OPPORTUNITY
In spite of her earnest efforts to prevent it, or rather because of
those very efforts, events occurred as Madame de Castro had foreseen and
dreaded.
Gabriel had gone from her presence sorrowful and agitated. Diane's fever
had communicated itself to him in some measure, and clouded his eyes and
confused his thoughts.
He passed mechanically down the stairways and along the familiar
corridors of the Louvre, without paying much attention to exterior
objects.
Nevertheless, as he was on the point of opening the door of the great
gallery, he did remember that on his return from St. Quentin it was
there that he had met Mary Stuart, and through the intervention of the
young queen-dauphine had succeeded in reaching the king's presence,
where the first fraud and humiliation had been practised upon him.
For he had not been deceived and outraged on one occasion only; several
times had his enemies trampled upon his hope before its life was finally
extinct. After he had first been made their dupe, he would have done
well to expect similar treatment, and to have anticipated such
exaggerated and cowardly interpretations of the letter of a sacred
agreement.
While these irritating reminiscences were coursing through his brain, he
opened the door and entered the gallery.
At the other end of the gallery, the corresponding door opened at the
same moment.
A man entered.
It was Henri II.,--Henri, the author of, or at least the principal
accessory in, the foul and dastardly deception which had forever
withered Gabriel's heart and poisoned his life.
The king came forward alone, unarmed and unattended.
The offender and the offended, for the first time since the perpetration
of the outrage, found themselves face to face, alone, and scarcely one
hundred feet apart,--a distance which could be traversed in twenty
seconds with twenty steps.
We have said that Gabriel had stopped short, motionless and rigid as a
statue,--like a statue of Vengeance or of Hatred.
The king halted, as he suddenly espied the man whom for nearly a year he
had seen only in his dreams.
The two stood thus for a moment without moving, as if mutually
fascinated by each other.
In the whirl of sensations and thoughts which filled Gabriel's brain,
the poor fellow in his distraction could fix upon no course to adopt,
and form no resolution. He waited.
As for Henri, despite his proved courage, the sensation that he
experienced was beyond question fear; but at the humiliating thought he
held his head erect, banished his first cowardly impulse, and made up
his mind what to do.
To call fur help would have been to show fear; to retire as he had come
would have been to flee.
He pursued his way toward the door, where Gabriel remained as if nailed
to the spot.
Moreover, a superior force, a sort of irresistible and fatal
fascination, urged him on toward the pale phantom who seemed to be
waiting for him.
The perplexities of his destiny began to unfold themselves around him.
Gabriel experienced a species of blind, instinctive satisfaction as he
saw him approach; but still he could not succeed in evolving any
distinct thought from the clouds that obscured his intellect. He simply
laid his hand upon the hilt of his sword.
When the king was within a few steps of Gabriel, the personal dread
which he had previously thrust away seized him anew, and held his heart
fast, as it were in a vice.
He said to himself in a vague way that his last hour had come, and that
it was just.
However, his step did not falter. His feet seemed to carry him along of
their own accord, and independently of his own dazed will. It is thus
that somnambulists go about.
When he was directly in front of Gabriel, so that he could hear his
quick breathing, and might touch him with his hand, he mechanically
raised his hand to his velvet cap, and saluted the young count.
Gabriel did not acknowledge the salute. He maintained his marble-like
attitude; and his hand, like that of a graven image, never left his
sword.
In the king's eyes Gabriel was no longer a subject, but a messenger of
God, before whom he must bow; while to Gabriel Henri was no longer a
king, but a man, who had slain his father, and to whom he owed nothing
but bitter hatred.
However, he allowed him to pass without doing aught, and without a word.
The king, on his part, did not move aside nor turn around nor express
any feeling at such lack of respect.
When the door had closed between the two men, and the charm was broken,
each of them awoke, as it were, rubbed his eyes, and asked himself,--
"Was it not a dream?"
Gabriel slowly left the Louvre. He did not regret the lost opportunity,
nor did he repent that he had allowed it to escape him.
He felt a sort of confused joy.
"My prey is coming to me," he thought; "already he is fluttering around
my nets, and getting within reach of my spear."
He slept that night more soundly than he had done for a long while.
The king, however, was not so tranquil. He went on to Diane's
apartments, where she was expecting him, and welcomed him with such
transports of delight as we can imagine.
But Henri was absorbed and restless. He did not venture to speak of the
Comte de Montgommery, although he fancied that Gabriel was doubtless
coming from his daughter's apartments when they met. However, he did not
choose to touch that chord; therefore, while he had set out to pay Diane
this visit in a spirit of effusive affection and confidence, he
maintained from beginning to end an air of suspicion and constraint.
He then returned to his own apartments, sad and gloomy. He felt
displeased with himself and others, and his sleep that night was very
troubled and broken.
It seemed to him that he was becoming involved in a labyrinth from which
he should never come out alive.
"However," he said to himself, "I offered myself to that man's sword
to-day in a measure; so it is evident that he does not wish to kill me."
The king, in order to distract his thoughts and seek forgetfulness for
his troubles, determined to leave Paris for a time. During the days
immediately following his encounter with the Comte de Montgommery, he
went successively to St. Germain, Chambord, and Madame de Poitiers's
Château d'Anet.
Toward the close of the month of June he was at Fontainebleau.
He was constantly moving about, and had the appearance of a man wishing
to drown his trouble in motion and noise and excitement.
The approaching fêtes in connection with his daughter Élisabeth's
marriage with Philip II. afforded an excuse as well as opportunity for
this feverish need of continual action.
At Fontainebleau he desired to entertain the Spanish ambassador with the
spectacle of a great hunt in the forest, and it was appointed to take
place on the 23d of June.
The day broke hot and threatening, and the weather became very
tempestuous.
Nevertheless Henri did not countermand the orders he had given, for the
excitement would surely be no less in a storm.
He selected the fleetest and highest-mettled horse in his stables, and
followed the hunt with a sort of fury; and it happened at one time that
carried away by his own ardor and the temper of his horse, he
outstripped all his companions, lost sight of the hunt completely, and
missed his way in the forest.
Clouds were piling up in the sky, and ominous rumblings were heard in
the distance. The storm was about to break.
Henri, leaning forward upon his foaming steed, whose headlong pace he
made no attempt to slacken, but on the contrary, urging him on with
voice and spur, rode on and on, more swiftly than the wind, among the
trees and rocks; the dizzy gallop seemed to suit his humor, for he
laughed loud and long.
For a few moments he had forgotten his troubles.
Suddenly his horse reared in terror; a dazzling flash lighted up the
sky, and the sudden apparition of one of those huge white rocks which
abound in the forest of Fontainebleau, towering aloft at a corner of the
path, had startled him.
A loud peal of thunder increased twofold the fear of the skittish
animal. He bounded forward, and the sudden movement broke the rein close
to the bit, so that Henri entirely lost control.
Then began a furious, fearful mad race.
The horse, with mane erect, foaming flanks, and rigid legs, shot through
the air like an arrow.
The king, clinging to the animal's neck to save himself from falling,
his hair on end, and his clothes blowing about in the wind, vainly tried
to seize the rein, which would have been of no use in his hands.
Any one seeing the horse and his rider pass thus in the tempest would
have infallibly taken them for a vision from the infernal regions, and
would have thought only of exorcising the evil spirit with the sign of
the cross.
But no one was at hand; not a living soul, not an inhabited dwelling.
That last chance of safety which the presence of a fellow-man affords to
one in peril was lacking to this anointed horseman.
Not a woodcutter, not a beggar, not a poacher, not even a thief, to save
this crowned king!
The pouring rain, and the more and more frequent peals of thunder, ever
nearer at hand, drove the maddened steed to an even more headlong and
terrific pace.
Henri, with staring eyes, tried in vain to recognize the path along
which the fatal race was being run. At last he did succeed in fixing his
position at a certain cleared space among the trees, and then he fairly
shook with terror, for the path led straight to the summit of a steep
rock, whose perpendicular wall overhung a deep chasm, a veritable abyss!
The king did his utmost to stop the horse with his hand and voice, but
to no purpose.
To throw himself from the saddle was to break his neck against some
tree-trunk or granite bowlder, and it was better not to resort to that
desperate measure until the last moment.
In any event Henri felt that he was lost, and full of remorse and dread,
was already commending his soul to God.
He did not know at just what part of the path he was, or whether the
precipice was close at hand or at some distance; but he must be ready,
and he was just about to let himself to the ground, at all hazards.
At this moment, as he cast a last look about him in all directions, he
saw a man at the end of the path, mounted like himself, but standing
beneath the shelter of an oak.
At that distance he could not recognize the man, whose features and
form, in addition, were hidden by a long cloak and a broad-rimmed hat.
But it was doubtless some gentleman who had lost his way in the forest,
as he himself had done.
At last Henri felt that his safety was assured. The path was narrow, and
the stranger had only to move his horse forward a step or two to block
the king's passage; or by simply reaching out his hand he might stop him
in his headlong course.
Nothing could be easier; and even though there were some risk attending
it, the unknown, on recognizing the king, ought not to think twice about
incurring the risk to save his master.
In less than one twentieth of the time it has taken to read these words,
the three or four hundred paces which separated Henri from his rescuer
had been traversed.
Henri, to attract attention, uttered a cry of distress and waved his
hand. The stranger saw him, and made a movement; he was doubtless making
ready.
But oh, in terror's name! although the maddened horse passed directly
before the unknown horseman, he failed to make the slightest attempt to
stop him.
Indeed, it seemed as if he fell back somewhat, to avoid any possible
contact.
The king uttered a second cry, no longer appealing and imploring, but of
rage and despair.
However, he thought that the iron feet of his horse seemed to be now
striking on stone, and not on the sod. He had arrived at the fatal
precipice.
He whispered the name of God, released his foot from the stirrup, and
let himself fall to the ground, at every risk.
The rebound carried him some fifteen paces away; but miraculously, as it
appeared, he fell upon a little mound of moss and grass, and sustained
no injury. It was full time! Less than twenty feet away was the sheer
precipice.
The poor horse, amazed at being thus relieved of his burden, gradually
lessened his pace, so that when he reached the edge of the chasm, he had
time to measure its width, and instinctively threw himself upon his
haunches, with flaming eyes and disordered mane, and foam flying from
his distended nostrils.
But if the king had been still upon his back, the shock of his sudden
stop would surely have thrown him into the abyss.
Having offered a fervent prayer of thanksgiving to God, who had so
evidently protected him, and having soothed and remounted his horse, his
first thought was to hasten back and vent his anger upon the wretch who
would so basely have left him to die, except for the intervention of
God.
The stranger had remained in the same spot, still motionless beneath the
folds of his black cloak.
"Wretch!" cried the king, when he had approached within ear-shot. "Did
you not see the danger I was in? Did you not recognize me, regicide? And
even though it were not your king, ought you not to rescue any man in
such peril of his life, when you have only to stretch out your arm to do
it, miscreant?"
The stranger did not move, nor did he reply; he simply raised his head
slightly, which was shaded from Henri's eyes by his broad felt hat.
The king recoiled as he recognized the pale and dejected features of
Gabriel. He said no more, but muttered to himself, lowering his head,--
"The Comte de Montgommery! Then I have nothing more to say."
And without another word, he put spurs to his horse and galloped off
into the forest.
"He would not kill me," he said to himself, seized with a death-like
tremor; "but it seems that he would let me die."
Gabriel, once more alone, repeated with a gloomy smile,--
"I feel that my prey is coming nearer, and the hour is approaching."