim knowing him. If affairs turned to our desire, the Doctor could lose nothing by his ignorance whether pretended or real. So I doubt not he thanked us for the imposture, if he discovered it.

It is needless to say that Bettina, Frances, George, and I were very pleased to be together once more. We spent a delightful hour in Lilly's observatory, where we made our plans for the following day, which will unfold in the order of their occurrence. A great deal of the time we were all talking at once, but for some strange reason we were all silent when George said laughingly, though nervously, that the French king had sent word to Frances that we would pay her ten thousand pounds if George's mission proved successful.

Having antic.i.p.ated the possible necessity for quick action at the proper time, George had brought with him two copies of a treaty, written in Latin. He brought also plenary authority from the French king, under the great Seal of France, authorizing Monsieur l'Abbe du Boise to sign, execute, and deliver the treaty on the part of France and to receive in return the treaty to be executed by the English king. He also bore authority to make and deliver to King Charles a bill of exchange on Backwell, the goldsmith, for the purchase money of Dunkirk. Thus all would be ready for immediate conclusion the moment King Charles accepted the French king's offer.

That night near the hour of one o'clock, Lilly called by appointment to see me at De Grammont's house, coming from Whitehall, where he had been closeted with the king for three or four hours, explaining to his Majesty the message of the stars as read by the light of two thousand pounds.

"I explained to his Majesty," said Lilly, "that in all my calculations and observations, Mars intruded with alarming persistency in conjunction with King Louis's star. I tried to show him that the recurrences of this untoward conjunction were so rapid and constant as to denote war at a very early date if conditions were not affected at once by the intervention of the messenger, Mercury, whose sign fortunately accompanied each unfortuitous conjunction. The king, though pretending to be learned in the n.o.ble art of astrology, asked me to translate my solution, and I did so, almost in the words of Monsieur l'Abbe this afternoon."

"Thank you," remarked George.

"No, no, do not thank me," said Lilly, disclaiming all credit. "What Monsieur said was so reasonable and fitted so aptly to the probable conditions of the future, read in the terrestrial light of the present, sound reason, that it was hardly necessary to ask the stars. But in compliance with the king's request, I set my figure and found, as usual, that the revelations of the stars coincided with the dictates of reason.

It is true the stars sometimes forecast events which seem almost impossible in view of present conditions, but the questioner of the heavens who does not use his reason to help his interpretation of the stars is, to say the least, far from wise."

"Yes," interrupted the Abbe. "But come to the point! What did the king say?"

"He did not entirely accept the message of the stars," returned Lilly.

"He does not seem to object to war. He says there is no time when it is as easy to raise money from the people as in times of war. I suggested that money in the nation's treasury was not in the privy purse, where the king most wants it. But he said it was only a short journey from the treasury to the privy purse, and--well, I agreed with him. If you want to convert a vain, stubborn fool to your way of thinking, don't let him know what your way is."

"So the stars have failed?" asked the Abbe.

"No," returned Lilly, "they have put the king to thinking, but more, they have sowed the seeds of fear, a plant which grows rapidly in a coward's heart by night."

"But not rapidly enough to suit our purposes, I fear," returned the Abbe.

"Yes," insisted Lilly. "If the king's inclination can be changed, fear will sweep aside all other considerations in a moment, and he will accept the one hundred thousand pounds which you will offer to-morrow morning.

But in case the king does conclude to accept the French king's offer, the iron will at once take on a white heat, and--well, iron remains at white heat only a short time. You must be ready to act quickly when the proper moment comes, or London will spring between you and the king."

"I shall be ready," returned the Abbe. "The king shall be inclined to our proposition before another day is past."

"Shall I tell you what the stars predict concerning the signing of the treaty?" asked Lilly.

"Yes, yes," I answered eagerly.

"I have found Venus in conjunction with--" began Lilly.

"Oh, d.a.m.n the stars!" cried the Abbe, most uncanonically. "Tell me what you think about it!"

"The stars tell me that the treaty will be signed to-morrow night--that is, to-night, this being the early morning," answered the Doctor, persistently maintaining his att.i.tude of stellar interpreter.

"Very well. Good night, Doctor," said the Abbe. "And may the shadow of your discretion never grow less."

A moment later I conducted Lilly to the door, and when I returned to De Grammont, who had not spoken a word during the entire interview, he shrugged his shoulders and said:--

"Sacrament! What a wise man a fool may be! It is to admire!"

"I doubt if any man is beneficially wise unless he be in part a fool,"

said the Abbe, and I closed the symposium by remarking:--

"Folly tinctures wisdom with common sense, illumines it with imagination, and gives it everyday usefulness. But best of all, it helps a man to understand the motives of other fools who const.i.tute the bulk of mankind."

"Ah, baron," said De Grammont, yawning. "It is all doubtless true. Who would have expected to find so much cynical wisdom in an Englishman? But let us to bed!"

Hamilton and I were up by five o'clock the next morning, in consultation.

He was for dropping the matter in so far as it involved Frances, but I insisted that while it was a disagreeable task for her, she was wise with a woman's wisdom, calm with a woman's calmness, and bold with a woman's boldness, which knows no equal when the motive springs from the heart rather than the head.

We discussed the matter in all its phases, and then I went to the palace to see Frances. When she arose, I was waiting to tell her that the Abbe would see the king at ten o'clock and to ask her to wait in the anteroom of the d.u.c.h.ess's parlor. If Charles accepted the French king's offer, I should pa.s.s by her wearing my hat, and she would know that her help would not be needed. If the king refused, I should carry my hat in my hand, and she could take her own course with Charles.

"Do you fear?" I asked, being myself very much afraid, for we were dealing with an absolute monarch, devoid of conscience, devoid of caution save when prompted by cowardice, but plenteously imbued with venom in his heart and all things evil in his soul.

"I fear?" cried Frances, tossing her head defiantly.