PART I

Produced by Mark C. Orton, Linda McKeown, Janet Blenkinship

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IN KINGS' BYWAYS

BY

STANLEY J. WEYMAN

AUTHOR OF

"A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE," "THE CASTLE INN," "COUNT HANNIBAL," ETC.

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK

1902

COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY

STANLEY J. WEYMAN

_All rights reserved._

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BY STANLEY J. WEYMAN

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[Illustration: A DAUGHTER OF THE GIRONDE

_Page 326_]

CONTENTS

PART I

PAGE

FLORE, 1

CRILLON'S STAKE, 51

FOR THE CAUSE, 86

THE KING'S STRATAGEM, 131

THE HOUSE ON THE WALL, 152

HUNT THE OWLER, 177

THE TWO PAGES, 194

PART II

THE DIARY OF A STATESMAN

EPISODE OF THE FOWL IN THE POT, 213

EPISODE OF THE BOXWOOD FIRE, 238

EPISODE OF THE SNOWBALL, 266

PART III

KING TERROR

A DAUGHTER OF THE GIRONDE, 295

IN THE NAME OF THE LAW, 329

PART I

IN KINGS' BYWAYS

FLORE

(1643)

It was about a month after my marriage--and third clerk to the most

noble the Bishop of Beauvais, and even admitted on occasions to write in

his presence and prepare his minutes, who should marry if I might

not?--it was about a month after my marriage, I say, that the

thunderbolt, to which I have referred, fell and shattered my fortunes. I

rose one morning--they were firing guns for the victory of Rocroy, I

remember, so that it must have been eight weeks or more after the death

of the late king, and the glorious rising of the Sun of France--and who

as happy as I? A summer morning, Monsieur, and bright, and I had all I

wished. The river as it sparkled and rippled against the piers of the

Pont Neuf far below, the wet roofs that twinkled under our garret

window, were not more brilliant than my lord the Bishop's fortunes: and

as is the squirrel so is the tail. Of a certainty, I was happy that

morning. I thought of the little hut under the pine wood at Gabas in

Bearn, where I was born, and of my father cobbling by the unglazed

window, his nightcap on his bald head, and his face plaistered where the

sherd had slipped; and I puffed out my cheeks to think that I had

climbed so high. High? How high might not a man climb, who had married

the daughter of the Queen's under-porter, and had sometimes the ear of

my lord, the Queen's minister--my lord of Beauvais in whom all men saw

the coming master of France! my lord whose stately presence beamed on a

world still chilled by the dead hand of Richelieu!

But that morning, that very morning, I was to learn that who climbs may

fall. I went below at the usual hour; at the usual hour Monseigneur

left, attended, for the Council; presently all the house was in an

uproar. My lord had returned, and called for Prosper. I fancied even

then that I caught something ominous in the sound of my name as it

passed from lip to lip; and nervously I made all haste to the chamber.

But fast as I went I did not go fast enough; one thrust me on this side,

another on that. The steward cursed me as he handed me on to the

head-clerk, who stormed at me; while the secretary waited for me at the

door, and, seizing me by the neck, ran me into the room. "In, rascal,

in!" he growled in my ear, "and I hope your skin may pay for it!"

Naturally by this time I was quaking: and Monseigneur's looks finished

me. He stood in the middle of the chamber, his plump handsome face pale

and sullen. And as he scowled at me, "Yes!" he said curtly, "that is the

fellow. What does he say?"

"Speak!" the head-clerk cried, seizing me by the ear and twisting it

until I fell on my knees. "Imbecile! But it is likely enough he did it

on purpose."

"Ay, and was bribed!" said the secretary.

"He should be hung up," the steward cried, truculently, "before he does

further mischief! And if my lord will give the word----"

"Silence!" the Bishop said, with a dark glance at me. "What does he

plead?"

The head-clerk twisted my ear until I screamed. "Ingrate!" he cried. "Do

you hear his Grace speak to you? Answer him aloud!"

"My lord," I cried piteously, "I do not know of what I am accused. And

besides, I have done nothing! Nothing!"

"Nothing!" half a dozen echoed. "Nothing!" the head-clerk added

brutally. "Nothing, and you add a cipher to the census of Paris!

Nothing, and your lying pen led my lord to state the population to be

five millions instead of five hundred thousand! Nothing, and you sent

his Grace's Highness to the Council to be corrected by low clerks and

people, and made a laughing-stock for the Cardinal, and----"

"Silence!" said the Bishop, fiercely. "Enough! Take him away, and----"

"Hang him!" cried the steward.

"No, fool, but have him to the courtyard, and let the grooms flog him

through the gates. And have a care you," he continued, addressing me,

"that I do not see your face again or it will be worse for you!"

I flung myself down and would have appealed against the sentence, but

the Bishop, who had suffered at the Council and whose ears still burned,

was pitiless. Before I could utter three words a dozen officious hands

plucked me up and thrust me to the door. Outside worse things awaited

me. A shower of kicks and cuffs and blows fell upon me; vainly

struggling and shrieking, and seeking still to gain his lordship's ear,

I was hustled along the passage to the courtyard, and there dragged amid

jeers and laughter to the fountain, and brutally flung in. When I

scrambled out, they thrust me back again and again: until, almost dead

with cold and rage, I was at last permitted to escape, only to be hunted

round the yard with stirrup-leathers that cut like knives, and drew a

scream at every stroke. I doubled like a hare; more than once I knocked

half a dozen down; but I was fast growing exhausted, when some one more

prudent or less cruel than his fellows, opened the gates before me, and

I darted into the street.

I was sobbing with rage and pain, dripping, ragged, and barefoot; for

some saving rogue had prudently drawn off my shoes in the scuffle. It

was a wonder that I was not fallen upon and chased through the streets.

Fortunately in the street opposite my lord's gates opened the mouth of a

little alley. I plunged into it, and in the first dark corner dropped

exhausted and lay sobbing and weeping on a heap of refuse. I who had

risen so happily a few hours before! I who had climbed so high! I who

had a wife new-married in my garret at home!

I do not know how long I lay there, now cursing the jealousy of the

clerks, who would have flayed me to save themselves, and now the cruelty

of the grooms who thought it fine sport to whip a scholar. But the first

tempest of passion had spent itself, when a woman--not the first whom my

plight had attracted, but the others had merely shrugged their shoulders

and passed on--paused before me. "What a white skin!" she cried, making

great eyes at me; and they had cut my clothes so that I was half bare to

her. And then, "You are not a street-prowler. How come you here, my lad,

in that guise?"

I was silent, and pretended to be sullen, being ashamed to meet her

gaze.

She stood a moment staring at me curiously. Then, "Better go home," she

said, shaking her head sedately, "or those who have robbed you may end

by worse. I doubt not this is what comes of raking and night-work. Go

home, my lad," she repeated, and went on her way.

Home! The word raised new thoughts, new hopes, new passions. I scrambled

to my feet. I had a home--the Bishop might deprive me of it: but I had

also a wife, from whom God only could separate me. I felt a sudden fire

run through me at the thought of her, and of all I had suffered since I

left her arms: and with new boldness I turned, and sore and aching as I

was, I stumbled back to the place of my shame.

The steward and two or three of his underlings were standing in the

gateway, and saw me approach; and began to jeer. The high grey front of

Monseigneur's hotel, three sides of a square, towered up behind them;

the steward in the opening sprawled his feet apart and set his hands to

his stout sides, and jeered at me. "Ha! ha! Here is the lame leper from

the Cour des Miracles!" he cried. "Have a care or he will give you the

itch!"

"Good sir, the swill-tub is open," cried another, mocking me. "Help

yourself!"

A third spat at me and bade me begone for a pig. The passers--there were

always a knot of gazers opposite my lord of Beauvais' palace in those

days, when we had the Queen's ear and bade fair to succeed

Richelieu--stayed to stare.

"I want my goods," I said, trembling.

"Your goods!" the steward answered, swelling out his brawny chest, and

smiling at me over it. "_Your_ goods, indeed! Begone, and be thankful

you have escaped so well."

"Give me my things--from my room," I said stubbornly; and I tried to

enter. "They are my own!"

He moved sideways so as to block the passage. "Your goods? They are

Monseigneur's," he said.

"My wife, then!"

He winked, the great beast. "Your wife?" he said. "Well, true; she is

not Monseigneur's. But she will do for me." And with a coarse laugh he

winked again at the crowd.

At that the pent-up rage which I had so long stemmed broke out. He stood

a head taller than I, and a foot wider; but with a scream I sprang at

his throat, and by the very surprise of the attack and his unwieldiness,

I got him down and beat his face with my fists. His fellows, as soon as

they recovered from their astonishment, tore me off, showing me no

mercy. But by that time I had so marked him that the blood poured down

his fat cheeks. He scrambled to his feet, panting and furious, his oaths

tripping over one another.

"To the Chatelet with him!" he cried, spitting out a tooth and staring

at me through the mud on his face. "He shall swing for this! He tried to

break in. I call you to witness he tried to break in!"

"Ay, to the Chatelet! To the Chatelet!" cried the crowd, siding with the

stronger party. He was my lord of Beauvais' steward; I was a

gutter-snipe and dangerous. A dozen hands held me tightly; yet not so

tightly, but that, a coach passing at that moment and driving us all to

the wall, I managed by a jerk--I was desperate by this time, and savage

as a wild-cat--to snatch myself loose. In a second I was speeding down

the Rue Bons Enfants with the hue and cry behind me.

I have said, I was desperate. In an hour the world was changed for me.

In an hour I had broken with every tradition of safe and modest and

clerkly life; and from a sleek scribe was become a ragged outlaw flying

through the streets. I saw the gallows, I felt the lash sink like molten

lead into the quivering back, still bleeding from the stirrup-leathers:

I forgot all but the danger. I lived only in my feet, and with them made

superhuman efforts. Fortunately the light was failing, and in the dusk I

distanced the pack by a dozen yards. I passed the corner of the Palais

Royal so swiftly that the Queen's Guards, though they ran out at the

alarm, were too late to intercept me. Thence I turned instinctively to

the left, and with the cry of pursuit in my ears strained towards the

old bridge, intending to cross to the Cite, where I knew all the lanes

and byways. But the bridge was alarmed, the Chatelet seemed to yawn for

me--they were just lighting the brazier in front of the gloomy pile--and

doubling back, while the air roared with shouts of warning and cries of

"Stop thief! Stop thief!"--I evaded my pursuers, and sped up the narrow

Rue Troussevache, with the hue and cry hard on my heels.

I had no plan now, no aim; only terror added wings to my feet. The end

of that street gained I darted blindly down another, and yet another;

with straining chest, and legs that began to fail, and always in my ears

the yells that rose round me as fresh pursuers joined in the chase.

Still I kept ahead, I was even gaining; with night thickening, I might

hope to escape, if I could baffle those who from time to time--but in a

half-hearted way, not knowing if I were armed--made an attempt to stop

me or trip me up.

Suddenly turning a corner--I had gained a quiet part where blind walls

lined an alley--I discovered a man running before me. At the same

instant the posse in pursuit quickened their pace in a last effort; I,

in answer, put forth my last strength, and in a dozen paces I came up

with the man. He turned to me, our eyes met as we ran abreast; desperate

myself, I read equal terror in his look, and before I could think what

it might mean, he bent himself sideways as he ran, and with a singular

movement flung a parcel he carried into my arms. Then wheeling abruptly

he plunged into a side-lane on his left.

It was done in a moment. Instinctively I caught the burden: but the

impetus with which he had passed it to me, sent me reeling to the

right, and the lane being narrow, I fell against the wall before I could

steady myself. As luck would have it, that which should have destroyed

me, was my salvation; I struck the wall where a door broke it, the door,

lightly latched, flew open under the impact, I fell inwards. I alighted,

in darkness, on my hands and knees, heard the stifled yelp of a dog, and

in a second, though I could see nothing, I was up and had the door

closed behind me.

Then I listened. Panting and breathless, I heard the hunt go raving

through the lane, and the noise die in the distance; until only the

beating of my heart broke the close silence of the darkness in which I

stood. When this had lasted a minute or two, I began to peer and wonder

where I was; and remembering the dog I had heard, I moved stealthily to

find the latch, and escape. As I did so, the bundle, to which through

all I had clung--instinctively, for I had not thought of it--moved in my

arms.

I almost dropped it; then I held it from me with a swift movement of

repulsion. It stirred again, it was warm. In a moment the truth flashed

upon me. It was a child!

Burning hot as I had been before, the sweat rose on me at the thought.

For I saw again the man's face of terror, and I guessed that he had

stolen the child, and I feared the worst. He had mistaken the rabble

hooting at my heels for the avengers of blood, and had been only too

thankful to rid himself of the damning fact, and escape.

And now I had it, and had as much, or more, to fear. For an instant the

impulse to lay the parcel down, and glide out, and so be clear of it,

was strong upon me. And that I think is what the ordinary clerk, being

no hero, nor bred like a soldier to risk his life, would have done. But

for one thing, I was desperate. I knew not, after this, whither to go or

where to save myself. For another thing my clerk's wits were already

busy, showing me how with luck I might use the occasion and avoid the

risk; how with luck I might discover the parents and without suffering

for the theft, restore the child. Beyond that I saw an opening vista of

pardon, employment and reward.

Suddenly, the dog whined again, close to me; and that decided me. I had

found the latch by this time, and warily I drew the door open. In a

moment I was in the lane, looking up and down. I saw nothing to alarm

me; darkness had completely fallen, no one was moving, the neighbourhood

seemed to be of the quietest. I made up my mind to take the bold course:

to return at all hazards to the Rue St. Honore, seek my father-in-law at

the gates of the Palais Royal--where he had the night turn--and throw

the child and myself on his protection.

Without doubt it was the wisest course I could adopt. In those days the

streets of Paris, even in the district of the Louvre and Palais Royal,

were ill-lighted; a network of lanes and dark courts encroached on the

most fashionable parts, and favoured secret access to them, and I

foresaw no great difficulty, short of the moment when I must appear in

the lighted lodge and exhibit my rags. But my evil star was still above

the horizon. I had scarcely reached the end of the lane; I was still

hesitating there, uncertain which way to turn for the shortest course,

when a babel of voices broke on my ear, lights swept round a distant

corner, and I found myself threatened by a new danger. I did not wait to

consider. These people, with their torches and weapons, might have

naught to do with me. But my nerves were shaken, the streets of Paris

were full of terrors, every corner had a gallows for me--and I turned

and, fleeing back the way I had come, I made a hurried effort to find

the house which had sheltered me before. Failing, in one or two trials,

and seeing that the lights were steadily coming on that way, and that in

a moment I must be discovered, I sprang across the way, and dived into

the side-lane by which the child-stealer had vanished.

I had not taken ten steps before some object, unseen in the darkness,

tripped me up, and I fell headlong on the stones. In the fall my burden

rolled from my arms; instantly it was snatched up by a dark figure,

which rose as by magic beside me, and was gone into the gloom almost as

quickly. I got up gasping and limping, and flung a curse after the man;

but the lights already shone on the mouth of the lane in which I stood,

and I had no time to lose if I would not be detected. I set off running

down the passage, turned to the left at the end, and along a second

lane, thence passed into another and a wider road; nor did I stop until

I had left all signs and sounds of pursuit far behind me.

The place in which I came to a stand at last--too weak to run any

farther--was a piece of waste land, in the northern suburbs of the city.

High up on the left I could discern a light or two, piercing the gloom

of the sky; and I knew they shone from the wind-mills of Montmartre. In

every other direction lay darkness; desolation swept by the night wind;

silence broken only by the dismal howling of far-off watch-dogs. I might

have been ten miles from Paris: even as I was a thousand miles from the

man who had risen so happily that morning.

For very misery I sobbed aloud. I did not know exactly where I was; nor

had I known, had I the strength to return. Excitement had carried me

far, but suddenly I felt the weakness of exhaustion, and sick and aching

I craved only a hole in which to lie down and die. Fortunately at this

moment I met the wind, and caught the scent of new-mown hay: stumbling

forward a few steps with such strength as remained, I made out a low

building looming through the night. I staggered to it; I discovered that

it was a shed; and entering with my hands extended, I felt the hay under

my feet. With a sob of thankfulness I took two steps forward and sank

down; but instead of the soft couch I expected, I fell on the angular

body of a man, who with a savage curse rose and flung me off.

This at another time would have scared me to death; but I was so far

gone in wretchedness that I felt no fear and little surprise. I rolled

away without a word, and curling myself up at a distance of a few feet

from my fellow-lodger, fell in a minute fast asleep.

When I awoke, daylight, though the sun was not up, was beginning to

creep into the shed. I turned, every bone in my body ached: the weals of

the stirrup-leathers smarted and burned. I remembered yesterday's

doings, and groaned. Presently the hay beside me rustled, and over the

shoulder of the mass against which I lay I made out the face of a man,

peering curiously at me. I had not yet broken with every habit of

suspicion, nor could in a moment recollect that I had nothing but rags

to lose; and I gazed back spellbound. In silence which neither broke by

so much as a movement we waited gazing into one another's eyes; while

the light in the low-roofed hovel grew and grew, and minute by minute

brought out more clearly the other's features.

At length I knew him, and almost at the same moment he recognized me;

uttering an oath of rage, he rose up as if to spring at my throat. But

either because I did not recoil--being too deep-set in the hay to

move--or for some other reason, he only shook his claw-like fingers at

me, and held off. "Where is it, you dog?" he cried, finding his voice

with an effort. "Speak, or I will have your throat slit. Speak; do you

hear? What have you done with it?"

He was the man who had passed the child to me! I watched him heedfully,

and after a moment's hesitation I told him that it had been taken from

me, and I told him when and where.

"And you don't know the man who took it?" he screamed.

"Not from Adam," I said. "It was dark."

In his disappointment and rage, at receiving the answer, I thought again

that he would fall upon me: but he only choked and swore, and then stood

scowling, the picture of despair. Until, some new thought pricking him,

he threw up his arms and cried out afresh. "_Oh, mon dieu_, what a fool

I was!" he moaned. "What a craven I was! I had a fortune in my hands,

and, fool that I was, I threw it away!"

I thought bitterly of my own case--I was not much afraid of him now, for

I began to think that I understood him. "So had I, yesterday morning,"

I said, "a fortune. You are in no worse case than others."

"Yesterday morning!" he exclaimed. "No, last night. Then, if you like,

you had. But yesterday morning? Fortune and you, scarecrow? Go hang

yourself."

He looked gloomily at me for a moment with his arms crossed on his

chest, and his face darkly set. Then "Who are you?" he asked.

I told him. When he learned that the rabble that had alarmed him, had in

fact been pursuing me--so that his fright had been groundless--he broke

into fresh execrations: and these so violent that I began to feel a sort

of contempt for him, and even plucked up spirit to tell him that look as

disdainfully as he might at me, he seemed to be in no better case.

He looked at me askance at that. "Ay, as it turns out," he said grimly.

"In worse case, if you please. But see the difference, idiot. You are a

poor fool beaten from pillar to post; at all men's mercy, and naught to

get by it; while I played for a great stake. I have lost, it is true! I

have lost!" he continued, his voice rising almost to a yell, "and we are

both in the gutter. But if I had won--if I had won, man----"

He did not finish the sentence but flung himself down on his face in the

hay, and bit and tore it in his passion. A moment I viewed him with

contempt, and thought him a poor creature for a villain. Then the skirt

of his coat, curling over as he grovelled and writhed, disclosed

something that turned my thoughts into another channel. Crushed under

his leather girdle was a little cape, or a garment of that kind, of

velvet so lustrous that it shone in the dark place where I saw it, as

the eyes shine in a toad. Nor it only: before he rolled over and hid it

again, I espied embroidered on one corner of the velvet a stiff gold

crown!

It was with difficulty that I repressed a cry. Cold, damp, aching, I

felt the heat run through me like wine. A crown! A little purple cape!

And taken beyond doubt from the infant he had stolen last night! Then

last night--last night I had carried the King! I had carried the King of

France in my arms.

I no longer found it hard to understand the man's terror of yesterday;

or his grief and despair of this morning. He had indeed played for a

great stake; he had risked torture and the wheel; death in its most

horrible form. And that for which he had risked so much he had

lost!--lost!

I looked at him with new eyes, and a sort of wonder: and had scarcely

time to compose my face, when, the paroxysm of his fury spent, he rose,

and looking at me askance, to see how I took his actions, he asked me

sullenly whither I was going.

"To Monseigneur's," I said cunningly: had I answered, "To the Palais

Royal," he would have suspected me.

"To the Bishop's?"

"Where else?"

"To be beaten again?" he sneered.

I said nothing to that, but asked him whither he was going.

"God knows," he said. "God knows!"

But when I went out, he accompanied me; and we slunk silently, like the

pair of night-birds we were, through lanes and alleys until we were

fairly in town again. By that time the sun was up and the market people

were beginning to enter the city. Here and there eyes took curious note

of my disorder: and thinking of the company I was in, I trembled, and

wondered that the alarm was not abroad and the bells proclaiming us from

every tower. I was more than content, therefore, when my companion at

the back of the Temple halted before a small door in a blind wall. Over

against it stood another small door in the opposite wall.

"Do you stay here?" I said.

He swore churlishly. "What is that to you?" he said, looking up and

down. "Go your way, idiot."

I was glad to affect a like ill-humour, shrugged my shoulders, and

lounged on without looking back. But my brain was on fire. The King! The

four-year-old King! What was I to do? To whom to go with my knowledge?

And then--even then, while I paused hesitating, I heard steps running

behind me, and I turned to find him at my elbow. His face was pale, but

his eyes burned with eagerness, and his whole demeanour was changed.

"Stay!" he cried panting; and then seizing me peremptorily by the breast

of my shirt, "the man who tripped you up, fellow--you did not see him?"

"It was dark," I answered curtly. "I told you I did not know him from

Adam."

"But had he--" he gasped, "you heard him run away--was he lame?"

I could not repress an exclamation. "_Par dieu!_" I said. "Yes, I had

forgotten that. I think he was. I remember I heard his foot go

cluck--clack, cluck--clack as he ran."

His face became burning red, and he staggered. If ever man was near

dying from blood in his head, it was that man at that moment! But after

a while he drew a long breath, and got the better of it, nodded to me,

and turned away. I marked, however--for I stood a moment, watching--that

he did not go back to the door at which I had left him: but after

looking round once and espying me standing, he took a lane on the right

and disappeared.

But I knew or thought that I knew all now; and the moment he was out of

sight, I set off towards the Palais Royal like a hound let loose,

heeding neither those against whom I bumped in the straiter ways, nor

the danger I ran of recognition, nor the miserable aspect I wore in my

rags. I forgot all, save my news, even my own wretchedness; and never

halted or stayed to take breath until I crept panting into the doorway

of the lodge at the Palais, and met my father-in-law's look of disgust

and astonishment.

He was just off the night turn, and met me on the threshold. I saw

beyond him the grinning faces of the under-porters. But I had that to

tell which still upheld me. I threw up my hands.

"I know where they are!" I cried breathlessly. "I can take you to them!"

He gazed at me, dumb for the moment with surprise and rage; and

doubtless a less reputable son-in-law than I appeared, it would have

been hard to find in all Paris. Then his passion found vent. "Pig!" he

cried. "Jackal! Gutter-bird! Begone! I have heard about you! Begone! or

I will have you flayed!"

"But I know where they are! I know where they have him!" I protested.

His face underwent a startling change. He stepped forward with a

nimbleness wonderful in one of his bulk, and he caught me by the collar.

"What," he said, "have you seen the dog?"

"The dog?" I cried. "No, but I have seen the King! I have held him in my

arms! I know where he is."

He released me suddenly, and fell back a pace, looking at me so oddly

that I paused. "Say it again," he said slowly. "You have held the----"

"The King! The King!" I cried impatiently. "In these arms. Last night! I

know where they have him, or at least--where the robbers are."

His double chin fell, and his fat face lost colour. "Poor devil!" he

said, staring at me like one fascinated. "They have took his senses from

him."

"But--" I cried, advancing, "are you not going to do anything?"

He waved me off, and retreating a step, crossed himself. "Jacques!" he

said, speaking to one of the porters, but without taking his eyes off

me, "move him off! Move him off; do you hear, man? He is not safe!"

"But I tell you," I cried fiercely, "they have stolen the King! They

have stolen his Majesty, and I--have held him in my arms. And I

know----"

"There, there, be calm," he answered. "Be calm, my lad. They have stolen

the Queen's dog, that is true. But have it your own way if you like,

only go. Go from here, and quickly, or it will be the worse for you; for

here comes Monseigneur the Bishop to wait on her Majesty, and if he sees

you, you will suffer worse things. There, make way, make way!" he

continued, turning from me to the staring crowd that had assembled.

"Way, for Monseigneur the Bishop of Beauvais! Make way!"

As he spoke, the Bishop in his great coach turned heavily out of the

Rue St. Honore, and the crowd attending him eddied about the Palace

entrance. I was hustled and swept out of the way, and fortunately

escaping notice, found myself a few minutes later crouching in a lane

that runs beside the church of St. Jacques. I was wolfing a crust of

bread, which one of the men with whom I had often talked in the lodge

had thrust into my hand. I ate it with tears: in all Paris, that day,

was no more miserable outcast. What had become of my little wife I knew

not; and I dared not show myself at the Bishop's to ask. My

father-in-law, I feared, was hardened against me, and at the best

thought me mad. I had no longer home or friend, and--this at the moment

cut most sharply--the gorgeous hopes in which I had indulged a few

moments before were as last year's snow! The King was not lost!

I crouched and shivered. In St. Antoine's, at the mouth of the lane, a

man was beating a drum preparatory to publishing a notice; and

presently his voice caught my attention in the middle of my

lamentations. I listened, at first idly, then with my mind.

"Oyez! Oyez!" he cried. "Whereas some evil person, having no fear

of God or of the law before his eyes, has impudently, feloniously,

and treasonably stolen from the Palais Royal, a spaniel, the property

of the Queen-Regent's most excellent Majesty, this is to say, that any

one--rumble--rumble--rumble"--here a passing coach drowned some

sentences--after which I caught--"five hundred crowns, the same to be

paid by Monseigneur the Bishop of Beauvais, President of the Council!"

"And glad to pay it," snarled a voice, quite close to me. I started and

looked up. Two men were talking at a grated window above my head. I

could not see their faces.

"Yet it is a high price for a dog," the other sneered.

"But low for a queen. Yet it will buy her. And this is Richelieu's

France!"

"Was!" the other said pithily. "Well, you know the proverb, my friend.

'A living dog is better than a dead lion.'"

"Ay," his companion rejoined, "but I have a fancy that _that_ dog's name

is spelt neither with an F for Flore--which was the whelp's name, was it

not?--nor a B for Beauvais; nor a C for Conde; but with an M----"

"For Mazarin!" the other answered sharply. "Yes, if he find the dog. But

Beauvais is in possession."

"Rocroy, a hit that counted for Conde shook him; you may be sure of

that."

"Still he is in possession."

"So is my shoe in possession of my foot," was the keen reply. "And

see--I take it off. Beauvais is tottering, I tell you; tottering. It

wants but a shove, and he falls."

I heard no more, for they moved from the window into the room; but they

left me a different man. It was not so much the hope of reward as the

desire for vengeance that urged me; my clerk's wits returned once more,

and in the very desperation of my affairs gave me the courage I

sometimes lacked. I recognized that I had not to do with a King, but a

dog; but that none the less that way lay revenge. And I rose up and

slunk again into the main street and passed through the crowd and up the

Rue St. Martin and by St. Merri, a dirty, ragged, barefoot rascal from

whom people drew their skirts; yes, all that, and the light of the sun

on it--all that, and yet vengeance itself in the body--the hand that

should yet drag my cruel master's _fauteuil_ from under him.

Once I halted, weighing the risks and whether I should take my knowledge

direct to the Cardinal and let him make what use he pleased of it. But I

knew nothing definite, and hardening my heart to do the work myself, I

went on, until I found again the alley between the blind walls where I

had left the dog-stealer. It was noon. The alley was empty, the

neighbouring lane at the back of the Filles Dieu towards St. Martin's

was empty. I looked this way and that and slowly went down to the door

at which the man had halted in his despair; but to which, as soon as he

knew that the game was not lost, he had been heedful not to return while

I watched him.

There, seeing all so quiet, with the green of a tree showing here and

there above the dead wall, I began to blench and wonder how I was to

take the next step. And for half an hour, I dare say, I sneaked to and

fro, now in sight of the door and now with my back to it; afraid to

advance, and ashamed to retreat. At length I came once more through the

alley, and, seeing how quiet and respectable it lay, with the upper part

of a house visible at intervals above the wall, I took heart of grace

and tried the door.

It was so firmly closed, that I despaired; and after looking to assure

myself that the attempt had not been observed, I was going to move away,

when I espied the edge of a key projecting from under the door. Still

all was quiet. A stealthy glance round, and I had out the key. To draw

back now was to write myself craven all my life; and with a shaking hand

I thrust the wards into the lock, turned them, and in another moment

stood on the other side of the door in a neat garden, speckled with

sunshine and shade, and where all lay silent.

I remained a full minute, flattened against the door, staring fearfully

at the high-fronted mansion that beyond the garden looked down on me

with twelve great eyes. But all remained quiet, and observing that the

windows were shuttered, I took courage to move, and slid under a tree

and breathed again.

Still I looked and listened, fearfully, for the silence seemed to watch

me; and the greenness and orderliness of the place frightened me. But

nothing happened, and everything I saw went to prove that the house was

empty. I grew bolder then, and sneaking from bush to bush, reached the

door and with a backward glance between courage and desperation tried

it.

It was locked, but I hardly noticed that; for, as my hand left the

latch, from some remote part of the house came the long-drawn whine of a

dog!

I stood, listening and turning hot and cold in the sunshine; and dared

not touch the latch again lest others should hear the noise. Instead, I

stole out of the doorway, and crept round the house and round the house

again, hunting for a back entrance. I found none; but at last, goaded by

the reflection that fortune would never again be so nearly within my

grasp, I marked a window on the first floor, and at the side of the

house; by which it seemed to me that I might enter. A mulberry-tree

stood by it, and it lacked bars; and other trees veiled the spot. To be

brief, in two minutes I had my knee on the sill, and, sweating with

terror--for I knew that if I were taken I should hang for a thief--I

forced in the casement, and dropped on the floor.

There I waited a while, listening. I was in a bare room, the door of

which stood ajar. Somewhere in the bowels of the house the dog whined

again--and again; otherwise all was still--deadly still. But I had

risked too much to stand now; and in the end, emboldened by the silence,

I crept out and stole along a passage, seeking the way to the lower

floor.

The passage was dark, and every board on which I stepped shrieked the

alarm. But I felt my way to the landing at the head of the stairs, and I

was about to descend, when some impulse, I know not what--perhaps a

shrinking from the dark parts below, to which I was about to trust

myself--moved me to open one of the shutters and peer out.

I did so, cautiously, and but a little--a few inches. I found myself

looking, not into the garden through which I had passed, but into the

one over the way, beyond the alley, and there on a scene so strange and

yet so apropos to my thoughts, that I paused, gaping.

On a plat of grass four men were standing, two and two; between them,

with nose upraised and scenting this way and that, moved a beautiful

curly-haired spaniel, in colour black and tan. The eyes of all four men

were riveted to the dog; which, as I looked, walked sedately first to

the one pair, and then, as if dissatisfied, to the other pair; and then

again stood midway and sniffed the air. The men were speaking, but I

could not catch even their voices, and I was reduced to drawing what

inferences I could from their appearance.

Of the two further from me, one was my rascally bed-fellow; the other

was a crooked villain, almost in rags, with a leg shorter than its

comrade, yet a face bold and even handsome. Of the nearer pair, who had

their backs to me, the shorter, dressed in black, wore the ordinary

aspect of a clerk, or confidential attendant; but when my eyes travelled

to his companion, they paused. He, it was plain to me, was the chief of

the party, for he alone stood covered; and though I could not see his

face nor more of his figure than that he was tall, portly, and of very

handsome presence, it chanced that as I looked he raised his hand to his

chin, and I caught on his thumb, which was white as a woman's, the

sparkle of a superb jewel.

That dazzled me, and the presence of the dog puzzled me; and I continued

to watch, forgetting myself. Presently the man again raised his hand,

and this time it seemed to me that an order was given, for the lame man

started into action, and moved briskly across the sward towards the wall

which bordered the garden on my side--and consequently towards the house

in which I stood. Before he had moved far my companion of the night

interposed; apparently he would have done the errand himself. But at a

word he stood sulkily and let the other proceed; who when he had all but

disappeared--on so little a thing my fortunes turned--below the level of

the intervening walls, looked up and caught sight of me at the window.

Apparently he gave the alarm; for in an instant the eyes of all four

were on me. I hung a moment in sheer surprise, too much taken aback to

retreat; then, as the lame man and his comrade sprang to the door in the

wall--with the evident intention of seizing me--I flung the shutter

close, and, cursing my curiosity, I fled down the stairs.

I had done better had I gone to the window by which I had entered, for

all below was dark; and at the foot of the staircase, I stood, unable,

in my panic, to remember the position of the door. A key grating in the

lock informed me of this, but too late. On the instant the door opened,

a flood of light entered, a cry warned me that I was detected. I turned

to reascend, but stumbled before I had mounted six steps, and as I tried

to rise, felt a weight fall on my back, and the clutch of long fingers

close about my throat. I screamed, as I felt the fingers close in a

grip, deadly, cold, and merciless--then in sheer terror I swooned.

When I recovered my senses, I found myself propped in a chair, and for a

time sat wondering, with an aching head, where I was. In front of me a

great door stood open, admitting a draught of summer air, and a flood of

sunshine that fell even to my feet. Through the doorway I looked on

grass and trees, and heard sparrows twitter, and the chirp of crickets;

and I found all so peaceful that my mind went no further, and it was

only after some minutes that I recognized with a sharp return of terror,

that turned me sick, that I was still in the hall of the empty house.

That brought back other things, and with a shudder I carried my hand to

my throat and tried to rise. A hand put me back, and a dry voice said in

my ear, "Be easy, Monsieur Prosper, be easy. You are quite safe. But I

am afraid that in our haste we have put you to some inconvenience."

I looked with a wry face at the speaker, and recognized him for one of

those I had seen in the garden. He had the air of a secretary or--as he

stood rubbing his smooth chin and looking down at me with a saturnine

smile--of a physician. I read in his eyes something cold and not too

human, yet it went no further. His manner was suave, and his voice, when

he spoke again, as well calculated to reassure as his words were to

surprise me.

"You are better now?" he said. "Yes, then I have to congratulate you on

a strange chance. Few men, Monsieur Prosper, few men, believe me, were

ever so lucky. You were lately I think in the service of Monseigneur the

Bishop of Beauvais, President of her Majesty's Council?"

I fancied that a faint note of irony lurked in his words--particularly

as he recited my late master's titles. I kept silence.

"And yesterday were dismissed," he continued easily, disregarding my

astonishment. "Well, to-day you shall be reinstated--and rewarded. Your

business here, I believe, was to recover her Majesty's dog, and earn the

reward?"

I remembered that the wretch whose fingermarks were still on my throat

might be within hearing, and I tried to utter a denial.

He waved it aside politely. "Just so," he said. "But I know your mind,

better than you do yourself. Well, the dog is in that closet; and on two

conditions it is at your service."

Amazed before, I stared at him now, in a stupor of astonishment.

"You are surprised?" he said. "Yet the case is of the simplest. We stole

the dog, and now have our reasons for restoring it; but we cannot do so

without incurring suspicion. You, on the other hand, who are known to

the Bishop, and did not steal it, may safely restore it. I need not say

that we divide the reward; that is one of the two conditions."

"And the other?" I stammered.

"That you refresh your memory as to the past," he answered lightly. "If

I have the tale rightly, you saw a man convey a dog to this house, an

empty house in the Montmartre Faubourg. You watched, and saw the man

leave, and followed him; he took the alarm, fled, and dropped in his

flight the dog's coat. I think I see it there. On that you hurried with

the coat to Monseigneur, and gave him the address of the house, and----"

"And the dog!" I exclaimed.

"No. Let Monseigneur come and find the dog for himself," he answered,

smiling. "In the closet."

I felt the blood tingle through all my limbs. "But if he comes, and does

not find it?" I cried.

The stranger shrugged his shoulders. "He will find it," he said coolly.

And slightly raising his voice, he called "Flore! Flore!" For answer a

dog whined behind a door, and scratched the panels, and whined again.

The stranger nodded, and his eyes sparkled as if he were pleased.

"There," he said, "you have it. It is there and will be there. And I

think that is all. Only keep two things in mind, my friend. For the

first, a person will claim our share of the reward at the proper time:

for the second, I would be careful not to tell Monseigneur the President

of the Council"--again that faint note of irony--"the true story, lest a

worse thing happen!" And the stranger, with a very ugly smile, touched

his throat.

"I will not!" I said, shuddering. "But----?"

"But what?"

"But I may not," I said faintly--I hated the Bishop--"I may not get

speech of Monseigneur. May I not then take the news to the Palais Royal

and--and let the Queen know directly? Or go with it to the Cardinal?"

"No, you may not!" he said, with a look and in a tone that sent a shiver

down my back. "The Cardinal? What has the Cardinal to do with it?

Understand! You must do precisely that and that only which I have told

you, and add not a jot nor a tittle to it!"

"I will do it," I muttered in haste. My spite against the Bishop was a

small thing beside my neck. And there was the reward!

"Good! Then--then, I think that is all," he answered, seeing in my face,

I think, that I was minded to be obedient. "And I may say farewell.

Until we meet again, adieu, Monsieur Prosper! Adieu, and remember!" And

setting on his hat with a polite gesture, he turned his back to me, went

out into the sunlight, passed to the left, and vanished. I heard the

garden door close with a crash, and then, silence--silence, broken only

by the faint whine of the dog, as it moved in its prison.

Was I alone? I waited awhile before I dared to move; and even when I

found courage to rise, I stood listening with a beating heart, expecting

a footfall on the stairs or that something--I knew not what--would rush

on me from the closed doors of this mysterious house. But the silence

endured. The sparrows outside twittered, the cricket renewed its chirp,

and at length, drawing courage from the sunlight, I moved forward and

lifted the dog's coat from the floor. I examined it: it was the one I

had seen in the possession of the man in the shed. Five minutes later I

was in the streets on my way to the Bishop's hotel, the parcel of velvet

tucked under my girdle.

I have since thought that I did not fully appreciate at the moment the

marvel that had happened to me. But by this time in truth I was nearly

light-headed. I went my way as a man moves in a dream, and even when I

found myself at the door of the hotel, whence I had been so cruelly

ejected, I felt none of those qualms which must have shaken me had I

been sensible. I did not even question how I should reach Monseigneur,

or get the news to him: which proves that we often delude ourselves with

vain fears, and climb obstacles where none exist. For, as it happened,

he was descending from his coach when I entered the yard, and though he

raised his gold-headed staff at sight of me, and in a fury bade the

servants put me out, I had the passion if not the wit to wave the velvet

coat in his face, and cry my errand before them all.

Heaven knows at that there was such a sudden pause and about-face as

must have made even the stolen dog laugh had it been there. Monseigneur

in high excitement bade them bring me in to him as soon as he was

shifted, the secretary whispered in my ear that he had a cloak that

would replace the one I had lost, a valet told me that my wife was gone

to her father's, a serving-man brought me food, and nudged me to

remember him, while others ran and fetched me shoes and a cap; and

all--all from the head-clerk, who was most insistent, downwards, would

know where the dog was, and how I came to know what I did.

But I had even then the sense to keep my secret, and would tell my story

only to the Bishop. He had me in, and heard it. In ten minutes he was in

his coach on his way to the Montmartre Faubourg, taking me with him.

His presence and the food they had given me while I waited had sobered

me somewhat; and I trembled as we went lest the man who had spared me on

terms so strange had some disappointment yet in store for me, lest the

closet be found empty. But a whine, that grew into a long and melancholy

howl, greeted us on the threshold of the room whither I led them; and

the closet door being forced, in a trice the dog was out and amongst us.

Monseigneur clapped his hands and swore freely. "_Dieu benisse!_" he

cried. "It is the dog, sure enough! Here, Flore! Flore!" And as the dog

jumped on us and licked his hand, he turned to me. "Lucky for you,

rascal!" he cried, in great good humour. "There shall be fifty crowns in

your pocket, and your desk again!"

I gasped. "But the reward, Monseigneur?" I stammered. "The five hundred

crowns?"

He bent his black eyebrows. "Reward? Reward, villain?" he thundered. "Do

I hear aright? Is it not enough that I spare you the gallows you richly

earned but yesterday by assaulting my servant? Reward? For what do I pay

you wages, do you think, except to do my work? Are you not my servant?

Go and hang yourself! Or rather," he continued grimly, "stir at your

peril. Look to him, Bonnivet, he is a rogue in grain; and bring him with

me to the Queen's ante-chamber, Her Majesty may desire to ask him

questions, and if he answer them well and handsomely, good! He shall

have the fifty crowns I promised him. If not--I shall know how to deal

with him."

At that, and the mean treachery of his conduct, I fell into my old rage

again, and even his servants looked oddly at him, until a sharp word

recalled them to their duty; on which they hustled me off with little

ceremony, and the less for that which they had before showed me. While

the Bishop, carrying the dog in his arms, mounted his coach and went by

the Rue St. Martin and the Lombards, they hurried me by short cuts and

byways to the Palais Royal, which we reached as his running footman came

in sight. The approach to the gate was blocked by a great crowd of

people, and for a moment I was fond enough to imagine that they had to

do with our affair--and I shrank back. But the steward, with a thrust of

his knee against my hip, which showed me that he had not forgotten my

assault upon him, urged me forward, and from what passed round me as we

pushed through the press, I gathered that a score of captured colours

had arrived from Flanders within the hour, and were about to be

presented to the Queen.

The courtyard confirmed this, for in the open part of it, and much

pressed upon by the curious who thronged the arcades, we found a troop

of horse, plumed and dusty and travel-stained, fresh from the Flanders

road. The officers who bore the trophies we overtook on the stairs near

the door of the ante-chamber. Burning with resentment as I was, and

strung to the last pitch of excitement, I none the less remember that I

thought it an odd time to push in with a dog; but Monseigneur the Bishop

did not seem to see this. Whether he took a certain pleasure in

belittling the war-party, to whom he was opposed in his politics, or

merely knew his ground well, he went on, thrusting the _militaires_

aside with little ceremony; and as every one was as quick to give place

to him, as he was to advance, in a moment we were in the ante-chamber.

I had never been admitted before, and from the doorway, where I paused

in Bonnivet's keeping, I viewed the scene with an interest that for the

first time overcame my sense of injustice. The long room hummed with

talk; a crowd of churchmen and pages, with a sprinkling of the lesser

nobility, many lawyers and some soldiers, filled it from end to end. In

one corner were a group of tradesmen bearing plate for the Queen's

inspection: in another stood a knot of suitors with petitions; while

everywhere men, whose eager faces and expectant eyes were their best

petitions, watched the farther door with quivering lips, or sighed when

it opened, and emitted merely a councillor or a marquis. Several times a

masked lady flitted through the crowd, with a bow here and the honour of

her taper fingers there. The windows were open, the summer air entered;

and the murmur of the throng without, mingling with the stir of talk

within, seemed to add to the light and colour of the room.

My lord of Beauvais, with his chaplain and his pages at his shoulder,

was making in his stately way towards the farther door, when he met M.

de Chateauneuf, and paused to speak. When he escaped from him a dozen

clients, whose obsequious bows rendered evasion impossible, still

delayed him. And I had grown cold, and hot again, and he was but halfway

on his progress up the crowded room, when the inner door opened, half a

dozen voices cried "The Queen! The Queen!" and an usher with a silver

wand passed down the room and ranked the company on either side--not

without some struggling, and once a fierce oath, and twice a smothered

outcry.

Of the bevy of ladies in attendance, only half a dozen entered; for a

few paces within the doorway the Queen-Mother stood still to receive my

patron, who had advanced to meet her. It seemed to me that she was not

best pleased to see him at that moment; her voice rang somewhat loud and

peevish as she said, "What, my lord! Is it you? I came to receive the

trophies from Rocroy, and did not expect to see you at this hour."

"I bring my own excuse, Madam," he answered, smiling and unabashed.

"Have I your Majesty's leave to present it?" he continued, with a smirk

and a low bow.

"I came to receive the colours," she retorted, still frowning. It seemed

to me that he presumed a trifle on his favour; and either knew his

ground particularly well, or was more obtuse than a clever man should

have been.

For he did not blench. "I bring your Majesty something as much to your

liking as the colours!" he replied.

Then I think she caught his meaning, for her proud Hapsburg face cleared

wonderfully, and she clapped her hands together with a gesture of

pleasure almost childish. "What!" she exclaimed. "Have you

found--Flore?"

"Yes, Madam," he said, smiling gallantly. He turned. "Bonnivet!" he

said.

But Bonnivet had watched his moment. Before the name fell clear of his

master's lips, he was beside him, and with bent knee laid the dog

tenderly at her Majesty's feet. She uttered a cry of joy and stooped to

caress it, her fair ringlets falling and hiding her face and her plump

white shoulders. On that I did not see exactly what happened; for her

ladies flocked round her, and all that reached me, where I stood by the

door, took the form of excited cries of "Flore! Flore!" "Oh, the

darling!" and the like. A few old men who stood nearest the wall and

farthest from the Queen raised their eyebrows, and the officers standing

with the colours by the door, wore fallen faces and glum looks; but

nine-tenths of the crowd seemed to be carried away by the Queen's

delight, and congratulated one another as warmly as if ten Rocroys had

been won.

At that moment, while I hung in suspense, expecting each moment to be

called forward, I heard a little stir at my elbow. Turning--I had

advanced some way into the room--I found myself with others pushed aside

to give place to a person of consequence who was entering; and I heard

several voices whisper, "Mazarin!" As I looked, he came in, and pausing

to speak to the foremost of the officers, gave me the opportunity--which

I had never enjoyed before--of viewing him near at hand. He bore a

certain likeness, to my lord of Beauvais, being tall and of a handsome

and portly figure. But it was such a likeness when I looked a second

time, as a jewelled lanthorn, lit within, bears to its vacant fellow.

And then in a moment it flashed upon me--though now he wore his

Cardinal's robes and then had been very simply dressed--that it was he

whose back I had seen, and whose dazzling thumb-ring had blinded me in

the garden near the Filles Dieu.

The thought had scarcely grown to a conviction before he passed by me,

apologizing almost humbly to those whom he displaced, and courteously to

all; and this, and perhaps also the fact that the mass of those present

belonged to my patron's party--who in the streets had the nick-name of

"The Importants"--so that they were not quick to make room for him,

rendered his progress so slow that, my name being called and everybody

hustling me forward, I came face to face with the Queen almost at the

moment that he did. And so I saw--though for a while I was too much

excited to understand--what passed.

Her Majesty, it seemed to me, did not look unkindly upon him. On the

contrary. But my lord of Beauvais was so full of his success, and so

uplifted by the presence of his many friends, that he had a mind to make

the most of his triumph and even to flaunt it in his rival's face. "Ha,

the Cardinal!" he cried; and before the Queen could speak, "I hope,"

with a bow and a simper, "that your Eminence has been as zealous in her

Majesty's service as I have been."

"As zealous, assuredly," the Cardinal replied meekly. "For my zeal I can

answer. But as effective? Alas, it is not given to all to vie with your

Lordship in affairs."

This answer--though I detected no smack of irony in the tone--did not

seem to please the Queen. "The Bishop has done me a great service. He

has recovered my dog," she said tartly.

"He is a happy man, and the happy must look to be envied," the Cardinal

answered glibly. "Your Majesty's dog----"

"Your Eminence never liked Flore!" the Queen exclaimed with feeling. And

she tossed her head, as I have seen quite common women do it in the

street.

"You do me a very great wrong, Madam!" the Cardinal answered, with the

look of a man much hurt. "If the dog were here--but it is not, I think."

"Your Eminence is for once at a loss!" the Bishop said, with a sneer;

and at a word from him one of the ladies came forward, nursing the dog

in her arms.

The Cardinal looked. "Umph," he said. He looked again, frowning.

I did not know then that, whether the Queen liked him or disliked him,

she ever took heed of his looks; and I started when she cried

pettishly----

"Well, sir, what now? What is it?"

The Cardinal pursed up his lips.

My lord the Bishop could bear it no longer.

"He will say presently," he cried, snorting with indignation, "that it

is not the dog! It is that his Eminence would say," with a sneer, "if he

dared!"

His Eminence shrugged his shoulders very slightly, and turned the palms

of his hands outwards. "Oh," he said, "if her Majesty is satisfied I

am."

"_M'dieu!_" the Queen cried, with a spirt of anger--"what do you mean?"

But she turned to the lady who held the dog, and took it from her. "It

_is_ the dog!" she said, her colour high. "Do you think that I do not

know my own dog?" she continued. And she set the dog on its feet. She

called it "Flore! Flore!" It turned to her and wagged its tail eagerly,

and jumped upon her skirts, and licked her hand.

"Poor Flore!" said the Cardinal. "Flore!" It went to him.

"Certainly its name is Flore," he said: yet he continued to scan it with

a puzzled eye. "It is the dog, I suppose. But it used to die at the word

of command, I think?"

"What it did, it will do!" Monseigneur de Beauvais cried scornfully.

"But I see that your Eminence was right in one thing you said."

The Cardinal bowed.

"That I should be envied!" the Bishop retorted, with a sneer. And he

glanced round the circle. There was a slight though general titter; a

great lady at the Queen's elbow laughed out.

"Flore," said the Queen, "die! Die, good dog. Do you hear, _m'dieu!_

die!"

But the dog only gazed into her Majesty's face with a spaniel's soft

affectionate eyes, and wagged its tail; and though she cried to it again

and again, and angrily, it made no attempt to obey. On that a deep-drawn

breath ran round the circle; one looked at another; and there were

raised eyebrows. A score of heads were thrust forward, and some who had

seemed merry enough the moment before looked grave as mutes now.

"It used to bark for France and growl for Spain," the Cardinal continued

in his softest voice. "One of the charmingest things, madam, I ever saw.

Perhaps if your Majesty would try----"

"France!" the Queen cried imperiously; and she stamped on the floor.

"France! France!"

But the dog only retreated, cowering and dismayed. From a distance it

wagged its tail pitifully.

"France!" cried the Queen, almost with passion. The dog cowered.

"I am afraid, my Lord, that it has lost its accomplishments--in your

company!" the Cardinal said, a faint smile curling his lips.

The Bishop dropped a smothered oath. "It _is_ the dog!" he cried

vehemently.

But the Queen turned to him sharply, her face crimson.

"I do not agree with you!" she replied. "It is like the dog, but it is

not the dog. And more, my Lord," she continued, with vehemence equal to

his own, "I should be glad if you would explain how you came into

possession of this dog. A dog so nearly resembling my dog--and yet not

my dog--could not be found in a moment nor without some foul

contrivance."

"It has forgotten its tricks," the Bishop said.

"Nonsense!" the Queen retorted.

A great many faces had grown grave by this time; I have said that the

room was filled for the most part with the Bishop's supporters. "At any

rate I know nothing about it!" he exclaimed, wiping his brow and

pointing to me. "I offered a reward, and that knave there found the

dog." Between anger and discomfiture he stammered.

"One of my Lord's servants, I think," the Cardinal said easily.

"Oh!" the Queen answered, with a world of meaning; and she looked at me

with eyes before which I quailed. "Is that true, fellow!" she said. "Are

you in my Lord's service?"

I stammered an affirmative.

"Then I wish to hear no more," she replied haughtily. "No, my Lord.

Enough!" she continued, raising her voice to drown his protestations. "I

do not care to know whether you were more sinned against than sinning;

or a greater fool than your creature is a knave. Pray take your animal

away. Doubtless in a very short time I should have discovered the cheat

for myself. I think I see a difference now. I am sure I do. But, as it

is, I am greatly indebted to his Eminence for his aid--and his

sagacity."

She brought out the last word with withering emphasis, and amid profound

silence. The Bishop, staggered and puzzled, but too wise to persist

longer in the dog's identity, still tried desperately to utter some word

of excuse; but the Queen, whose vanity had received a serious

wound--since she had not at once known her own pet--cut him short with a

curt and freezing dismissal, and immediately turning to the Cardinal,

she requested him to introduce to her the officers who had the colours

in charge.

It may be imagined how I felt, and what terrors I experienced during

this struggle; since it required no great wit to infer that the Bishop,

if defeated, would wreak his vengeance on me. Already a dozen who had

attended my Lord of Beauvais' _levee_ that morning were fawning on the

Cardinal; the Queen had turned her shoulder to him; a great lady over

whom he bent to hide his chagrin, talked to him indeed, but flippantly,

and with eyes half closed and but part of her attention. For all these

slights, and the defeat which they indicated, I foresaw that I should

pay with my life: and in a panic, seeing no hope but in escaping on the

instant before he took his measures, I slid back and strove to steal

away through the crowd.

I reached the door in safety, and even the head of the stairs. But

there a hand gripped my shoulder, and the steward thrust a face, white

with rage and dismay, into mine. "Not so fast, Master Plotter!" he

hissed in my ear. "You have ruined us, but if your neck does not pay for

this--if you are not lashed like a dog first and hung afterwards--I am a

Spaniard! If for this I do not----"

"By the Queen's command," said a quiet voice in my other ear; and a hand

fell on that shoulder also.

The steward glanced at his rival. "He is the Bishop's man!" he cried,

throwing out his chest; and he gripped me again.

"And the Bishop is the Queen's!" was the curt and pithy reply; and the

stranger, in whom I recognized the man who had delivered the dog's cape

to me, quietly put him by. "Her Majesty has committed this person to the

Cardinal's custody until inquiry be made into the truth of his story,

and the persons who are guilty be ascertained. In the mean time, if you

have any complaint to make you can make it to his Eminence."

After that there was no more to be said or done. The steward, baffled

and bursting with rage, fell back; and the stranger, directing me by a

gesture to attend him close, descended the stairs and crossing the

courtyard, entered St. Honore. I was in a maze what I was to expect from

him; and overjoyed as I was at my present deliverance, had a sneaking

fear that I might be courting a worse fate in this inquiry; so grim and

secretive was my guide's face, and so much did that sombre dress--which

gave him somewhat of the character of an inquisitor--add to the weight

of his silence. However, when he had crossed St. Honore and entered a

lane leading to the river, he halted and turned to me.

"There are twenty crowns," he said abruptly; and he placed a purse in my

hand. "Take them, and do exactly as I bid you, and all will be well. At

the Quai de Notre Dame you will find a market-boat starting for Rouen.

Go by it, and at the Ecce Homo in the Rue St. Eloi in that city you will

find your wife and a hundred crowns. Live there quietly, and in a month

apply for work at the Chancery; it will be given you. The rest lies with

you. I have known men," he continued, with a puzzling smile, "who

started at a desk in that Chancery and, being very silent men, able to

keep a secret--able to keep a secret, mark you--lived to rent one of the

great farms."

I tried to find words to thank him.

"There is no need," he said. "For what you have done, it is too much.

For what you have to do--rule the unruly member--it is no more than is

right."

And now I agree with him. Now--though his words came true to the letter,

and to-day I hold one of the great farms on a second term--I too think

that it was no more than was right. For if M. de Conde won Rocroy for

his side in the field, the Cardinal on that day won a victory no less

eminent at court; of which victory the check administered to M. de

Beauvais--who had nothing but a good presence, and collapsing like a

pricked bladder, became within a month the most discredited of men--was

the first movement. Within a month the heads of the Importants--so, I

have said, the Bishop's party were christened--were in prison or exiled

or purchased; and all France knew that it lay in a master's hand--knew

that the mantle of Richelieu, with a double portion of the royal favour,

had fallen on Mazarin's shoulders. I need scarcely add that, before that

fact became known to all--for such things do not become certainties in a

minute--his Eminence had been happy enough to find the true Flore and

restore it to her Majesty's arms.

CRILLON'S STAKE.

On a certain wet night, in the spring of the year 1587, the rain was

doing its utmost to sweeten the streets of old Paris: the kennels were

aflood with it, and the March wind, which caused the crowded sign-boards

to creak and groan on their bearings, and ever and anon closed a shutter

with the sound of a pistol-shot, blew the downpour in sheets into

exposed doorways, and drenched to the skin the few wayfarers who were

abroad. Here and there a stray dog, bent over a bone, slunk away at the

approach of a roisterer's footstep; more rarely a passenger, whose sober

or stealthy gait whispered of business rather than pleasure, moved

cowering from street to street, under such shelter as came in his way.

About two hours before midnight, a man issued somewhat suddenly from the

darkness about the head of the Pont du Change and turned the corner into

the Rue de St. Jacques la Boucherie, a street which ran parallel with

the Quays, about half a mile east of the Louvre. His heavy cloak

concealed his figure, but he made his way in the teeth of the wind with

the spring and vigour of youth; and arriving presently at a doorway,

which had the air of retiring modestly under a couple of steep dark

gables, and yet was rendered conspicuous by the light which shone

through the unglazed grating above it, he knocked sharply on the oak.

After a short delay the door slid open of itself and the man entered. He

showed none of a stranger's surprise at the invisibility of the porter,

but after staying to shut the door, he advanced along a short passage,

which was only partially closed at the further end by a high wooden

screen. Coasting round this he entered a large low-roofed room, lighted

in part by a dozen candles, in part by a fire which burned on a raised

iron plate in the corner.

The air was thick with wood smoke, but the occupants of the room, a

dozen men, seated, some at a long table, and some here and there in

pairs, seemed able to recognize the new-comer through it, and hailed his

appearance with a cry of welcome--a cry that had in it a ring of

derision. One man who stood near the fire, impatiently kicking the logs

with his spurred boots, turned, and seeing who it was moved towards him.

"Welcome, M. de Bazan," he said briskly; "so you have come to resume our

duel! I had given up hope of you."

"I am here," the new-comer answered. He spoke curtly, and as he did so

he took off his horseman's cloak and laid it aside. The action disclosed

a man scarcely twenty, moderately well dressed, and of slight though

supple figure. His face wore an air of determination singular in one so

young, and at variance with the quick suspicious glances with which he

took in the scene. He did not waste time in staring, however, but

quickly and with a business-like air he seated himself at a small wooden

table which stood in a warm corner of the hearth, and directly under a

brace of candles. Calling for a bottle of wine, he threw a bag of coin

on the table; at the same time he hitched forward his sword until the

pommel of the weapon lay across his left thigh; a sinister movement

which the debauched and reckless looks of some of his companions seemed

to justify. The man who had addressed him took his seat opposite, and

the two, making choice of a pair of dice-boxes, began to play.

They did not use the modern game of hazard, but simply cast the dice,

each taking it in turn to throw, and a nick counting as a drawn battle.

The two staked sums higher than were usual in the company about them,

and one by one, the other gamblers forsook their tables, and came and

stood round. As the game proceeded, the young stranger's face grew more

and more pale, his eyes more feverish. But he played in silence. Not so

his backers. A volley of oaths and exclamations almost as thick as the

wood smoke that in part shrouded the game, began to follow each cast of

the dice. The air, one moment still and broken only by the hollow rattle

of the dice in the box, rang the next instant with the fierce outburst

of a score of voices.

The place, known as Simon's, was a gaming-house of the second class:

frequented, as the shabby finery of some and the tarnished arms of

others seemed to prove, by the poorer courtiers and the dubious

adventurers who live upon the great. It was used in particular by the

Guise faction, at this time in power; for though Henry of Valois was

legal and nominal King of France, Henry of Guise, the head of the

League, and the darling of Paris, imposed his will alike upon the King

and the favourites. He enjoyed the substance of power; the King had no

choice but to submit to his policy. In secret Henry the Third resented

the position, and between his immediate servants and the arrogant

followers of the Guises there was bitter enmity.

As the game proceeded, a trifle showed that the young player was either

ignorant of politics, or belonged to a party rarely represented at

Simon's. For some time he and his opponent had enjoyed equal luck. Then

they doubled the stakes, and fortune immediately declared herself

against him; with wondrous quickness his bag grew lank and thin, the

pile at the other's elbow a swollen sliding heap. The perspiration began

to stand on the young man's face. His hand trembled as he shook out the

last coins left in the bag and shoved them forward amid a murmur half of

derision half of sympathy; for if he was a stranger from the

country--that was plain, and they had recognized it at his first

appearance among them three days before--at least he played bravely. His

opponent, whose sallow face betrayed neither joy nor triumph, counted

out an equal sum, and pushed it forward without a word. The young man

took up the box, and for the first time seemed to hesitate; it could be

seen that he had bitten his lip until it bled. "After you," he muttered

at last, withdrawing his hand. He shrank from throwing his last throw.

"It is your turn," the other replied impassively, "but as you will." He

shook the box, brought it down sharply on the table and raised it. "The

Duke!" he said with an oath--he had thrown the highest possible. "Twelve

is the game."

With a shiver the lad--he was little more than a lad, though in his

heart, perhaps, the greatest gambler present--dashed down his box. He

raised it. "The King!" he cried; "long life to him!" He had also thrown

twelve. His cheek flushed a rosy red, and with a player's superstitious

belief in his luck he regarded the check given to his opponent in the

light of a presage of victory. They threw again, and he won by two

points--nine to seven. Hurrah!

"King or Duke," the tall man answered, restraining by a look the

interruption which more than one of the bystanders seemed about to

offer, "the money is yours; take it."

"Let it lie," the young man answered joyously. His eyes sparkled. When

the other had pushed an equal amount into the middle of the table, he

threw again, and with confidence.

Alas! his throw was a deuce and an ace. The elder player threw four and

two. He swept up the pile. "Better late than never," he said. And

leaning back he looked about him with a grin of satisfaction.

The young man rose. The words which had betrayed that he was not of the

Duke's faction, had cost him the sympathy the spectators had before felt

for him; and no one spoke. It was something that they kept silence, that

they did not interfere with him. His face, pale in the light of the

candles which burned beside him, was a picture of despair. Suddenly, as

if he bethought him of something, he sat down again, and with a shaking

hand took from his neck a slender gold chain with a pendant ornament.

"Will you stake against this?" he murmured with dry lips.

"Against that, or your sword, or your body, or anything but your soul!"

the other answered with a reckless laugh. He took up the chain and

examined it. "I will set you thirty crowns against it!" he said.

They threw and the young man lost.

"I will stake ten crowns against your sword if you like," the victor

continued, eyeing the curiously chased pommel.

"No," the young man replied, stung by something in the elder's tone.

"That I may want. But I will set my life against yours!"

A chuckle went round. "Bravo!" cried half a dozen voices. One man in the

rear, whose business it was to enlist men in the Duke's guard, pressed

forward, scenting a recruit.

"Your life against mine! With these?" the winner answered, holding up

the dice.

"Yes, or as you please." He had not indeed meant with those: he had

spoken in the soreness of defeat, intending a challenge.

The other shook his head. "No," he said, "no. No man can say that Michel

Berthaud ever balked his player, but it is not a fair offer. You have

lost all, my friend, and I have won all. I am rich, you are poor. 'Tis

no fair stake. But I will tell you what I will do. I will set you your

gold chain and seventy crowns--against your life if you like."

A roar of laughter hailed the proposal. "A hundred!" cried several, "a

hundred!"

"Very well. The gold chain and a hundred. Be it so!"

"But my life?" the young man muttered, gazing at him in bewilderment.

"Of what use will it be to you, M. Berthaud?"

"That is my business," was the dry answer. "If you lose, it is forfeit

to me. That is all, and the long and the short of it. To be frank, I

have a service which I wish you to perform for me."

"And if I will not perform it?"

"Then I will take your word as a gentleman that you will kill yourself.

Observe, however, that if I win I shall allow you a choice, my friend."

He leaned back with that, meeting with a faint smile and half-lowered

eye-lids, the various looks bent on him. Some stared, some nodded secret

comprehension, some laughed outright, or nudged one another and

whispered. For four evenings they, the habitues of the place, had

watched this play duel go on, but they had not looked for an end so

abnormal as this. They had known men stake wives and mistresses, love

and honour, ay, their very clothes, and go home naked through the

streets; for the streets of Paris saw strange things in those days. But

life? Well, even that they had seen men stake in effect, once, twice, a

hundred times; but never in so many words, never on a wager as novel as

this. So with an amazement which no duel, fought as was the custom in

that day, three to three, or six to six, would have evoked, they

gathered round the little table under the candles and waited for the

issue.

The young man shivered. Then, "I accept," he said slowly. In effect he

was desperate, driven to his last straits. He had lost his all, the all

of a young man sent up to Paris to make his fortune, with a horse, his

sword, and a bag of crowns--the latter saved for him by a father's stern

frugality, a mother's tender self-denial. A week ago he had never seen a

game of chance. Then he had seen; the dice had fallen in his way, the

devil of play, cursed legacy of some long-forgotten ancestor, had awoke

within him, and this was the end. "I accept," he said slowly.

His opponent, still with his secretive smile, took up the caster. But a

short, sturdy man, who was standing at his elbow, and who wore the

colours of the Duke of Guise, intervened. "No, Michel," he said, with a

good-natured glance at the young player. "Let the lad choose his bones,

and throw first or last as he pleases."

"Right," said Berthaud, yawning. "It is no matter. My star is in the

ascendant to-night. He will not win."

The young man took up the box, shook it, hesitated, swallowed, and threw

seven!

Berthaud threw carelessly--seven!

Some shouted, some drew a deep breath, or whispered an oath. These wild

spirits, who had faced death often in one form or another, were still

children, and still in a new thing found a new pleasure.

"Your star may be in the ascendant," the man muttered who had intervened

before, "but it--well, it twinkles, Michel."

Berthaud did not answer. The young man made him a sign to throw. He

threw again--eight.

The young man threw with a hand that scarcely dared to let the dice go.

Seven! He had lost.

An outburst might have been expected, some cry of violence, of despair.

It did not come. And a murmur passed round the circle. "Berthaud will

recruit him," growled one. "A queer game," muttered another, and thought

hard. Nor did the men go back to their tables. They waited to see what

would follow, what would come of it. For the young man who had lost sat

staring at the table like one in a dream; until presently his opponent

reaching out a hand touched his sleeve. "Courage!" Berthaud said, a

flicker of triumph in his eye, "a word with you aside. No need of

despair, man. You have but to do what I ask, and you will see sixty

yet."

Obedient to his gesture the young man rose, and the other drawing him

aside began to talk to him in a low voice. The remaining players

loitering about the deserted table could not hear what was said; but one

or two by feigning to strike a sudden blow, seemed to pass on their

surmises to those round them. One thing was clear. The lad objected to

the proposal made, objected fiercely and with vehemence; and at last

submitted only with reluctance. Submit in the end, however, he did, for

after some minutes of this private talk he went to his cloak, and

avoiding, as it seemed, his fellows' eyes, put it on. Berthaud

accompanied him to the door, and the winner's last words were audible.

"That is all," he said; "succeed in what I impose, M. de Bazan, and I

cry quits, and you shall have fifty crowns for your pains. Fail, and you

will but be paying your debt. But you will not fail. Remember, half an

hour after midnight. And courage!"

The young man nodded sullenly, and drawing his cloak about his throat,

went through the passage to the street. The night was a little older

than when he had entered, otherwise it was unchanged. The rain was still

falling; the wind still buffeted the creaking shutters and the swinging

sign-boards. But the man? He had entered, thinking nothing of rain or

wind, thinking little even of the horse and furniture, and the good

clothes made under his mother's eye, which he had sacrificed to refill

his purse. The warmth of the play fever coursing through his veins had

clad him in proof against cold and damp and the depression of the gloomy

streets, even against the thought of home. And for the good horse, and

the laced shirts and the gold braid, the luck could not run against him

again! He would win all back, and the crowns to boot.

So he had thought as he went in. And now? He stood a moment in the dark,

narrow chasm of a street, and looked up, letting the rain cool his brow;

looked up, and, seeing a wrack of clouds moving swiftly across the slit

of stormy sky visible between the overhanging roofs, faced in a dull

amazement the fact that he who now stood in the darkness, bankrupt even

in life, was the same man who had entered Paris so rich in hope and

youth and life a week--only a week--before. He remembered--it was an odd

thing to occur to him when his thoughts should have been full of the

events of the last hour--a fault of which he had been guilty down there

in the country; and of which, taking advantage of a wrathful father's

offer to start him in Paris, he had left the weaker sinner to bear the

brunt. And it seemed to him that here was his punishment. The old grey

house at home, quaint and weather-beaten, rose before him. He saw his

mother's herb-garden, the great stackyard, and the dry moat, half filled

with blackberry bushes, in which he had played as a boy. And on him fell

a strange calm, between apathy and resignation. This, then, was his

punishment. He would bear it like a man. There should be no flinching a

second time, no putting the burden on others' shoulders, no self-sparing

at another's cost.

He started to walk briskly in the direction of the Louvre. But when he

had gained the corner of the open space in front of the palace, whence

he had a view of the main gate between the two tennis courts, he halted

and looked up and down as if he hesitated. A watch-fire smouldering and

sputtering in the rain was burning dully before the drawbridge; the

forms of one or two men, apparently sentinels, were dimly visible about

it. After standing in doubt more then a minute, Bazan glided quickly to

the porch of the church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, and disappeared in

the angle between it and the cloisters.

He had been stationary in this position for some half-hour--in what

bitterness of spirit, combating what regrets and painful thoughts it is

possible only to imagine--when a slight commotion took place at the gate

which faced him. Two men came out in close converse, and stood a moment

looking up as if speaking of the weather. They separated then, and one

who even by that uncertain light could be seen to be a man of tall,

spare presence, came across the open space towards the end of the Rue

des Fosses, which passed beside the cloisters. He had just entered the

street, when Bazan, who had been closely watching his movements, stepped

from the shadow of the houses and touched his sleeve.

The tall man recoiled sharply as he turned. He laid his hand on his

sword and partly drew it. "Who are you?" he said, trying in the darkness

to make out the other's features.

"M. de Crillon, is it not?" the young man asked.

"Yes. And you, young sir?"

"My name is Claude de Bazan, but you do not know me, I have a word to

say to you."

"You have chosen an odd time, my friend."

"Some things are always timely," the young fellow answered, the

excitement under which he laboured and the occasion imparting a spice of

flippancy to his tone. "I come to warn you that your life is in danger.

Do not go alone, M. de Crillon, or pass this way at night! And whatever

you do, walk for the future in the middle of the street!"

"For the warning I am obliged to you," the tall man answered, his voice

cool and satirical, while his eyes continued to scan the other's

features. "But, I say again, you have chosen a strange time to give it,

young sir. Moreover, your name is new to me, and I do not know your

face."

"Nor need you," said Bazan.

"Ay, but I think I need, craving your pardon," replied the tall, spare

man with some sternness. "I am not wont to be scared by little things,

nor will I give any man the right to say that he has frightened me with

a lighted turnip."

"Will it convince you if I tell you that I came hither to kill you?" the

young man cried impetuously.

"Yes, if you will say also why you did not--at least try?" Crillon

answered drily.

Bazan had not meant to explain himself; he had proposed to give his

warning, and to go. But on the impulse of the moment, carried away by

his excitement, he spoke, and told the story, and Crillon, after

leading him aside, so that a building sheltered them from the rain,

listened. He listened, who knew all the dark plans, all the scandals,

all the jealousies, all the vile or frantic schemings of a court, that,

half French, half Italian, mingled so grimly force and fraud. Nay, when

all was told, when Bazan, passing lightly over the resolution he had

formed to warn the victim instead of attacking him, came suddenly and

lamely to a stop, he still for a time stood silent. At last, "And what

will you do now, my friend?" he asked.

"Go back," the young man answered.

"And then?"

"Pay my debt."

The courtier swore a great oath--it was his failing--and with sudden

violence he seized his companion by the arm, and hurried him into the

roadway, and along the street. "To Simon's!" he muttered. "To Simon's,

my friend. I know the place. I will cut that villain Berthaud's throat."

"But what shall I be the better of that?" the young man answered,

somewhat bitterly. "I have none the less lost, and must pay."

Crillon stopped short, the darkness hiding alike his face and his

feelings. "So!" he said slowly, "I did not think of that! No, I did not

think of that. But do you mean it? What, if I kill him?"

"I have played for my life, and lost," Bazan answered proudly. "I

promised, and I am a gentleman."

"Pheugh!" Crillon whistled. He swore again, and stood. He was a great

man, and full of expedients, but the position was novel. Yet, after a

minute's thought, he had an idea. He started off again, taking Bazan's

arm, and impelling him onwards, with the same haste and violence. "To

Simon's! to Simon's!" he cried as before. "Courage, my friend, I will

play him for you and win you: I will redeem you. After all, it is

simple, absolutely simple."

"He will not play for me," the young man answered despondently.

Nevertheless he suffered himself to be borne onwards. "What will you set

against me?"

"Anything, everything!" his new friend cried recklessly. "Myself, if

necessary. Courage, M. de Bazan, courage! What Crillon wills, Crillon

does. You do not know me yet, but I have taken a fancy to you, I

have!"--He swore a grisly oath. "And I will make you mine."

He gave the young man no time for further objection, but, holding him

firmly by the arm, he hurried him through the streets to the door below

the two gables. On this he knocked with the air of one who had been

there before, and to whom all doors opened. In the momentary pause

before it yielded Bazan spoke. "Will you not be in danger here?" he

asked, wondering much.

"It is a Guise house? True, it is. But there is danger everywhere. No

man dies more than once or before God wills it! And I am Crillon!"

The superb air with which he said this last prepared Bazan for what

followed. The moment the door was opened, Crillon pushed through the

doorway, and with an assured step strode down the passage. He turned the

corner of the screen and stood in the room; and, calmly smiling at the

group of startled, astonished faces which were turned on him, he drew

off his cloak and flung it over his left arm. His height at all times

made him a conspicuous figure; this night he was fresh from court. He

wore black and silver, the hilt of his long sword was jewelled, the

Order of the Holy Ghost glittered on his breast; and this fine array

seemed to render more shabby the pretentious finery of the third-rate

adventurers before him. He saluted them coolly. "It is a wet night,

gentlemen," he said.

Some of those who sat farthest off had risen, and all had drawn together

as sheep club at sight of the wolf. One of them answered sullenly that

it was.

"You think I intrude, gentlemen?" he returned, smiling pleasantly,

drinking in as homage the stir his entrance had caused. For he was vain.

"I want only an old friend, M. Michel Berthaud, who is here, I think?"

"And for what do you want him?" the tall dark player answered

defiantly; he alone of those present seemed in a degree a match for the

new-comer, though even his gloomy eyes fell before Crillon's easy stare.

"For what do you want me?"

"To propose a little game to you," Crillon answered: and he moved down

the room, apparently at his ease. "My friend here has told me of his

ill-luck. He is resolved to perform his bargain. But first, M. Berthaud,

I have a proposal to make to you. His life is yours. You have won it.

Well, I will set you five hundred crowns against it."

The scowl on Berthaud's face did not relax. "No," he said

contemptuously. "I will not play with you, M. de Crillon. Let the fool

die. What is he to you?"

"Nothing, and yet I have a fancy to win him," Crillon replied lightly.

"Come, I will stake a thousand crowns against him! A thousand crowns for

a life! _Mon Dieu_," he added, with a whimsical glance at Bazan, "but

you are dear, my friend!"

Indeed, half a score of faces shone with cupidity, and twice as many

bearded lips watered. A thousand crowns! A whole thousand crowns! But to

the surprise of most--a few knew their man--Berthaud shook his head.

"No," he said, "I will not play! I won his life, and I will have it."

"Fifteen hundred crowns. I will set that! Fifteen----"

"No!"

"Two thousand, then! Two thousand, man! And I will throw in my chain. It

is worth five hundred more."

"No! No! No!"

"Then, say what you will play for!" the great man roared, his face

swelling with rage. "Thousand devils and all tonsured! I have a mind to

win his life. What will you have against it?"

"Against it?"

"Ay!"

"Yours!" said M. Berthaud, very softly.

Bazan drew in his breath--sharply: otherwise the silence was so intense

that the fall of the wood-ashes from the dying fire could be heard. The

immense, the boundless audacity of the proposal made some smile and some

start. But none smiled so grimly as M. Michel Berthaud the challenger

and none started so little as M. de Crillon, the challenged.

"A high bid!" he said, lifting his chin with something almost of humour;

and then glancing round him, as a wolf might glance, if the sheep turned

on him. "You ask much, M. Berthaud."

"I will ask less then," replied Berthaud, with irony. "If I win, I will

give you his life. He shall go free whether you win or lose, M. de

Crillon."

"That is much!" with answering irony.

"Much or little----"

"It is understood?"

"It is," Berthaud rejoined with a sarcastic bow.

"Then I accept!" Crillon cried: and with a movement so brisk that some

recoiled, he sat down at the table. "I accept. Silence!" he continued,

turning sharply upon Bazan, whose cry of remonstrance rang above the

astonished murmur of the bystanders. "Silence, fool!" He struck the

table. "It is my will. Fear nothing! I am Crillon, and I do not lose."

There was a superb self-confidence in the man, an arrogance, a courage,

which more than anything else persuaded his hearers that he was in

earnest, that he was not jesting with them.

"The terms are quite understood," he proceeded, grimly. "If I win, we go

free, M. Berthaud. If I lose, M. de Bazan goes free, and I undertake on

the honor of a nobleman to kill myself before daylight. Shall I say

within six hours? I have affairs to settle!"

Probably no one in the room felt astonishment equal to that of Berthaud.

A faint colour tinged his sallow cheeks; a fierce gleam of joy flashed

in his eyes. But all he said was, "Yes, I am satisfied."

"Then throw!" said Crillon, and leaning forward he took a candle from a

neighbouring table, and placed it beside him. "My friend," he added,

speaking to Bazan with earnest gravity, "I advise you to be quiet. If

you do not we shall quarrel."