The Helmet of Navarre Part 79

"Faith, there'll soon be as many ghosts in the house as you thought you saw there--Grammont, Pontou, and now Lucas. What ails you, lad?

Footsteps on your grave?"

But it was not thoughts of my grave caused the shudder, but of his. For of the three men of the lightning-flash, the third was not Lucas, but M.

etienne. What if the vision were, after all, the thing I had at first believed it--a portent? An appearance not of those who had died by steel, but of those who must. One, two, and now the third.

Next moment I almost laughed out in relief. It was not Pontou I had seen, but Louis Martin. And he was living. The vision was no omen, but a mere happening. Was I a babe to s.h.i.+ver so?

And yet Martin, if not dead, was like to die. He was in duress as a Leaguer spy, to await King Henry's will. All who entered this house lay under a curse. We should none of us pa.s.s out again, save to our tombs.

We entered the well-remembered little pa.s.sage, the well-remembered court, where shards of gla.s.s still strewed the pavement. Some one--the gendarmes, I fancy, when they took away Pontou--had put a heavy padlock on the door Lucas and Grammont left swinging.

"We go in by your postern, Felix," my master said. "M. Lucas, I confess I prefer that you go first."

Lucas put his back to the wall.

"Why go farther, M. le Comte?"

"Do you long for interruption'?"

"We were not noticed coming in. The street was quiet."

He crossed the court abruptly and went down the alley to look into the street.

"Not a soul in sight," he said, coming back. "I think we shall not be interrupted. Still, it is wise to use every care. We will fight, if you like, in the house."

He opened with his knife the fastened shutter, and leaped lightly in.

Monsieur followed. I, the last, was for closing the shutter, but he stopped me.

"No; leave it wide. I have no fancy for a walk in pitch-darkness with M.

Lucas."

"Do we fight here?" Lucas asked, facing us in the wide, square hall. "We can let in more light."

"You seem anxious, my friend, to call attention to your whereabouts. As I am host, I designate the fighting-ground. Up-stairs, if you please."

"I suppose you insist on my walking first," Lucas sneered.

"I request it, monsieur."

"With all the willingness in the world," his rogue-s.h.i.+p answered, setting foot straightway on the stair and mounting steadily, never turning to see how near we followed, or what we did with our hands. His trust made me ashamed of our lack of it. I almost believed we did him injustice. Yet at heart I could not bring myself to credit him with any fair dealing.

We went up one flight, up two. We had left behind us the twilight of the lower story, had not reached dawn again at the top. We walked in blackness. Suddenly I halted.

"Monsieur!"

"What?"

"I heard a noise."

"Of course you did. The place is full of rats."

"It was no rat. It was footsteps."

We all three held still.

"There, monsieur. Don't you hear?"

"Nothing, Felix; your teeth are chattering. Cross yourself and come on."

But I could not stand it.

"I'll go back and see, monsieur."

"No," Lucas said, striding back from the foot of the next flight. "I will go."

We saw a glint in the gloom, monsieur's bared sword.

"You will go neither one of you. Hus.h.!.+ If we show ourselves, there'll be no duel to-day."

We kept still, all three leaning over the banister, peering down to where the white tiles picked themselves out of the floor of the hall far beneath. We could see them better than we could see one another. All was silent. Not so much as a rustle came up from below. Suddenly Lucas made a step or two, as if to pa.s.s us. M. etienne wheeled about, raising his sword toward the spot where from his footfalls we supposed Lucas to be.

"You show an eagerness to get away from me, M. de Lorraine."

"Not in the least, M. de Mar. This alarm is but Felix's poltroonery, yet it prompts me to go down and close the shutter."

"On the contrary, you will go up with me. Felix will close the shutter."

They confronted each other, vague shapes in the darkness, each with drawn sword. Then Lucas raised his in salute.

"As you will; so be some one sees to it."

"Go, Felix."

Lucas first, they mounted the last flight of stairs, and their footsteps pa.s.sed along the corridor to the room at the back. I, as I was ordered, set my face down the stairs.

They might mock me as they liked, but I could not get it out of my head that I had heard steps below. Cautiously, with a thumping heart, I stole from stair to stair, pausing at the bottom of the flight. I heard plainly the sound of moving above me, and of voices; but below not a whisper, not a creak. It must have been my silly fears. Resolved to choke them, I planted my feet boldly on the next flight, and descended humming, to prove my ease, the rollicky tune of Peyrot's catch.

Suddenly, from not three feet off, came the soft singing:

_Mirth, my love, and Folly dear_--

My knees knocked together, and the breath fluttered in my throat. It seemed the darkness itself had given tongue. Then came a low laugh and the muttered words:

"Here we are, M. de Lorraine. Are you ready?"

There was a stir of feet on the landing before me, behind the voice. The house, then, was full of Lucas's cutthroats, the first of them Peyrot.

In the height of my terror, I remembered that M. etienne's life, too, depended on my wits, and I kept them. I whispered, for whispering voices are hard to tell apart:

"Not yet. The two of them are up there. Keep quiet, and I'll send the boy down. When you've finished him, come up."