And full of black rage! Had she only reproached me, or, turning on me in
the hour of MY victory, said all that she had now said in the moment
of her own, I could have borne it. She might have shamed me then, and I
might have taken the shame to myself and forgiven her. But, as it was,
I stood there in the gathering dusk, between the darkening hedges,
baffled, tricked, defeated! And by a woman! She had pitted her wits
against mine, her woman’s will against my experience, and she had come
off the victor. And then she had reviled me! As I took it all in, and
began to comprehend also the more remote results, and how completely her
move had made further progress on my part impossible, I hated her. She
had tricked me with her gracious ways and her slow-coming smile. And,
after all--for what she had said--it was this man’s life or mine. ‘What
had I done that another man would not do? MON DIEU! in the future there
was nothing I would not do. I would make her smart for those words of
hers! I would bring her to her knees!
Still, hot as I was, an hour might have restored me to coolness. But
when I started to return, I fell into a fresh rage, for I remembered
that I did not know my way out of the maze of rides and paths into which
she had drawn me; and this and the mishaps which followed, kept my rage
hot. For a full hour I wandered in the wood, unable, though I knew
where the village lay, to find any track which led continuously in one
direction. Whenever, at the end of each attempt, the thicket brought me
up short, I fancied that I heard her laughing on the farther side of the
brake; and the ignominy of this chance punishment, and the check which
the confinement placed on my rage, almost maddened me. In the darkness I
fell, and rose cursing; I tore my hands with thorns; I stained my suit,
which had suffered sadly once before. At length, when I had almost
resigned myself to lie in the wood, I caught sight of the lights of the
village, and, trembling between haste and anger, pressed towards them.
In a few minutes I stood in the little street.
The lights of the inn shone only fifty yards away; but before I could
show myself even there pride suggested that I should do something to
repair my clothes. I stopped, and scraped and brushed them; and, at the
same time, did what I could to compose my features. Then I advanced to
the door and knocked. Almost on the instant the landlord’s voice cried
from the inside, ‘Enter, Monsieur!’
I raised the latch and went in. The man was alone, squatting over the
fire warming his hands. A black pot simmered on the ashes, As I entered
he raised the lid and peeped inside. Then he glanced over his shoulder.
‘You expected me?’ I said defiantly, walking to the hearth, and setting
one of my damp boots on the logs.
‘Yes,’ he answered, nodding curtly. ‘Your supper is just ready. I
thought that you would be in about this time.’
He grinned as he spoke, and it was with difficulty I suppressed my
wrath.
‘Mademoiselle de Cocheforet told you,’ I said, affecting indifference,
‘where I was?’
‘Ay, Mademoiselle--or Madame,’ he replied, grinning afresh.
So she had told him; where she had left me, and how she had tricked me!
She had, made me the village laughing-stock! My rage flashed out afresh
at the thought, and, at the sight of his mocking face, I raised my fist.
But he read the threat in my eyes, and was up in a moment, snarling,
with his hand on his knife.
‘Not again, Monsieur!’ he cried, in his vile patois. ‘My head is sore
still raise your hand and I will rip you up as I would a pig!’
‘Sit down, fool,’ I said. ‘I am not going to harm you. Where is your
wife?’
‘About her business.’
‘Which should be getting my supper,’ I retorted.
He rose sullenly, and, fetching a platter, poured the mess of broth and
vegetables into it. Then he went to a cupboard and brought out a loaf of
black bread and a measure of wine, and set them also on the table.
‘You see it,’ he said laconically.
‘And a poor welcome!’ I replied.
He flamed into sudden passion at that. Leaning with both his hands on
the table he thrust his rugged face and blood-shot eyes close to mine.
His moustachios bristled, his beard trembled.
‘Hark ye, sirrah!’ he muttered, with sullen emphasis, ‘be content! I
have my suspicions. And if it were not for my lady’s orders I would
put a knife into you, fair or foul, this very night. You would lie
snug outside, instead of inside, and I do not think anyone would be the
worse. But as it is, be content. Keep a still tongue; and when you turn
your back on Cocheforet to-morrow keep it turned.’
‘Tut! tut!’ I said--but I confess that I was a little out of
countenance. ‘Threatened men live long, you rascal!’
‘In Paris!’ he answered significantly. ‘Not here, Monsieur.’
He straightened himself with that, nodded once, and went back to the
fire; and I shrugged my shoulders and began to eat, affecting to forget
his presence. The logs on the hearth burned sullenly, and gave no light.
The poor oil-lamp, casting weird shadows from wall to wall, served only
to discover the darkness. The room, with its low roof and earthen floor,
and foul clothes flung here and there, reeked of stale meals and garlic
and vile cooking. I thought of the parlour at Cocheforet, and the dainty
table, and the stillness, and the scented pot-herbs; and though I was
too old a soldier to eat the worse because my spoon lacked washing, I
felt the change, and laid it savagely at Mademoiselle’s door.
The landlord, watching me stealthily from his place by the hearth, read
my thoughts and chuckled aloud.
‘Palace fare, palace manners!’ he muttered scornfully. ‘Set a beggar on
horseback, and he will ride--back to the inn!’
‘Keep a civil tongue, will you!’ I answered, scowling at him.
‘Have you finished?’ he retorted.
I rose, without deigning to reply, and, going to the fire, drew off my
boots, which were wet through. He, on the instant, swept off the wine
and loaf to the cupboard, and then, coming back for the platter I had
used, took it, opened the back door, and went out, leaving the door
ajar. The draught which came in beat the flame of the lamp this way and
that, and gave the dingy, gloomy room an air still more miserable. I
rose angrily from the fire, and went to the door, intending to close it
with a bang.
But when I reached it, I saw something, between door and jamb, which
stayed my hand. The door led to a shed in which the housewife washed
pots and the like. I felt some surprise, therefore, when I found a light
there at this time of night; still more surprise when I saw what she was
doing.
She was seated on the mud floor, with a rush-light before her, and on
either side of her a high-piled heap of refuse and rubbish. From one
of these, at the moment I caught sight of her, she was sorting
things--horrible filthy sweepings of road or floor--to the other;
shaking and sifting each article as she passed it across, and then
taking up another and repeating the action with it, and so on--all
minutely, warily, with an air of so much patience and persistence that I
stood wondering. Some things--rags--she held up between her eyes and
the light, some she passed through her fingers, some she fairly tore
in pieces. And all the time her husband stood watching her greedily, my
platter still in his hand, as if her strange occupation fascinated him.
I stood looking, also, for half a minute, perhaps; then the man’s
eye, raised for a single second to the door-way, met mine. He started,
muttered something to his wife, and, quick as thought, he kicked
the light out, leaving the shed in darkness. Cursing him for an
ill-conditioned fellow, I walked back to the fire, laughing. In a
twinkling he followed me, his face dark with rage. ‘VENTRE-SAINT-GRIS!’
he exclaimed, thrusting himself close to me. ‘Is not a man’s house his
own?’
‘It is, for me,’ I answered coolly, shrugging my shoulders. ‘And
his wife: if she likes to pick dirty rags at this hour, that is your
affair.’
‘Pig of a spy!’ he cried, foaming with rage.
I was angry enough at bottom, but I had nothing to gain by quarrelling
with the fellow; and I curtly bade him remember himself.
‘Your mistress gave you orders,’ I said contemptuously. ‘Obey them.’
He spat on the floor, but at the same time he grew calmer.
‘You are right there,’ he answered spitefully. ‘What matter, after all,
since you leave to-morrow at six? Your horse has been sent down, and
your baggage is above.’
‘I will go to it,’ I retorted. ‘I want none of your company. Give me a
light, fellow!’
He obeyed reluctantly, and, glad to turn my back on him, I went up the
ladder, still wondering faintly, in the midst of my annoyance, what his
wife was about that my chance detection of her had so enraged him. Even
now he was not quite himself. He followed me with abuse, and, deprived
by my departure of any other means of showing his spite, fell to
shouting through the floor, bidding me remember six o’clock, and be
stirring; with other taunts, which did not cease until he had tired
himself out.
The sight of my belongings--which I had left a few hours before at the
Chateau--strewn about the floor of this garret, went some way towards
firing me again. But I was worn out. The indignities and mishaps of the
evening had, for once, crushed my spirit, and after swearing an oath or
two I began to pack my bags. Vengeance I would have; but the time and
manner I left for daylight thought. Beyond six o’clock in the morning I
did not look forward; and if I longed for anything it was for a little
of the good Armagnac I had wasted on those louts of merchants in the
kitchen below. It might have done me good now.
I had wearily strapped up one bag, and nearly filled the other, when I
came upon something which did, for the moment, rouse the devil in me.
This was the tiny orange-coloured sachet which Mademoiselle had dropped
the night I first saw her at the inn, and which, it will be remembered,
I picked up. Since that night I had not seen it, and had as good as
forgotten it. Now, as I folded up my other doublet, the one I had then
been wearing, it dropped from my pocket.
The sight of it recalled all--that night, and Mademoiselle’s face in the
lantern light, and my fine plans, and the end of them; and, in a fit of
childish fury, the outcome of long suppressed passion, I snatched up
the sachet from the floor and tore it across and across, and flung the
pieces down. As they fell, a cloud of fine pungent dust burst from them,
and with the dust, something more solid, which tinkled sharply on
the boards, as it fell. I looked down to see what this was--perhaps I
already repented of my act; but for a moment I could see nothing. The
floor was grimy and uninviting, the light bad.
In certain moods, however, a man is obstinate about small things, and I
moved the taper nearer. As I did so a point of light, a flashing sparkle
that shone for a second among the dirt and refuse on the floor, caught
my eye. It was gone in a moment, but I had seen it. I stared, and
moved the light again, and the spark flashed out afresh, this time in
a different place. Much puzzled, I knelt, and, in a twinkling, found a
tiny crystal. Hard by it lay another--and another; each as large as
a fair-sized pea. I took up the three, and rose to my feet again, the
light in one hand, the crystals in the palm of the other.
They were diamonds! Diamonds of price! I knew it in a moment. As I moved
the taper to and fro above them, and watched the fire glow and tremble
in their depths, I knew that I held in my hand that which would buy the
crazy inn and all its contents a dozen times over! They were diamonds!
Gems so fine, and of so rare a water--or I had never seen gems--that
my hand trembled as I held them, and my head grew hot and my heart beat
furiously. For a moment I thought that I dreamed, that my fancy played
me some trick; and I closed my eyes and did not open them again for
a minute. But when I did, there they were, hard, real, and angular.
Convinced at last, in a maze of joy and fear, I closed my hand upon
them, and, stealing on tip-toe to the trap-door, laid first my saddle on
it and then my bags, and over all my cloak, breathing fast the while.
Then I stole back, and, taking up the light again, began to search the
floor, patiently, inch by inch, with naked feet, every sound making
me tremble as I crept hither and thither over the creaking boards. And
never was search more successful or better paid. In the fragments of the
sachet I found six smaller diamonds and a pair of rubies. Eight large
diamonds I found on the floor. One, the largest and last found, had
bounded away, and lay against the wall in the farthest corner. It took
me an hour to run that one to earth; but afterwards I spent another hour
on my hands and knees before I gave up the search, and, satisfied at
last that I had collected all, sat down on my saddle on the trap-door,
and, by the last flickering light of a candle which I had taken from my
bag, gloated over my treasure--a treasure worthy of fabled Golconda.
Hardly could I believe in its reality, even now. Recalling the jewels
which the English Duke of Buckingham wore on the occasion of his visit
to Paris in 1625, and whereof there was so much talk, I took these to
be as fine, though less in number. They should be worth fifteen thousand
crowns, more or less. Fifteen thousand crowns! And I held them in the
hollow of my hand--I, who was scarcely worth ten thousand sous.
The candle going out cut short my admiration. Left in the dark with
these precious atoms, my first thought was how I might dispose of them
safely; which I did, for the time, by secreting them in the lining of my
boot. My second thought turned on the question how they had come where I
had found them, among the powdered spice and perfumes in Mademoiselle de
Cocheforet’s sachet.
A minute’s reflection enabled me to come very near the secret, and at
the same time shed a flood of light on several dark places, What Clon
had been seeking on the path between the house and the village, what the
goodwife of the inn had sought among the sweepings of yard and floor,
I knew now the sachet--knew, too, what had caused the marked and sudden
anxiety I had noticed at the Chateau--the loss of this sachet.
And there for a while I came to a check But one step more up the ladder
of thought brought all in view. In a flash I guessed how the jewels had
come to be in the sachet; and that it was not Mademoiselle but M.
de Cocheforet who had mislaid them. I thought this last discovery
so important that I began to pace the room softly, unable, in my
excitement, to remain still.
Doubtless he had dropped the jewels in the hurry of his start from the
inn that night! Doubtless, too, he had carried them in that bizarre
hiding-place for the sake of safety, considering it unlikely that
robbers, if he fell into their hands, would take the sachet from him;
as still less likely that they would suspect it to contain anything
of value. Everywhere it would pass for a love-gift, the work of his
mistress.
Nor did my penetration stop there. I guessed that the gems were family
property, the last treasure of the house; and that M. de Cocheforet,
when I saw him at the inn, was on his way to convey them out of the
country; either to secure them from seizure by the Government, or to
raise money by selling them--money to be spent in some last desperate
enterprise. For a day or two, perhaps, after leaving Cocheforet, while
the mountain road and its chances occupied his thoughts, he had not
discovered his loss. Then he had searched for the precious sachet,
missed it, and returned hot-foot on his tracks.
The longer I considered the circumstances the more certain I was that
I had hit on the true solution; and all that night I sat wakeful in the
darkness, pondering what I should do. The stones, unset as they were,
could never be identified, never be claimed. The channel by which they
had come to my hands could never be traced. To all intents they were
mine; mine, to do with as I pleased! Fifteen thousand crowns, perhaps
twenty thousand crowns, and I to leave at six in the morning, whether I
would or no! I might leave for Spain with the jewels in my pocket. Why
not?
I confess I was tempted. And indeed the gems were so fine that I doubt
not some indifferently honest men would have sold salvation for them.
But--a Berault his honour? No. I was tempted, I say; but not for long.
Thank God, a man may be reduced to living by the fortunes of the dice,
and may even be called by a woman ‘spy’ and ‘coward,’ without becoming a
thief! The temptation soon left me--I take credit for it--and I fell to
thinking of this and that plan for making use of them. Once it occurred
to me to take the jewels to the Cardinal and buy my pardon with them;
again, to use them as a trap to capture Cocheforet; again, to--and then,
about five in the morning, as I sat up on my wretched pallet, while the
first light stole slowly in through the cobwebbed, hay-stuffed lattice,
there came to me the real plan, the plan of plans, on which I acted.
It charmed me I smacked my lips over it, and hugged myself, and felt my
eyes dilate in the darkness, as I conned it. It seemed cruel, it seemed
mean; I cared nothing. Mademoiselle had boasted of her victory over me,
of her woman’s wits and her acuteness and of my dullness. She had said
that her grooms should flog me. She had rated me as if I had been a dog.
Very well; we would see now whose brains were the better, whose was the
master mind, whose should be the whipping.
The one thing required by my plan was that I should get speech with her;
that done, I could trust myself and my new-found weapon for the rest.
But that was absolutely necessary, and, seeing that there might be some
difficulty about it, I determined to descend as if my mind were made
up to go; then, on pretence of saddling my horse, I would slip away on
foot, and lie in wait near the Chateau until I saw her come out. Or if
I could not effect my purpose in that way--either by reason of the
landlord’s vigilance, or for any other cause--my course was still easy.
I would ride away, and when I had proceeded a mile or so, tie up my
horse in the forest and return to the wooden bridge. Thence I could
watch the garden and front of the Chateau until time and chance gave me
the opportunity I sought.
So I saw my way quite clearly; and when the fellow below called me,
reminding me rudely that I must be going, and that it was six o’clock,
I was ready with my answer. I shouted sulkily that I was coming, and,
after a decent delay, I took up my saddle and bags and went down.
Viewed by the light of a cold morning, the inn-room looked more smoky,
more grimy, more wretched than when I had last seen it. The goodwife was
not visible. The fire was not lighted. No provision, not so much as a
stirrup-cup or bowl of porridge cheered the heart.
I looked round, sniffing the stale smell of last night’s lamp, and
grunted.
‘Are you going to send me out fasting?’ I said, affecting a worse humour
than I felt.
The landlord was standing by the window, stooping over a great pair of
frayed and furrowed thigh-boots which he was labouring to soften with
copious grease.
‘Mademoiselle ordered no breakfast,’ he answered, with a malicious grin.
‘Well it does not much matter,’ I replied grandly. ‘I shall be at Auch
by noon.’
‘That is as may be,’ he answered with another grin.
I did not understand him, but I had something else to think about, and I
opened the door and stepped out, intending to go to the stable. Then in
a second I comprehended. The cold air laden with woodland moisture
met me and went to my bones; but it was not that which made me shiver.
Outside the door, in the road, sitting on horseback in silence, were
two men. One was Clon. The other, who had a spare horse by the
rein--my horse--was a man I had seen at the inn, a rough, shock-headed,
hard-bitten fellow. Both were armed, and Clon was booted. His mate rode
barefoot, with a rusty spur strapped to one heel.
The moment I saw them a sure and certain fear crept into my mind: it was
that which made me shiver. But I did not speak to them. I went in again
and closed the door behind me. The landlord was putting on his boots.
‘What does this mean?’ I said hoarsely--though I had a clear prescience
of what was coming. ‘Why are these men here?’
‘Orders,’ he answered laconically.
‘Whose orders?’ I retorted.
‘Whose?’ he answered bluntly. ‘Well, Monsieur, that is my business.
Enough that we mean to see you out of the country, and out of harm’s
way.’
‘But if I will not go?’ I cried.
‘Monsieur will go,’ he answered coolly. ‘There are no strangers in the
village to-day,’ he added, with a significant smile.
‘Do you mean to kidnap me?’ I replied, in a rage.
But behind the rage was something else--I will not call it terror, for
the brave feel no terror but it was near akin to it. I had had to do
with rough men all my life, but there was a grimness and truculence
in the aspect of these three that shook me. When I thought of the dark
paths and narrow lanes and cliff sides we must traverse, whichever road
we took, I trembled.
‘Kidnap you, Monsieur?’ he answered, with an every-day air. ‘That is
as you please to call it. One thing is certain, however,’ he continued,
maliciously touching an arquebuss which he had brought out, and set
upright against a chair while I was at the door; if you attempt the
slightest resistance, we shall know how to put an end to it, either here
or on the road.’
I drew a deep breath, the very imminence of the danger restoring me to
the use of my faculties. I changed my tone and laughed aloud.
‘So that is your plan, is it?’ I said. ‘The sooner we start the better,
then. And the sooner I see Auch and your back turned, the more I shall
be pleased.’
He rose. ‘After you, Monsieur,’ he said.
I could not restrain a slight shiver. His new-born politeness alarmed me
more than his threats. I knew the man and his ways, and I was sure that
it boded ill to me.
But I had no pistols, and only my sword and knife, and I knew that
resistance at this point must be worse than vain. I went out jauntily,
therefore, the landlord coming after me with my saddle and bags.
The street was empty, save for the two waiting horsemen who sat in their
saddles looking doggedly before them, The sun had not yet risen, the air
was raw. The sky was grey, cloudy, and cold. My thoughts flew back to
the morning on which I had found the sachet--at that very spot, almost
at that very hour, and for a moment I grew warm again at the thought of
the little packet I carried in my boot. But the landlord’s dry manner,
the sullen silence of his two companions, whose eyes steadily refused
to meet mine, chilled me again. For an instant the impulse to refuse
to mount, to refuse to go, was almost irresistible; then, knowing the
madness of such a course, which might, and probably would, give the
men the chance they desired, I crushed it down and went slowly to my
stirrup.
‘I wonder you do not want my sword,’ I said by way of sarcasm, as I
swung myself up.
‘We are not afraid of it,’ the innkeeper answered gravely. ‘You may keep
it--for the present.’
I made no answer--what answer had I to make?--and we rode at a footpace
down the street; he and I leading, Clon and the shock-headed man
bringing up the rear. The leisurely mode of our departure, the absence
of hurry or even haste, the men’s indifference whether they were seen,
or what was thought, all served to sink my spirits and deepen my sense
of peril. I felt that they suspected me, that they more than half
guessed the nature of my errand at Cocheforet, and that they were not
minded to be bound by Mademoiselle’s orders. In particular, I augured
the worst from Clon’s appearance. His lean malevolent face and sunken
eyes, his very dumbness chilled me. Mercy had no place there.
We rode soberly, so that nearly half an hour elapsed before we gained
the brow from which I had taken my first look at Cocheforet. Among
the dwarf oaks whence I had viewed the valley we paused to breathe our
horses, and the strange feelings with which I looked back on the scene
may be imagined. But I had short time for indulging in sentiment or
recollections. A curt word, and we were moving again.
A quarter of a mile farther on, the road to Auch dipped into the valley.
When we were already half way down this descent the innkeeper suddenly
stretched out his hand and caught my rein.
‘This way!’ he said.
I saw that he would have me turn into a by-path leading
south-westwards--a mere track, faint and little trodden and encroached
on by trees, which led I knew not whither. I checked my horse.
‘Why?’ I said rebelliously. ‘Do you think I do not know the road? The
road we are in is the way to Auch.’
‘To Auch--yes,’ he answered bluntly. ‘But we are not going to Auch,’
‘Whither then?’ I said angrily.
‘You will see presently,’ he replied with an ugly smile.
‘Yes, but I will know now!’ I retorted, passion getting the better of
me. ‘I have come so far with you. You will find it more easy to take me
farther if you tell me your plans.’
‘You are a fool!’ he cried with a snarl.
‘Not so,’ I answered. ‘I ask only to know whither I am going.’
‘Into Spain,’ he said. ‘Will that satisfy you?’
‘And what will you do with me there?’ I asked, my heart giving a great
bound.
‘Hand you over to some friends of ours,’ he answered curtly, ‘if you
behave yourself. If not, there is a shorter way, and one that will save
us some travelling. Make up your mind, Monsieur. Which shall it be?’