The Helmet of Navarre Part 3

"I meant no harm," I said, and turned sullenly off up the street. This, then, was what I had come to Paris for--to be denied entrance to the house, thrown under the coach-wheels, and threatened with a drubbing from the lackeys!

For three years my only thought had been to serve Monsieur. From waking in the morning to sleep at night, my whole life was Monsieur's. Never was duty more cheerfully paid. Never did acolyte more throw his soul into his service than I into mine. Never did lover hate to be parted from his mistress more than I from Monsieur. The journey to Paris had been a journey to Paradise. And now, this!

Monsieur had looked me in the face and not smiled; had heard me beseech him and not answered--not lifted a finger to save me from being mangled under his very eyes. St. Quentin and Paris were two very different places, it appeared. At St. Quentin Monsieur had been pleased to take me into the chateau and treat me to more intimacy than he accorded to the high-born lads, his other pages. So much the easier, then, to cast me off when he had tired of me. My heart seethed with rage and bitterness against Monsieur, against the sentry, and, more than all, against the young Comte de Mar, who had flung me under the wheels.

I had never before seen the Comte de Mar, that spoiled only son of M. le Duc's, who was too fine for the country, too gay to share his father's exile. Maybe I was jealous of the love his father bore him, which he so little repaid. I had never thought to like him, St. Quentin though he were; and now that I saw him I hated him. His handsome face looked ugly enough to me as he struck me that blow.

I went along the Paris streets blindly, the din of my own thoughts louder than all the noises of the city. But I could not remain in this trance forever, and at length I woke to two unpleasant facts: first, I had no idea where I was, and, second, I should be no better off if I knew.

Never, while there remained in me the spirit of a man, would I go back to Monsieur; never would I serve the Comte de Mar. And it was equally obvious that never, so long as my father retained the spirit that was his, could I return to St. Quentin with the account of my morning's achievements. It was just here that, looking at the business with my father's eyes, I began to have a suspicion that I had behaved like an insolent young fool. But I was still too angry to acknowledge it.

Remained, then, but one course--to stay in Paris, and keep from starvation as best I might.

My thrifty father had not seen fit to furnish me any money to throw away in the follies of the town. He had calculated closely what I should need to take me to Monsieur, with a little margin for accidents; so that, after paying Maitre Jacques, I had hardly two pieces to jingle together.

For three years I had browsed my fill in the duke's library; I could write a decent letter both in my own tongue and in Italian, thanks to Father Francesco, Monsieur's Florentine confessor, and handle a sword none so badly, thanks to Monsieur; and I felt that it should not be hard to pick up a livelihood. But how to start about it I had no notion, and finally I made up my mind to go and consult him whom I now called my one friend in Paris, Jacques the innkeeper.

'Twas easier said than done. I had strayed out of the friendly Rue St.

Denis into a network of dark and narrow ways that might have been laid out by a wily old stag with the dogs hot on him, so did they twist and turn and double on themselves. I could make my way only at a snail's pace, asking new guidance at every corner. Noon was long past when at length I came on laggard feet around the corner by the Amour de Dieu.

Yet was it not fatigue that weighted my feet, but pride. Though I had resolved to seek out Maitre Jacques, still 'twas a hateful thing to enter as suppliant where I had been the patron. I had paid for my breakfast like a lord, but I should have to beg for my dinner. I had bragged of Monsieur's fondness, and I should have to tell how I had been flung under the coach-wheels. My pace slackened to a stop. I could not bring myself to enter the door. I tried to think how to better my story, so to tell it that it should redound to my credit. But my invention stuck in my pate.

As I stood striving to summon up a jaunty demeanour, I found myself gazing straight at the shuttered house, and of a sudden my thoughts s.h.i.+fted back to my vision.

Those murdered Huguenots, dead and gone ere I was born, had appeared to me as plain as the men I pa.s.sed in the street. Though I had beheld them but the s.p.a.ce of a lightning-flash, I could call up their faces like those of my comrades. One, the nearest me, was small, pale, with pinched, sharp face, somewhat rat-like. The second man was conspicuously big and burly, black-haired and-bearded. The third and youngest--all three were young--stood with his hand on Blackbeard's shoulder. He, too, was tall, but slenderly built, with clear-cut visage and fair hair gleaming in the glare. One moment I saw them, every feature plain; the next they had vanished like a dream.

It was an unholy thing, no doubt, yet it held me with a shuddery fascination. Was it indeed a portent, this rising of heretics from their unblessed graves? And why had it been shown to me, true son of the Church? Had any one else ever seen what I had seen? Maitre Jacques had hinted at further terrors, and said no one dared enter the place. Well, grant me but the opportunity, and I would dare.

Thus was hatched in my brain the notion of forcing an entrance into that banned house. I was an idle boy, foot-loose and free to do whatever mad mischief presented itself. Here was the house just across the street.

Neglected as it was, it remained the most pretentious edifice in the row, being large and flaunting a half-defaced coat of arms over the door. Such a house might well boast two entrances. I hoped it did, for there was no use in trying to batter down this door with the eye of the Rue Coupejarrets upon me. I turned along the side street, and after exploring several muck-heaped alleys found one that led me into a small square court bounded on three sides by a tall house with shuttered windows.

Fortune was favouring me. But how to gain entrance? The two doors were both firmly fastened. The windows on the ground floor were small, high, and iron-shuttered. Above, one or two shutters swung half open, but I could not climb the smooth wall. Yet I did not despair; I was not without experience of shutters. I selected one closed not quite tight, leaving a crack for my knife-blade. I found the hook inside, got my dagger under it, and at length drove it up. The shutter creaked shrilly open.

A few good blows knocked in the cas.e.m.e.nt. I followed.

I found myself in a small room bare of everything but dust. From this, once a porter's room, I fancied, I pa.s.sed out into a hallway dimly lighted from the open window behind me. The hall was large, paved with black and white marbles; at the end a stately stairway mounted into mysterious gloom.

My heart jumped into my mouth and I cringed back in terror, a choked cry rasping my throat. For, as I crossed the hall, peering into the dimness, I descried, stationed on the lowest stair with upraised bludgeon, a man.

For a second I stood in helpless startlement, voiceless, motionless, waiting for him to brain me. Then my half-uttered scream changed to a quavering laugh, as my eyes, becoming used to the gloom, discovered my bogy to be but a figure carved in wood, holding aloft a long since quenched flambeau.

I blushed with shame, yet I cannot say that now I felt no fear. I thought of the panic-stricken women, the doomed men, who had fled at the sword's point up these very stairs. The silence seemed to shriek at me, and I half thought I saw fear-maddened eyes peering out from the shadowed corners. Yet for all that--nay, because of that--I would not give up the adventure. I went back into the little room and carefully closed the shutter, lest some other meddler should spy my misdeed. Then I set my feet on the stair.

If the half-light before had been full of eery terror, it was naught to the blackness now. My hand on the rail was damp. Yet I mounted steadily.

Up one flight I climbed, groped in the hot dark for the foot of the next flight, and went on. Suddenly, above, I heard a noise. I came to an instant halt. All was as still as the tomb. I listened; not a breath broke the silence. It never occurred to me to imagine a rat in this house of the dead, and the noise shook me. With a sick feeling about my heart I went on again.

On the next floor it was lighter. Faint outlines of doors and pa.s.sages were visible. I could not stand the gloom a moment longer; I strode into the nearest doorway and across the room to where a gleam of brightness outlined the window. My shaking fingers found the hook of the shutter and flung it wide, letting in a burst of honest suns.h.i.+ne. I leaned out into the free air, and saw below me the Rue Coupejarrets and the sign of the Amour de Dieu.

The next instant a cloth fell over my face and was twisted tight; strong arms pulled me back, and a deep voice commanded:

"Close the shutter."

Some one pushed past me and shut it with a clang.

"Devil take you! You'll rouse the quarter," cried my captor, fiercely, yet not loud. "Go join monsieur." With that he picked me up in his arms and walked across the room.

The capture had been so quick I had no time for outcry. I fought my best with him, half strangled as I was by the cloth. I might as well have struggled against the grip of the Maiden. The man carried me the length of the house, it seemed; flung me down upon the floor, and banged a door on me.

IV

_The three men in the window_

I tore the cloth from my head and sprang up. I was in pitch-darkness. I dashed against the door to no avail. Feeling the walls, I discovered myself to be in a small, empty closet. With all my force I flung myself once more upon the door. It stood firm.

"Dame! but I have got into a pickle," I thought.

They were no ghosts, at all events. Scared as I was, I rejoiced at that.

I could cope with men, but who can cope with the devil? These might be villains--doubtless were, skulking in this deserted house,--yet with readiness and pluck I could escape them.

It was as hot as a furnace in my prison, and as still as the grave. The men, who seemed by their footsteps to be several, had gone cautiously down the stairs after caging me. Evidently I had given them a fine fright, clattering through the house as I had, and even now they were looking for my accomplices.

It seemed hours before the faintest sound broke the stillness. If ever you want to squeeze away a man's cheerfulness like water from a rag, shut him up alone in the dark and silence. He will thank you to take him out into the daylight and hang him. In token whereof, my heart welcomed like brothers the men returning.

They came into the room, and I thought they were three in number. I heard the door shut, and then steps approached my closet.

"Have a care now, monsieur; he may be armed," spoke the rough voice of a man without breeding.

"Doubtless he carries a culverin up his sleeve," sneered the deep tones of my captor.

Some one else laughed, and rejoined, in a clear, quick voice:

"Natheless, he may have a knife. I will open the door, and do you look out for him, Gervais."

I had a knife and had it in my hand, ready to charge for freedom. But the door opened slowly, and Gervais looked out for me--to the effect that my knife went one way and I another before I could wink. I reeled against the wall and stayed there, cursing myself for a fool that I had not trusted to fair words instead of to my dagger.

"Well done, my brave Gervais!" cried he of the vivid voice--a tall fair-haired youth, whom I had seen before. So had I seen the stalwart blackbeard, Gervais. The third man was older, a common-looking fellow whose face was new to me. All three were in their s.h.i.+rts on account of the heat; all were plain, even shabby, in their dress. But the two young men wore swords at their sides.

The half-opened shutters, overhanging the court, let plenty of light into the room. It had two straw beds on the floor and a few old chairs and stools, and a table covered with dishes and broken food and wine-bottles. More bottles, riding-boots, whips and spurs, two or three hats and saddle-bags, and various odds and ends of dress littered the floor and the chairs. Everything was of mean quality except the bearing of the two young men. A gentleman is a gentleman even in the Rue Coupejarrets--all the more, maybe, in the Rue Coupejarrets. These two were gently born.

The low man, with scared face, held off from me. He whose name was Gervais confronted me with an angry scowl. Yeux-gris alone--for so I dubbed the third, from his gray eyes, well open under dark brows--Yeux-gris looked no whit alarmed or angered; the only emotion to be read in his face was a gay interest as the blackavised Gervais put me questions.

"How came you here? What are you about?"