I let him go without a word. There was that in his voice, in his eye,
and in the gesture wherewith he bade me hold the door for him, that
cleared my mind of any doubts touching the irrevocable character of his
determination. To plead was never an accomplishment of mine; to argue, I
saw, would be to waste the Cardinal's time to no purpose.
And so I let him go,--and my curse with him,--and from my window I
watched his coach drive away in the drizzling rain, scattering the
crowd of awe-stricken loiterers who had collected at the rumour of his
presence.
With a fervent prayer that his patron saint, the devil, might see fit
to overset his coach and break his neck before he reached the Palace, I
turned from the window, and called Michelot.
He was quick to answer my summons, bringing me the frugal measure of
bread and wine wherewith it was my custom to break my fast. Then,
whilst I munched my crust, I strode to and fro in the little chamber
and exercised my wits to their utmost for a solution to the puzzle his
Eminence had set me.
One solution there was, and an easy one--flight. But I had promised
Andrea de Mancini that I would stand beside him at St. Germain; there
was a slender chance of saving him if I went, whilst, if I stayed away,
there would be nothing left for his Eminence to do but to offer up
prayers for the rest of his nephew's soul.
Another idea I had, but it was desperate--and yet, so persistently did
my thoughts revert to it that in the end I determined to accept it.
I drank a cup of Armagnac, cheered myself with an oath or two, and again
I called Michelot. When he came, I asked him if he were acquainted
with M. de Canaples, to which he replied that he was, having seen the
gentleman in my company.
“Then,” I said, “you will repair to M. de Canaples's lodging in the Rue
des Gesvres, and ascertain discreetly whether he be at home. If he is,
you will watch the house until he comes forth, then follow him, and
bring me word thereafter where he is to be found. Should he be already
abroad before you reach the Rue des Gesvres, endeavour to ascertain
whither he has gone, and return forthwith. But be discreet, Michelot.
You understand?”
He assured me that he did, and left me to nurse my unpleasant thoughts
for half an hour, returning at the end of that time with the information
that M. de Canaples was seated at dinner in the “Auberge du Soleil.”
Naught could have been more attuned to my purpose, and straightway
I drew on my boots, girt on my sword, and taking my hat and cloak, I
sallied out into the rain, and wended my way at a sharp pace towards the
Rue St. Honoré.
One o'clock was striking as I crossed the threshold of the “Soleil” and
flung my dripping cloak to the first servant I chanced upon.
I glanced round the well-filled room, and at one of the tables I espied
my quarry in company with St. Auban and Montmédy--the very gentlemen
who were to fight beside him that evening--and one Vilmorin, as arrant a
coxcomb and poltroon as could be found in France. With my beaver cocked
at the back of my head, and a general bearing that for aggressiveness
would be hard to surpass, I strode up to their table, and stood for a
moment surveying them with an insolent stare that made them pause in
their conversation. They raised their noble heads and bestowed upon me a
look of haughty and disdainful wonder,--such a look as one might bestow
upon a misbehaving lackey,--all save Vilmorin, who, with a coward's keen
nose for danger, turned slightly pale and fidgeted in his chair. I was
well known to all of them, but my attitude forbade all greeting.
“Has M. de Luynes lost anything?” St. Auban inquired icily.
“His wits, mayhap,” quoth Canaples with a contemptuous shrug.
He was a tall, powerfully built man, this Canaples, with a swart, cruel
face that was nevertheless not ill-favoured, and a profusion of black
hair.
“There is a temerity in M. de Canaples's rejoinder that I had not looked
for,” I said banteringly.
Canaples's brow was puckered in a frown.
“Ha! And why not, Monsieur?”
“Why not? Because it is not to be expected that one who fastens quarrels
upon schoolboys would evince the courage to beard Gaston de Luynes.”
“Monsieur!” the four of them cried in chorus, so loudly that the hum
of voices in the tavern became hushed, and all eyes were turned in our
direction.
“M. de Canaples,” I said calmly, “permit me to say that I can find no
more fitting expression for the contempt I hold you in than this.”
As I spoke I seized a corner of the tablecloth, and with a sudden tug I
swept it, with all it held, on to the floor.
Dame! what a scene there was! In an instant the four of them were on
their feet,--as were half the occupants of the room, besides,--whilst
poor Vilmorin, who stood trembling like a maid who for the first time
hears words of love, raised his quavering voice to cry soothingly,
“Messieurs, Messieurs!”
Canaples was livid with passion, but otherwise the calmest in that room,
saving perhaps myself. With a gesture he restrained Montmédy and St.
Auban.
“I shall be happy to give Master de Luynes all the proof of my courage
that he may desire, and more, I warrant, than he will relish.”
“Bravely answered!” I cried, with an approving nod and a beaming smile.
“Be good enough to lead the way to a convenient spot.”
“I have other business at the moment,” he answered calmly. “Let us say
to-morrow at--”
“Faugh!” I broke in scornfully. “I knew it! Confess, Monsieur, that
you dare not light me now lest you should be unable to keep your
appointments for this evening.”
“Mille diables!” exclaimed St. Auban, “this insolence passes all
bounds.”
“Each man in his turn if you please, gentlemen,” I replied. “My present
affair is with M. de Canaples.”
There was a hot answer burning on St. Auban's lips, but Canaples was
beforehand with him.
“Par la mort Dieu!” he cried; “you go too far, sir, with your 'dare' and
'dare not.' Is a broken gamester, a penniless adventurer, to tell Eugène
de Canaples what he dares? Come, sir; since you are eager for the taste
of steel, follow me, and say your prayers as you go.”
With that we left the inn, amidst a prodigious hubbub, and made our way
to the horse-market behind the Hôtel Vendôme. It was not to be expected,
albeit the place we had chosen was usually deserted at such an hour,
that after the fracas at the “Soleil” our meeting would go unattended.
When we faced each other--Canaples and I--there were at least some
twenty persons present, who came, despite the rain, to watch what they
thought was like to prove a pretty fight. Men of position were they for
the most part, gentlemen of the Court with here and there a soldier,
and from the manner in which they eyed me methought they favoured me but
little.
Our preparations were brief. The absence of seconds disposed of all
formalities, the rain made us impatient to be done, and in virtue of it
Canaples pompously announced that he would not risk a cold by stripping.
With interest did I grimly answer that he need fear no cold when I had
done with him. Then casting aside my cloak, I drew, and, professing
myself also disposed to retain my doublet, we forthwith engaged.
He was no mean swordsman, this Canaples. Indeed, his reputation was
already widespread, and in the first shock of our meeting blades I felt
that rumour had been just for once. But I was strangely dispossessed
of any doubts touching the outcome; this being due perchance to a vain
confidence in my own skill, perchance to the spirit of contemptuous
raillery wherewith I had from the outset treated the affair, and which
had so taken root in my heart that even when we engaged I still, almost
unwittingly, persisted in it.
In my face and attitude there was the reflection of this bantering,
flippant mood; it was to be read in the mocking disdain of my glance, in
the scornful curl of my lip, and even in the turn of my wrist as I put
aside my opponent's passes. All this, Canaples must have noted, and it
was not without effect upon his nerves. Moreover, there is in steel a
subtle magnetism which is the index of one's antagonist; and from the
moment that our blades slithered one against the other I make no doubt
but that Canaples grew aware of the confident, almost exultant mood in
which I met him, and which told him that I was his master. Add to this
the fact that whilst Canaples's nerves were unstrung by passion mine
were held in check by a mind as calm and cool as though our swords were
baited, and consider with what advantages I took my ground.
He led the attack fiercely and furiously, as if I were a boy whose guard
was to be borne down by sheer weight of blows. I contented myself with
tapping his blade aside, and when at length, after essaying every
trick in his catalogue, he fell back baffled, I laughed a low laugh of
derision that drove him pale with fury.
Again he came at me, almost before I was prepared for him, and his
point, parried with a downward stroke and narrowly averted, scratched
my thigh, but did more damage to my breeches than my skin, in exchange
I touched him playfully on the shoulder, and the sting of it drove him
back a second time. He was breathing hard by then, and would fain have
paused awhile for breath, but I saw no reason to be merciful.
“Now, sir,” I cried, saluting him as though our combat were but on the
point of starting--“to me! Guard yourself!”
Again our swords clashed, and my blows now fell as swift on his blade
as his had done awhile ago on mine. So hard did I press him that he was
forced to give way before me. Back I drove him pace by pace, his
wrist growing weaker at each parry, each parry growing wider, and the
perspiration streaming down his ashen face. Panting he went, in that
backward flight before my onslaught, defending himself as best he could,
never thinking of a riposte--beaten already. Back, and yet back he went,
until he reached the railings and could back no farther, and so
broken was his spirit then that a groan escaped him. I answered with a
laugh--my mood was lusty and cruel--and thrust at him. Then, eluding his
guard, I thrust again, beneath it, and took him fairly in the middle of
his doublet.
He staggered, dropped his rapier, and caught at the railings, where for
a moment he hung swaying and gasping. Then his head fell forward, his
grip relaxed, and swooning he sank down into a heap.
A dozen sprang to his aid, foremost amongst them being St. Auban and
Montmédy, whilst I drew back, suddenly realising my own spent condition,
to which the heat of the combat had hitherto rendered me insensible. I
mastered myself as best I might, and, dissembling my hard breathing, I
wiped my blade with a kerchief, an act which looked so calm and callous
that it drew from the crowd--for a crowd it had become by then--an angry
growl. 'T is thus with the vulgar; they are ever ready to sympathise
with the vanquished without ever pausing to ask themselves if his
chastisement may not be merited.
In answer to the growl I tossed my head, and sheathing my sword I flung
the bloodstained kerchief into their very midst. The audacity of the
gesture left them breathless, and they growled no more, but stared.
Then that outrageous fop, Vilmorin, who had been bending over Canaples,
started up and coming towards me with a face that was whiter than that
of the prostrate man, he proved himself so utterly bereft of wit by
terror that for once he had the temerity to usurp the words and actions
of a brave man.
“You have murdered him!” he cried in a strident voice, and thrusting his
clenched fist within an inch of my face. “Do you hear me, you knave? You
have murdered him!”
Now, as may be well conceived, I was in no mood to endure such words
from any man, so was but natural that for answer I caught the dainty
Vicomte a buffet that knocked him into the arms of the nearest
bystander, and brought him to his senses.
“Fool,” I snarled at him, “must I make another example before you
believe that Gaston de Luynes wears a sword?”
“In the name of Heaven--” he began, putting forth his hands in a
beseeching gesture; but what more he said was drowned by the roar of
anger that burst from the onlookers, and it was like to have gone ill
with me had not St. Auban come to my aid at that most critical juncture.
“Messieurs!” he cried, thrusting himself before me, and raising his hand
to crave silence, “hear me. I, a friend of M. de Canaples, tell you that
you wrong M. de Luynes. 'T was a fair fight--how the quarrel arose is no
concern of yours.”
Despite his words they still snarled and growled like the misbegotten
curs they were. But St. Auban was famous for the regal supper parties he
gave, to which all were eager to be bidden, and amidst that crowd, as I
have said, there were a score or so of gentlemen of the Court, who--with
scant regard for the right or wrong of the case and every regard to
conciliate this giver of suppers--came to range themselves beside and
around us, and thus protected me from the murderous designs of that
rabble.
Seeing how the gentlemen took my part, and deeming--in their blessed
ignorance--that what gentlemen did must be perforce well done, they grew
calm in the twinkling of an eye. Thereupon St. Auban, turning to me,
counselled me in a whisper to be gone, whilst the tide of opinion flowed
in my favour. Intent to act upon this good advice, I took a step towards
the little knot that had collected round Canaples, and with natural
curiosity inquired into the nature of his hurt.
'T was Montmédy who answered me, scowling as he did so:
“He may die of it, Monsieur. If he does not, his recovery will be at
least slow and difficult.”
I had been wise had I held my peace and gone; but, like a fool, I must
needs give utterance to what was in my mind.
“Ah! At least there will be no duel at St. Germain this evening.”
Scarce had the words fallen from my lips when I saw in the faces of
Montmédy and St. Auban and half a dozen others the evidence of their
rashness.
“So!” cried St. Auban in a voice that shook with rage. “That was your
object, eh? That you had fallen low, Master de Luynes, I knew, but I
dreamt not that in your fall you had come so low as this.”
“You dare?”
“Pardieu! I dare more, Monsieur; I dare tell you--you, Gaston de Luynes,
spy and bravo of the Cardinal--that your object shall be defeated.
That, as God lives, this duel shall still be fought--by me instead of
Canaples.”
“And I tell you, sir, that as God lives it shall not,” I answered with a
vehemence not a whit less than his own. “To you and to what other fools
may think to follow in your footsteps, I say this: that not to-night
nor to-morrow nor the next day shall that duel be fought. Cowards and
poltroons you are, who seek to murder a beardless boy who has injured
none of you! But, by my soul! every man who sends a challenge to that
boy will I at once seek out and deal with as I have dealt with Eugène de
Canaples. Let those who are eager to try another world make the attempt.
Adieu, Messieurs!”
And with a flourish of my sodden beaver, I turned and left them before
they had recovered from the vehemence of my words.