The Helmet of Navarre Part 22

"You had no claim to it, M. le Comte."

"Vigo!" cried the young n.o.ble, "you are insolent, sirrah!"

"I cry monsieur's pardon."

He was quite respectful and quite unabashed. He had meant no insolence.

But M. etienne had dared criticise the duke and that Vigo did not allow.

M. etienne glared at him in speechless wrath. It would have liked him well to bring this contumelious varlet to his knees. But how? It was a byword that Vigo minded no man's ire but the duke's. The King of France could not dash him.

Vigo went on:

"It seems I have exceeded my duty, monsieur, in coming here. Yet it turns out for the best, since Lucas is caught and M. de Grammont dead and you cleared of suspicion."

"What!" Yeux-gris cried. "What! you call me cleared!"

Vigo looked at him in surprise.

"You said you were innocent, M. le Comte."

M. le Comte stared, without a word to answer. The equery, all unaware of having said anything unexpected, turned to the guardsman Maurice:

"Well, is Lucas trussed? Have you searched him?"

Maurice displayed a poniard and a handful of small coins for sole booty, but Jules made haste to announce: "He has something else, though--a paper sewed up in his doublet. Shall I rip it out, M. Vigo?"

With Lucas's own knife the grinning Jules slashed his doublet from throat to thigh, to extract a folded paper the size of your palm. Vigo pondered the superscription slowly, not much at home with the work of a quill, save those that winged arrows. M. etienne, coming forward, with a sharp exclamation s.n.a.t.c.hed the packet.

"How came you by my letter?" he demanded of Lucas.

"M. le Comte was pleased to consign it for delivery to Martin."

"What purpose had you with it?"

"Rest a.s.sured, dear monsieur, I had a purpose."

The questions were stormily vehement, the answers so gentle as to be fairly caressing. It was waste of time and dignity to parley with the scoundrel till one could back one's queries with the boot. But M.

etienne's pa.s.sion knew no waiting. Thrusting the letter into his breast ere I, who had edged up to him, could catch a glimpse of its address, he cried upon Lucas:

"Speak! You were ready enough to jeer at me for a dupe. Tell me what you would do with your dupe. You dared not open the plot to me--you did me the honour to know I would not kill my father. Then why use me blindfold? An awkward game, Lucas."

Lucas disagreed as politely as if exchanging pleasantries in a salon.

"A dexterous game, M. le Comte. Your best friends deemed you guilty.

What would your enemies have said?"

"Ah-h," breathed M. etienne.

"It dawns on you, monsieur? You are marvellous thick-witted, yet surely you must perceive. We had a dozen fellows ready to swear that your hand killed Monsieur."

"You would kill me for my father's murder?"

"Ma foi, no!" cried Lucas, airily. "Never in the world! We should have let you live, in the knowledge that whenever you displeased us we could send you to the gallows."

M. le Comte, silent, stared at him with wild eyes, like one who looks into the open roof of h.e.l.l. Lucas fell to laughing.

"What! hang you and let our cousin Valere succeed? Mon dieu, no! M. de Valere is a man!"

With a blow the guardsman struck the words and the laughter from his lips. But I, who no more than Lucas knew how to hold my tongue, thought I saw a better way to punish this brazen knave. I cried out:

"You are the dupe, Lucas! Aye, and coward to boot, fleeing here from--nothing. I knew naught against you--you saw that. To slip out and warn Martin before Vigo got a chance at him--that was all you had to do.

Yet you never thought of that but rushed away here, leaving Martin to betray you. Had you stuck to your post you had been now on the road to St. Denis, instead of the road to the Greve! Fool! fool! fool!"

He winced. He had not been ashamed to betray his benefactor, to bite the hand that fed him, to desert a wounded comrade; but he was ashamed to confront his own blunder. I had the satisfaction of p.r.i.c.king, not his conscience, for he had none, but his pride.

"I had to warn Grammont off," he retorted. "Could I believe St. Quentin such a lack-wit as to forgive these two because they were his kin? You did better than you knew when you shut the door on me. You tracked me, you marplot, you sneak! How came you into the coil?"

"By G.o.d's grace," M. le Comte answered. He laid a hand on my shoulder and leaned there heavily. Lucas grinned.

"Ah, waxing pious, is he? The prodigal prepares to return."

M. etienne's hand clinched on my shoulder. Vigo commanded a gag for Lucas, saying, with the only touch of anger I ever knew him to show:

"He shall hang when the king comes in. And now to horse, lads, and out of the quarter; we have wasted too much time palavering. King Henry is not in Paris yet. We shall do well not to rouse Belin, though we can make him trouble if he troubles us. Come, monsieur. Men, guard your prisoner. I misjudge if he is not cropful of the devil still."

He did not look it. His figure was drooping; his face purple and contorted, for one of the troopers had crammed his scarf into the man's mouth, half strangling him. As he was led past us, with a sudden frantic effort, fit to dislocate his jaw, he disgorged the gag to cry out wildly:

"Oh, M. l'ecuyer, have mercy! Have pity upon me! For Christ's sake, pity!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "IN A FLASH HE WAS OUT OF THEIR GRASP, FLYING DOWN THE ALLEY."]

His bravado had broken down at last. He tried to fling himself at Vigo's feet. The guards relaxed their hold to see him grovel.

That was what he had hoped for. In a flash he was out of their grasp, flying down the alley.

"To Vigo! Vigo is attacked," we heard him shout.

It was so quick, we stood dumfounded. And then we dashed after, pell-mell, tumbling over one another in our stampede. In the alley we ran against three or four of the guard answering Lucas's cry. We lost precious seconds disentangling ourselves and shouting that it was a ruse and our prisoner escaped. When they comprehended, we all rushed together out of the pa.s.sage, emerging among frightened horses and a great press of excited men.

XII

_The Comte de Mar._

"Which way went he?"