That very day I set out. For since the King was opposed to the affair,
and knowing the drastic measures by which he was wont to enforce what he
desired, I realized that did I linger he might find a way definitely to
prevent my going.
I travelled in a coach, attended by two lacqueys and a score of
men-at-arms in my own livery, all commanded by Ganymede. My intendant
himself came in another coach with my wardrobe and travelling
necessaries. We were a fine and almost regal cortege as we passed down
the rue de l'Enfer and quitted Paris by the Orleans gate, taking the
road south. So fine a cortege, indeed, that it entered my mind. His
Majesty would come to hear of it, and, knowing my destination, send
after me to bring me back. To evade such a possibility, I ordered
a divergence to be made, and we struck east and into Touraine. At
Pont-le-Duc, near Tours, I had a cousin in the Vicomte d'Amaral, and at
his chateau I arrived on the third day after quitting Paris.
Since that was the last place where they would seek me, if to seek me
they were inclined, I elected to remain my cousin's guest for fifteen
days. And whilst I was there we had news of trouble in the South and
of a rising in Languedoc under the Duc de Montmorency. Thus was it that
when I came to take my leave of Amaral, he, knowing that Languedoc was
my destination, sought ardently to keep me with him until we should
learn that peace and order were restored in the province. But I held the
trouble lightly, and insisted upon going.
Resolutely, then, if by slow stages, we pursued our journey, and came
at last to Montauban. There we lay a night at the Auberge de Navarre,
intending to push on to Lavedan upon the morrow. My father had been on
more than friendly terms with the Vicomte de Lavedan, and upon this I
built my hopes of a cordial welcome and an invitation to delay for a few
days the journey to Toulouse, upon which I should represent myself as
bound.
Thus, then, stood my plans. And they remained unaltered for all that
upon the morrow there were wild rumours in the air of Montauban. There
were tellings of a battle fought the day before at Castelnaudary, of
the defeat of Monsieur's partisans, of the utter rout of Gonzalo de
Cordova's Spanish tatterdemalions, and of the capture of Montmorency,
who was sorely wounded--some said with twenty and some with thirty
wounds--and little like to live. Sorrow and discontent stalked abroad in
Languedoc that day, for they believed that it was against the Cardinal,
who sought to strip them of so many privileges, that Gaston d'Orleans
had set up his standard.
That those rumours of battle and defeat were true we had ample proof
some few hours later, when a company of dragoons in buff and steel rode
into the courtyard of the Auberge de Navarre, headed by a young spark of
an officer, who confirmed the rumour and set the number of
Montmorency's wounds at seventeen. He was lying, the officer told us, at
Castelnaudary, and his duchess was hastening to him from Beziers. Poor
woman! She was destined to nurse him back to life and vigour only that
he might take his trial at Toulouse and pay with his head the price of
his rebellion.
Ganymede who, through the luxurious habits of his more recent years
had--for all his fine swagger--developed a marked distaste for warfare
and excitement, besought me to take thought for my safety and to lie
quietly at Montauban until the province should be more settled.
“The place is a hotbed of rebellion,” he urged. “If these Chouans but
learn that we are from Paris and of the King's party, we shall have our
throats slit, as I live. There is not a peasant in all this countryside
indeed, scarce a man of any sort but is a red-hot Orleanist,
anti-Cardinalist, and friend of the Devil. Bethink you, monseigneur, to
push on at the present is to court murder.”
“Why, then, we will court murder,” said I coldly. “Give the word to
saddle.”
I asked him at the moment of setting out did he know the road to
Lavedan, to which the lying poltroon made answer that he did. In his
youth he may have known it, and the countryside may have undergone since
then such changes as bewildered him. Or it may be that fear dulled his
wits, and lured him into taking what may have seemed the safer rather
than the likelier road. But this I know, that as night was falling
my carriage halted with a lurch, and as I put forth my head I was
confronted by my trembling intendant, his great fat face gleaming
whitely in the gloom above the lawn collar on his doublet.
“Why do we halt, Ganymede?” quoth I.
“Monseigneur,” he faltered, his trembling increasing as he spoke, and
his eyes meeting mine in a look of pitiful contrition, “I fear we are
lost.”
“Lost?” I echoed. “Of what do you talk? Am I to sleep in the coach?”
“Alas, monseigneur, I have done my best--”
“Why, then, God keep us from your worst,” I snapped. “Open me this
door.”
I stepped down and looked about me, and, by my faith, a more desolate
spot to lose us in my henchman could not have contrived had he been at
pains to do so. A bleak, barren landscape--such as I could hardly have
credited was to be found in all that fair province--unfolded itself,
looking now more bleak, perhaps, by virtue of the dim evening mist that
hovered over it. Yonder, to the right, a dull russet patch of sky marked
the west, and then in front of us I made out the hazy outline of the
Pyrenees. At sight of them, I swung round and gripped my henchman by the
shoulder.
“A fine trusty servant thou!” I cried. “Boaster! Had you told us that
age and fat living had so stunted your wits as to have extinguished
memory, I had taken a guide at Montauban to show us the way. Yet,
here, with the sun and the Pyrenees to guide you, even had you no other
knowledge, you lose yourself!”
“Monseigneur,” he whimpered, “I was choosing my way by the sun and the
mountains, and it was thus that I came to this impasse. For you may see,
yourself, that the road ends here abruptly.”
“Ganymede,” said I slowly, “when we return to Paris--if you do not
die of fright 'twixt this and then--I'll find a place for you in the
kitchens. God send you may make a better scullion than a follower!”
Then, vaulting over the wall, “Attend me, some half-dozen of you,” I
commanded, and stepped out briskly towards the barn.
As the weather-beaten old door creaked upon its rusty hinges, we were
greeted by a groan from within, and with it the soft rustle of straw
that is being moved. Surprised, I halted, and waited whilst one of my
men kindled a light in the lanthorn that he carried.
By its rays we beheld a pitiable sight in a corner of that building. A
man, quite young and of a tall and vigorous frame, lay stretched upon
the straw. He was fully dressed even to his great riding-boots, and
from the loose manner in which his back-and-breast hung now upon him,
it would seem as if he had been making shift to divest himself of his
armour, but had lacked the strength to complete the task. Beside him
lay a feathered headpiece and a sword attached to a richly broidered
baldrick. All about him the straw was clotted with brown, viscous
patches of blood. The doublet which had been of sky-blue velvet was all
sodden and stained, and inspection showed us that he had been wounded in
the right side, between the straps of his breastplate.
As we stood about him now, a silent, pitying group, appearing fantastic,
perhaps, by the dim light of that single lanthorn, he attempted to raise
his head, and then with a groan he dropped it back upon the straw that
pillowed it. From out of a face white, as in death, and drawn with
haggard lines of pain, a pair of great lustrous blue eyes were turned
upon us, abject and pitiful as the gaze of a dumb beast that is stricken
mortally.
It needed no acuteness to apprehend that we had before us one of
yesterday's defeated warriors; one who had spent his last strength in
creeping hither to get his dying done in peace. Lest our presence
should add fear to the agony already upon him, I knelt beside him in the
blood-smeared straw, and, raising his head, I pillowed it upon my arm.
“Have no fear,” said I reassuringly. “We are friends. Do you
understand?”
The faint smile that played for a second on his lips and lighted his
countenance would have told me that he understood, even had I not caught
his words, faint as a sigh “Merci, monsieur.” He nestled his head into
the crook of my arm. “Water--for the love of God!” he gasped, to add in
a groan, “Je me meurs, monsieur.”
Assisted by a couple of knaves, Ganymede went about attending to the
rebel at once. Handling him as carefully as might be, to avoid giving
him unnecessary pain they removed his back-and-breast, which was flung
with a clatter into one of the corners of the barn. Then, whilst one of
them gently drew off his boots, Rodenard, with the lanthorn close beside
him, cut away the fellow's doublet, and laid bare the oozing sword-wound
that gaped in his mangled side. He whispered an order to Gilles, who
went swiftly off to the coach in quest of something that he had asked
for; then he sat on his heels and waited, his hand upon the man's pulse,
his eyes on his face.
I stooped until my lips were on a level with my intendant's ear.
“How is it with him?” I inquired.
“Dying,” whispered Rodenard in answer. “He has lost too much blood, and
he is probably bleeding inwardly as well. There is no hope of his life,
but he may linger thus some little while, sinking gradually, and we can
at least mitigate the suffering of his last moments.”
When presently the men returned with the things that Ganymede had asked
for, he mixed some pungent liquid with water, and, whilst a servant held
the bowl, he carefully sponged the rebel's wound. This and a cordial
that he had given him to drink seemed to revive him and to afford him
ease. His breathing was no longer marked by any rasping sound, and his
eyes seemed to burn more intelligently.
“I am dying--is it not so?” he asked, and Ganymede bowed his head in
silence. The poor fellow sighed. “Raise me,” he begged, and when this
service had been done him, his eyes wandered round until they found me.
Then “Monsieur,” he said, “will you do me a last favour?”
“Assuredly, my poor friend,” I answered, going down on my knees beside
him.
“You--you were not for the Duke?” he inquired, eyeing me more keenly.
“No, monsieur. But do not let that disturb you; I have no interest in
this rising and I have taken no side. I am from Paris, on a journey
of--of pleasure. My name is Bardelys--Marcel de Bardelys.”
“Bardelys the Magnificent?” he questioned, and I could not repress a
smile.
“I am that overrated man.”
“But then you are for the King!” And a note of disappointment crept
into his voice. Before I could make him any answer, he had resumed. “No
matter; Marcel de Bardelys is a gentleman, and party signifies little
when a man is dying. I am Rene de Lesperon, of Lesperon in Gascony,” he
pursued. “Will you send word to my sister afterwards?”
I bowed my head without speaking.
“She is the only relative I have, monsieur. But”--and his tone grew
wistful--“there is one other to whom I would have you bear a message.”
He raised his hand by a painful effort to the level of his breast.
Strength failed him, and he sank back. “I cannot, monsieur,” he said in
a tone of pathetic apology. “See; there is a chain about my neck with
a locket. Take it from me. Take it now, monsieur. There are some papers
also, monsieur. Take all. I want to see them safely in your keeping.”
I did his bidding, and from the breast of his doublet I drew some loose
letters and a locket which held the miniature of a woman's face.
“I want you to deliver all to her, monsieur.”
“It shall be done,” I answered, deeply moved.
“Hold it--hold it up,” he begged, his voice weakening. “Let me behold
the face.”
Long his eyes rested on the likeness I held before him. At last, as one
in a dream--
“Well-beloved,” he sighed. “Bien aimee!” And down his grey, haggard
cheeks the tears came slowly. “Forgive this weakness, monsieur,” he
whispered brokenly. “We were to have been wed in a month, had I lived.”
He ended with a sob, and when next he spoke it was more labouredly, as
though that sob had robbed him of the half of what vitality remained.
“Tell her, monsieur, that my dying thoughts were of her. Tell--tell
her--I--”
“Her name?” I cried, fearing he would sink before I learned it. “Tell me
her name.”
He looked at me with eyes that were growing glassy and vacant. Then he
seemed to brace himself and to rally for a second.
“Her name?” he mused, in a far-off manner. “She is--Ma-de-moiselle de
------”
His head rolled on the suddenly relaxed neck. He collapsed into
Rodenard's arms.
“Is he dead?” I asked.
Rodenard nodded in silence.