The Helmet of Navarre Part 48

"A rescue, a rescue!" cried M. etienne. "Shout, Felix! Montjoie St.

Denis! A rescue, a rescue!"

We charged down the street, drawing our swords and shouting at the top of our lungs.

It was too dark to see much save a ma.s.s of struggling figures, with every now and then, as the steel hit, a point of light flas.h.i.+ng out, to fade and appear again like a brilliant glow-worm. We could scarce tell which were the attackers, which the two comrades we had come to save.

But if we could not make them out, neither could they us. We shouted as boldly as if we had been a company, and in the clatter of their heels on the stones they could not count our feet. They knew not how many followers the darkness held. The group parted. Two men remained in hot combat close under the left wall. Across the way one st.u.r.dy fighter held off two, while a sixth man, crying on his mates to follow, fled down the lane.

M. etienne knew now what he was about, and at once took sides with the solitary fencer. The combat being made equal, I started in pursuit of the flying figure. I had run but a few yards, however, when I tripped and fell prostrate over the body of a man. I was up in a moment, feeling him to find out if he were dead; my hands over his heart dipped into a pool of something wet and warm like new milk. I wiped them on his sleeve as best I could, and hastily groped about for his sword. He did not need it now, and I did.

When I rose with it my quarry was swallowed up in the shadows. M.

etienne, whose light clothing made a distinguishable spot in the gloom, had driven his opponent, or his opponent had driven him, some rods up the lane the way we had come. I stood perplexed, not knowing where to busy myself. M. etienne's side I could not reach past the two duels; and of the four men near me, I could by no means tell, as they circled about and about, which were my chosen allies. They were all sombrely clad, their faces blurred in the darkness. When one made a clever pa.s.s, I knew not whether to rejoice or despair. But at length I picked out one who fenced, though valiantly enough, yet with greater effort than the rest; and I deemed that this had been the hardest pressed of all and must certainly be one of the attacked and the one most deserving of succour. He was plainly losing ground. I darted to his side just as his foe ran him through the arm.

The a.s.sailant pulled his blade free and darted back against the wall to face the two of us. But the sword of the wounded man fell from his loose fingers.

"I'm out of it," he cried to me; "I go for aid." And as his late combatant sprang forward to engage me, I heard him running off, stumbling where I had.

There had been little light toward the last in the court of the house in the Rue Coupejarrets, and less under the windows of the Hotel de Lorraine; but here was none at all, I had to use my sword solely by the feel of his against it, and I underwent chilling qualms lest presently, without in the least knowing how it got there, I should find his point sticking out of my back. I could hardly believe he was not hitting me; I began to p.r.i.c.kle in half a dozen places, and knew not whether the stings were real or imaginary. But one was not imaginary; my shoulder which Lucas had pinked and the doctor bandaged was throbbing painfully. I fancied that in my earlier combat the wound had opened again and that I was bleeding to death; and the fear shook me. I lunged wildly, and I had been sent to my account in short order had not at this moment one of the other pair near us, as it afterward appeared, driven his weapon square through his vis-a-vis's breast.

"I am done for. Run who can!" he cried as he fell. The sword snapped in two against the paving-stones; he rolled over and lay still, his face in the dirt.

My encounterer, with a shout to his single remaining comrade, made off down the lane. On my part, I was very willing to let him depart in peace.

The clash of swords up the lane had ceased at the stricken man's cry, and out of the gloom came the sound of footfalls fainter and fainter. I deemed that the battle was over.

The champion came toward me, three white patches visible for his face and hands; the rest of him but darkness moving in darkness. He held a sword rifled from the enemy, and advanced on me hesitatingly, not sure whether friend or foe remained to him. I felt that an explanation was due from me, but in my ignorance as to who he was and who his foes were, and why they had been fighting him and why we had been fighting them, I stood for a moment confused. It is hard to open conversation with a shadow.

He spoke first, in a voice husky from his exertion:

"Who are you?"

"A friend," I said. "My master and I saw two men fighting four--we came to help the weaker side. Your friend was hurt, but he got away safe to fetch aid."

The unknown made a rapid step toward me, crying, "What--"

But at the word M. etienne emerged from the shadows.

"Who lives?" he called out. "You, Felix?"

"Not hurt, monsieur. And you?"

"Not a scratch. Nor did I scratch my man. Permit me to congratulate you, monsieur l'inconnu, on our coming up when we did."

The unknown said one word:

"etienne!"

I sprang forward with the impulse to throw my arms about him, in the pure rapture of recognizing his voice. This struggler, whom we had rushed in, blindfold, to save, was Monsieur! If we had been content to mind our own business, had sheered away like the deputy--it turned me faint to think how long we had delayed with old Marceau, we were so nearly too late. I wanted to seize Monsieur, to convince myself that he was all safe, to feel him quick and warm.

I made one pace and stopped; for I remembered what ghastly shape stood between me and Monsieur--that horrible lying story.

"Dieu!" gasped M. etienne, "Monsieur!"

For a moment we all kept silence, motionless; then Monsieur flung his sword over the wall.

"Do your will, etienne."

His son darted forward with a cry.

"Monsieur, Monsieur, I am not your a.s.sa.s.sin! I came to your aid not dreaming who you were; but, had I known, I would have fought a hundred times the harder. I never plotted against you. On the honour of a St.

Quentin I swear it."

Monsieur said naught, and we could not see his face; could not know whether he believed or rejected, softened or condemned.

M. etienne, catching at his breath, went on:

"Monsieur, I know it is hard to credit. I have been a bad son to you, unloving, rebellious, insolent. We quarrelled; I spoke bitter words. But I am no ruffian. I am a St. Quentin. Had you had me whipped from the house, still would I never have raised hand against you. I knew nothing of the plot. Felix told you I was in it--small blame to him. But he was wrong. I knew naught of it."

Had he been content to rest his case here, I think Monsieur could not but have believed his innocence on his bare word. The stones in the pavement must have known that he was uttering truth. But he in his eagerness paused for no answer, but went on to stun Monsieur with statements new and amazing to his ear.

"My cousin Grammont--who is dead--was in the plot, and his lackey Pontou, and Martin the clerk; but the contriver was Lucas."

"Lucas?"

"Lucas," continued M. etienne. "Or, to give him his true t.i.tle, Paul de Lorraine, son of Henri de Guise."

"But that is impossible" Monsieur cried, stupefied.

"It is impossible, but it is true. He is a Lorraine--Mayenne's nephew, and for years Mayenne's spy. He came to you to kill you--for that object pure and simple. Last spring, before he came to you, he was here in Paris with Mayenne, making terms for your murder. He is no Huguenot, no Kingsman. He is Mayenne's henchman, son to Guise himself."

"And how long have you known this?" asked Monsieur.

"Since this morning." Then, as the import of the question struck him, he fell back with a groan. "Ah, Monsieur, if you can ask that, I have no more to say. It is useless." He turned away into the darkness.

That they should part thus was too miserable to be endured. I was sure Monsieur's question was no accusation, but the groping of bewilderment.

"M. etienne, stop!" I commanded. "Monsieur, it is the truth. Indeed it is the truth. He is innocent, and Lucas _is_ a Guise. Monsieur, you must listen to me. M. etienne, you must wait. I stirred up the whole trouble with my story to you, Monsieur, and I take it back. I believed I was telling the truth. I was wrong. When I left you, I went straight back to the Rue Coupejarrets to kill your son--your murderer, I thought. And there I found Grammont and Lucas side by side. We thought them sworn foes: they were hand in glove. They came at me to end me because I had told, and M. etienne saved me. Lucas mocked him to his face because he had been tricked; Lucas bragged that it was his own scheme--that M.

etienne was his dupe. Vigo will tell you. Vigo heard him. His scheme was to saddle M. etienne with your murder. He was tricked. He believed what he told me--that the thing was a duel between Lucas and Grammont.

You must believe it, Monsieur!"

M. etienne, who had actually obeyed me,--me, his lackey,--turned to his father once again.

"Monsieur, if you cannot believe me, believe Felix. You believed him when he took away my good name. Believe him now when he restores it."

"Nay," Monsieur cried; "I believe thee, etienne."

And he took his son in his arms.