Masterpieces of
Adventure
_In Four Volumes_
ADVENTURES WITHIN WALLS
Edited by
Nella Braddy
Garden City New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1922
COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
GRATEFULLY DEDICATED
TO
BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS, PH.D.
EDITOR'S NOTE
In these volumes the word _adventure_ has been used in its broadest
sense to cover not only strange happenings in strange places but also
love and life and death--all things that have to do with the great
adventure of living. Questions as to the fitness of a story were
settled by examining the qualities of the narrative as such rather
than by reference to a technical classification of short stories.
It is the inalienable right of the editor of a work of this kind to
plead copyright difficulties in extenuation for whatever faults it
may possess. We beg the reader to believe that this is why his
favorite story was omitted while one vastly inferior was included.
CONTENTS
I. THE SIRE DE MALÉTROIT'S DOOR
Robert Louis Stevenson
II. A DOUBLE-DYED DECEIVER
O. Henry
III. THE BOLD DRAGOON
Washington Irving
IV. THE BET
Anton Chekhov
V. LA GRANDE BRETÈCHE
Honoré de Balzac
VI. THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH
Edgar Allan Poe
VII. DR. MANETTE'S MANUSCRIPT
Charles Dickens
VIII. SILENCE
Leonidas Andreiyeff
MASTERPIECES OF ADVENTURE
Masterpieces of Adventure
_ADVENTURES WITHIN WALLS_
I
THE SIRE DE MALÉTROIT'S DOOR*
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
*Reprinted by permission of Charles Scribner's Sons.
Denis de Beaulieu was not yet two-and-twenty, but he counted himself
a grown man, and a very accomplished cavalier into the bargain. Lads
were early formed in that rough, warfaring epoch; and when one has
been in a pitched battle and a dozen raids, has killed one's man in
an honourable fashion, and knows a thing or two of strategy and
mankind, a certain swagger in the gait is surely to be pardoned. He
had put up his horse with due care, and supped with due deliberation;
and then, in a very agreeable frame of mind, went out to pay a visit
in the grey of the evening. It was not a very wise proceeding on the
young man's part. He would have done better to remain beside the
fire or go decently to bed. For the town was full of the troops of
Burgundy and England under a mixed command; and though Denis was
there on safe-conduct, his safe-conduct was like to serve him little
on a chance encounter.
It was September 1429; the weather had fallen sharp; a flighty,
piping wind, laden with showers, beat about the township; and the
dead leaves ran riot along the streets. Here and there a window was
already lighted up; and the noise of men-at-arms making merry over
supper within, came forth in fits and was swallowed up and carried
away by the wind. The night fell swiftly; the flag of England,
fluttering on the spire-top, grew ever fainter and fainter against
the flying clouds--a black speck like a swallow in the tumultuous,
leaden chaos of the sky. As the night fell the wind rose, and began
to hoot under archways and roar amid the tree-tops in the valley
below the town.
Denis de Beaulieu walked fast and was soon knocking at his friend's
door; but though he promised himself to stay only a little while and
make an early return, his welcome was so pleasant, and he found so
much to delay him, that it was already long past midnight before he
said good-bye upon the threshold. The wind had fallen again in the
meanwhile; the night was as black as the grave; not a star, nor a
glimmer of moonshine, slipped through the canopy of cloud. Denis was
ill-acquainted with the intricate lanes of Château Landon; even by
daylight he had found some trouble in picking his way; and in this
absolute darkness he soon lost it altogether. He was certain of one
thing only--to keep mounting the hill; for his friend's house lay at
the lower end, or tail, of Château Landon, while the inn was up at
the head, under the great church spire. With this clue to go upon he
stumbled and groped forward, now breathing more freely in open places
where there was a good slice of sky overhead, now feeling along the
wall in stifling closes. It is an eerie and mysterious position to
be thus submerged in opaque blackness in an almost unknown town. The
silence is terrifying in its possibilities. The touch of cold window
bars to the exploring hand startles the man like the touch of a toad;
the inequalities of the pavement shake his heart into his mouth; a
piece of denser darkness threatens an ambuscade or a chasm in the
pathway; and where the air is brighter, the houses put on strange and
bewildering appearances, as if to lead him farther from his way. For
Denis, who had to regain his inn without attracting notice, there was
real danger as well as mere discomfort in the walk; and he went
warily and boldly at once, and at every corner paused to make an
observation.
He had been for some time threading a lane so narrow that he could
touch a wall with either hand, when it began to open out and go
sharply downward. Plainly this lay no longer in the direction of his
inn; but the hope of a little more light tempted him forward to
reconnoitre. The lane ended in a terrace with a bartizan wall, which
gave an outlook between high houses, as out of an embrasure, into the
valley lying dark and formless several hundred feet below. Denis
looked down, and could discern a few tree-tops waving and a single
speck of brightness where the river ran across a weir. The weather
was clearing up, and the sky had lightened, so as to show the outline
of the heavier clouds and the dark margin of the hills. By the
uncertain glimmer, the house on his left hand should be a place of
some pretensions; it was surmounted by several pinnacles and
turret-tops; the round stern of a chapel, with a fringe of flying
buttresses, projected boldly from the main block; and the door was
sheltered under a deep porch carved with figures and overhung by two
long gargoyles. The windows of the chapel gleamed through their
intricate tracery with a light as of many tapers, and threw out the
buttresses and the peaked roof in a more intense blackness against
the sky. It was plainly the hotel of some great family of the
neighbourhood; and as it reminded Denis of a town house of his own at
Bourges, he stood for some time gazing up at it and mentally gauging
the skill of the architects and the consideration of the two families.
There seemed to be no issue to the terrace but the lane by which he
had reached it; he could only retrace his steps, but he had gained
some notion of his whereabouts, and hoped by this means to hit the
main thoroughfare and speedily regain the inn. He was reckoning
without that chapter of accidents which was to make this night
memorable above all others in his career; for he had not gone back
above a hundred yards before he saw a light coming to meet him, and
heard loud voices speaking together in the echoing narrows of the
lane. It was a party of men-at-arms going the night round with
torches. Denis assured himself that they had all been making free
with the wine-bowl, and were in no mood to be particular about
safe-conducts or the niceties of chivalrous war. It was as like as
not that they would kill him like a dog and leave him where he fell.
The situation was inspiriting but nervous. Their own torches would
conceal him from sight, he reflected; and he hoped that they would
drown the noise of his footsteps with their own empty voices. If he
were but fleet and silent, he might evade their notice altogether.
Unfortunately, as he turned to beat a retreat, his foot rolled upon a
pebble; he fell against the wall with an ejaculation, and his sword
rang loudly on the stones. Two or three voices demanded who went
there--some in French, some in English; but Denis made no reply, and
ran the faster down the lane. Once upon the terrace, he paused to
look back. They still kept calling after him, and just then began to
double the pace in pursuit, with a considerable clank of armour, and
great tossing of the torchlight to and fro in the narrow jaws of the
passage.
Denis cast a look around and darted into the porch. There he might
escape observation, or--if that were too much to expect--was in a
capital posture whether for parley or defence. So thinking, he drew
his sword and tried to set his back against the door. To his
surprise, it yielded behind his weight; and though he turned in a
moment, continued to swing back on oiled and noiseless hinges, until
it stood wide open on a black ulterior. When things fall out
opportunely for the person concerned, he is not apt to be critical
about the how or why, his own immediate personal convenience seeming
a sufficient reason for the strangest oddities and revolutions in our
sublunary things; and so Denis, without a moment's hesitation,
stepped within and partly closed the door behind him to conceal his
place of refuge. Nothing was further from his thoughts than to close
it altogether; but for some inexplicable reason--perhaps by a spring
or a weight--the ponderous mass of oak whipped itself out of his
fingers and clanked to, with a formidable rumble and a noise like the
falling of an automatic bar.
The round, at that very moment, debouched upon the terrace and
proceeded to summon him with shouts and curses. He heard them
ferreting in the dark corners; the stock of a lance even rattled
along the outer surface of the door behind which he stood; but these
gentlemen were in too high a humour to be long delayed, and soon made
off down a corkscrew pathway which had escaped Denis's observation,
and passed out of sight and hearing along the battlements of the town.
Denis breathed again. He gave them a few minutes' grace for fear of
accidents, and then groped about for some means of opening the door
and slipping forth again. The inner surface was quite smooth, not a
handle, not a moulding, not a projection of any sort. He got his
finger-nails round the edges and pulled, but the mass was immovable.
He shook it, it was as firm as a rock. Denis de Beaulieu frowned and
gave vent to a little noiseless whistle. What ailed the door? he
wondered. Why was it open? How came it to shut so easily and so
effectually after him? There was something obscure and underhand
about all this, that was little to the young man's fancy. It looked
like a snare; and yet who could suppose a snare in such a quiet
by-street and in a house of so prosperous and even noble an exterior?
And yet--snare or no snare, intentionally or unintentionally--here he
was, prettily trapped; and for the life of him he could see no way
out of it again. The darkness began to weigh upon him. He gave ear;
all was silent without, but within and close by he seemed to catch a
faint sighing, a faint sobbing rustle, a little stealthy creek--as
though many persons were at his side, holding themselves quite still,
and governing even their respiration with the extreme of slyness.
The idea went to his vitals with a shock, and he faced about suddenly
as if to defend his life. Then, for the first time, he became aware
of a light about the level of his eyes and at some distance in the
interior of the house--a vertical thread of light, widening toward
the bottom, such as might escape between two wings of arras over a
doorway. To see anything was a relief to Denis; it was like a piece
of solid ground to a man labouring in a morass; his mind seized upon
it with avidity; and he stood staring at it and trying to piece
together some logical conception of his surroundings. Plainly there
was a flight of steps ascending from his own level to that of this
illuminated doorway; and indeed he thought he could make out another
thread of light, as fine as a needle and as faint as phosphorescence,
which might very well be reflected along the polished wood of a
handrail. Since he had begun to suspect that he was not alone, his
heart had continued to beat with smothering violence, and an
intolerable desire for action of any sort had possessed itself of his
spirit. He was in deadly peril, he believed. What could be more
natural than to mount the staircase, lift the curtain, and confront
his difficulty at once? At least he would be dealing with something
tangible; at least he would be no longer in the dark. He stepped
slowly forward with outstretched hands, until his foot struck the
bottom step; then he rapidly scaled the stairs, stood for a moment to
compose his expression, lifted the arras and went in.
He found himself in a large apartment of polished stone. There were
three doors; one on each of three sides; all similarly curtained with
tapestry. The fourth side was occupied by two large windows and a
great stone chimney-piece, carved with the arms of the Malétroits.
Denis recognized the bearings, and was gratified to find himself in
such good hands. The room was strongly illuminated; but it contained
little furniture except a heavy table and a chair or two, the hearth
was innocent of fire, and the pavement was but sparsely strewn with
rushes clearly many days old.
On a high chair beside the chimney, and directly facing Denis as he
entered, sat a little old gentleman in a fur tippet. He sat with his
legs crossed and his hands folded, and a cup of spiced wine stood by
his elbow on a bracket on the wall. His countenance had a strongly
masculine cast; not properly human, but such as we see in the bull,
the goat, or the domestic boar; something equivocal and wheedling,
something greedy, brutal, and dangerous. The upper lip was
inordinately full, as though swollen by a blow or a toothache; and
the smile, the peaked eyebrows, and the small, strong eyes were
quaintly and almost comically evil in expression. Beautiful white
hair hung straight all round his head, like a saint's, and fell in a
single curl upon the tippet. His beard and moustache were the pink
of venerable sweetness. Age, probably in consequence of inordinate
precautions, had left no mark upon his hands; and the Malétroit hand
was famous. It would be difficult to imagine anything at once so
fleshly and so delicate in design; the taper, sensual fingers were
like those of one of Leonardo's women; the fork of the thumb made a
dimpled protuberance when closed; the nails were perfectly shaped,
and of a dead, surprising whiteness. It rendered his aspect tenfold
more redoubtable, that a man with hands like these should keep them
devoutly folded in his lap like a virgin martyr--that a man with so
intense and startling an expression of face should sit patiently on
his seat and contemplate people with an unwinking stare, like a god
or a god's statue. His quiescence seemed ironical and treacherous,
it fitted so poorly with his looks. Such was Alain, Sire de
Malétroit.
Denis and he looked silently at each other for a second or two.
"Pray step in," said the Sire de Malétroit. "I have been expecting
you all evening."
He had not risen, but he accompanied his words with a smile and a
slight but courteous inclination of the head. Partly from the smile,
partly from the strange musical murmur with which the Sir prefaced
his observation, Denis felt a strong shudder of disgust go through
his marrow. And what with disgust and honest confusion of mind, he
could scarcely get words together in reply.
"I fear," he said, "that this is a double accident. I am not the
person you suppose me. It seems you were looking for a visit; but
for my part, nothing was further from my thoughts--nothing could be
more contrary to my wishes--than this intrusion."
"Well, well," replied the old gentleman indulgently, "here you are,
which is the main point. Seat yourself, my friend, and put yourself
entirely at your ease. We shall arrange our little affairs
presently."
Denis perceived that the matter was still complicated with some
misconception, and he hastened to continue his explanations.
"Your door..." he began.
"About my door?" asked the other, raising his peaked eyebrows. "A
little piece of ingenuity." And he shrugged his shoulders. "A
hospitable fancy! By your own account, you were not desirous of
making my acquaintance. We old people look for such reluctance now
and then; and when it touches our honour, we cast about until we find
some way of overcoming it. You arrive uninvited, but, believe me,
very welcome."
"You persist in error, sir," said Denis. "There can be no question
between you and me. I am a stranger in this countryside. My name is
Denis, damoiseau de Beaulieu. If you see me in your house, it is
only----"
"My young friend," interrupted the other, "you will permit me to have
my own ideas on that subject. They probably differ from yours at the
present moment," he added with a leer, "but time will show which of
us is in the right."
Denis was convinced he had to do with a lunatic. He seated himself
with a shrug, content to wait the upshot; and a pause ensued, during
which he thought he could distinguish a hurried gabbling as of prayer
from behind the arras immediately opposite him. Sometimes there
seemed to be but one person engaged, sometimes two; and the vehemence
of the voice, low as it was, seemed to indicate either great haste or
an agony of spirit. It occurred to him that this piece of tapestry
covered the entrance to the chapel he had noticed from without.
The old gentleman meanwhile surveyed Denis from head to foot with a
smile, and from time to time emitted little noises like a bird or a
mouse, which seemed to indicate a high degree of satisfaction. This
state of matters became rapidly insupportable; and Denis, to put an
end to it, remarked politely that the wind had gone down.
The old gentleman fell into a fit of silent laughter, so prolonged
and violent that he became quite red in the face. Denis got upon his
feet at once, and put on his hat with a flourish.
"Sir," he said, "if you are in your wits, you have affronted me
grossly. If you are out of them, I flatter myself I can find better
employment for my brains than to talk with lunatics. My conscience
is clear; you have made a fool of me from the first moment; you have
refused to hear my explanations; and now there is no power under God
will make me stay here any longer; and if I cannot make my way out in
a more decent fashion, I will hack your door in pieces with my sword."
The Sire de Malétroit raised his right hand and wagged it at Denis
with the fore and little fingers extended.
"My dear nephew," he said, "sit down."
"Nephew!" retorted Denis, "you lie in your throat;" and he snapped
his fingers in his face.
"Sit down, you rogue!" cried the old gentleman, in a sudden, harsh
voice, like the barking of a dog. "Do you fancy," he went on, "that
when I had made my little contrivance for the door, I had stopped
short with that? If you prefer to be bound hand and foot till your
bones ache, rise and try to go away. If you choose to remain a free
young buck, agreeably conversing with an old gentleman--why, sit
where you are in peace, and God be with you."
"Do you mean I am a prisoner?" demanded Denis.
"I state the facts," replied the other. "I would rather leave the
conclusion to yourself."
Denis sat down again. Externally he managed to keep pretty calm; but
within, he was now boiling with anger, now chilled with apprehension.
He no longer felt convinced that he was dealing with a madman. And
if the old gentleman was sane, what, in God's name, had he to look
for? What absurd or tragical adventure had befallen him? What
countenance was he to assume?
While he was thus unpleasantly reflecting, the arras that overhung
the chapel door was raised, and a tall priest in his robes came forth
and, giving a long, keen stare at Denis, said something in an
undertone to the Sire de Malétroit.
"She is in a better frame of spirit?" asked the latter.
"She is more resigned, messire," replied the priest.'
"Now the Lord help her, she is hard to please!" sneered the old
gentleman. "A likely stripling--not ill-born--and of her own
choosing, too? Why, what more would the jade have?"
"The situation is not usual for a young damsel," said the other, "and
somewhat trying to her blushes."
"She should have thought of that before she began the dance? It was
none of my choosing, God knows that: but since she is in it, by our
lady, she shall carry it to an end." And then addressing Denis,
"Monsieur de Beaulieu," he asked, "may I present you to my niece?
She has been waiting your arrival, I may say, with even greater
impatience than myself."
Denis had resigned himself with a good grace--all he desired was to
know the worst of it as speedily as possible; so he rose at once, and
bowed in acquiescence. The Sire de Malétroit followed his example
and limped, with the assistance of the chaplain's arm, toward the
chapel-door. The priest pulled aside the arras, and all three
entered. The building had considerable architectural pretensions. A
light groining sprang from six stout columns, and hung down in two
rich pendants from the centre of the vault. The place terminated
behind the altar in a round end, embossed and honey-combed with a
superfluity of ornament in relief, and pierced by many little windows
shaped like stars, trefoils, or wheels. These windows were
imperfectly glazed, so that the night air circulated freely in the
chapel. The tapers, of which there must have been half a hundred
burning on the altar, were unmercifully blown about; and the light
went through many different phases of brilliancy and semi-eclipse.
On the steps in front of the altar knelt a young girl richly attired
as a bride. A chill settled over Denis as he observed her costume;
he fought with desperate energy against the conclusion that was being
thrust upon his mind; it could not--it should not--be as he feared.
"Blanche," said the Sire, in his most flute-like tones, "I have
brought a friend to see you, my little girl; turn round and give him
your pretty hand. It is good to be devout; but it is necessary to be
polite, my niece."
The girl rose to her feet and turned toward the newcomers. She moved
all of a piece; and shame and exhaustion were expressed in every line
of her fresh young body; and she held her head down and kept her eyes
upon the pavement, as she came slowly forward. In the course of her
advance, her eyes fell upon Denis de Beaulieu's feet--feet of which
he was justly vain, be it remarked, and wore in the most elegant
accoutrement even while travelling. She paused--started, as if his
yellow boots had conveyed some shocking meaning--and glanced suddenly
up into the wearer's countenance. Their eyes met; shame gave place
to horror and terror in her looks; the blood left her lips; with a
piercing scream she covered her face with her hands and sank upon the
chapel-floor.
"That is not the man!" she cried. "My uncle, that is not the man!"
The Sire de Malétroit chirped agreeably. "Of course not," he said,
"I expected as much. It was so unfortunate you could not remember
his name."
"Indeed," she cried, "indeed, I have never seen this person till this
moment--I have never so much as set eyes upon him--I never wish to
see him again. Sir," she said, turning to Denis, "if you are a
gentleman, you will bear me out. Have I ever seen you--have you ever
seen me--before this accursed hour?"
"To speak for myself, I have never had that pleasure," answered the
young man. "This is the first time, messire, that I have met with
your engaging niece."
The old gentleman shrugged his shoulders.
"I am distressed to hear it," he said. "But it is never too late to
begin. I had little more acquaintance with my own late lady ere I
married her; which proves," he added with a grimace, "that these
impromptu marriages may often produce an excellent understanding in
the long run. As the bridegroom is to have a voice in the matter, I
will give him two hours to make up for lost time before we proceed
with the ceremony." And he turned toward the door, followed by the
clergyman.
The girl was on her feet in a moment. "My uncle, you cannot be in
earnest," she said. "I declare before God I will stab myself rather
than be forced on that young man. The heart rises at it; God forbids
such marriages; you dishonour your white hair. Oh, my uncle, pity
me! There is not a woman in all the world but would prefer death to
such a nuptial. Is it possible," she added, faltering--"is it
possible that you do not believe me--that you still think this"--and
she pointed at Denis with a tremor of anger and contempt--"that you
still think _this_ to be the man?"
"Frankly," said the old gentleman, pausing on the threshold, "I do.
But let me explain to you once for all, Blanche de Malétroit, my way
of thinking about this affair. When you took it into your head to
dishonour my family and the name that I have borne, in peace and war,
for more than three-score years, you forfeited, not only the right to
question my designs, but that of looking me in the face. If your
father had been alive, he would have spat on you and turned you out
of doors. His was the hand of iron. You may bless your God you have
only to deal with the hand of velvet, mademoiselle. It was my duty
to get you married without delay. Out of pure goodwill, I have tried
to find your own gallant for you. And I believe I have succeeded.
But before God and all the holy angels, Blanche de Malétroit, if I
have not, I care not one jack-straw. So let me recommend you to be
polite to our young friend; for upon my word, your next groom may be
less appetising."
And with that he went out, with the chaplain at his heels; and the
arras fell behind the pair.
The girl turned upon Denis with flashing eyes.
"And what, sir," she demanded, "may be the meaning of all this?"
"God knows," returned Denis gloomily. "I am a prisoner in this
house, which seems full of mad people. More I know not; and nothing
do I understand."
"And pray how came you here?" she asked.
He told her as briefly as he could. "For the rest," he added,
"perhaps you will follow my example, and tell me the answer to all
these riddles, and what, in God's name, is like to be the end of it."
She stood silent for a little, and he could see her lips tremble and
her tearless eyes burn with a feverish lustre. Then she pressed her
forehead in both hands.
"Alas, how my head aches!" she said wearily--"to say nothing of my
poor heart! But it is due to you to know my story, unmaidenly as it
must seem. I am called Blanche de Malétroit; I have been without
father or mother for--oh! for as long as I can recollect, and indeed
I have been most unhappy all my life. Three months ago a young
captain began to stand near me every day in church. I could see that
I pleased him; I am afraid I am silly, but I was so glad that any one
should love me; and when he passed me a letter, I took it home with
me and read it with great pleasure. Since that time he has written
many. He was so anxious to speak with me, poor fellow! and kept
asking me to leave the door open some evening that we might have two
words upon the stair. For he knew how much my uncle trusted me."
She gave something like a sob at that, and it was a moment before she
could go on. "My uncle is a hard man, but he is very shrewd," she
said at last. "He has performed many feats in war, and was a great
person at court, and much trusted by Queen Isabeau in old days. How
he came to suspect me I cannot tell; but it is hard to keep anything
from his knowledge; and this morning, as we came from mass, he took
my hand in his, forced it open, and read my little billet, walking by
my side all the while. When he had finished, he gave it back to me
with great politeness. It contained another request to have the door
left open; and this has been the ruin of us all. My uncle kept me
strictly in my room until evening, and then ordered me to dress
myself as you see me--a hard mockery for a young girl, do you not
think so? I suppose, when he could not prevail with me to tell him
the young captain's name, he must have laid a trap for him: into
which, alas! you have fallen in the anger of God. I looked for much
confusion; for how could I tell whether he was willing to take me for
his wife on these sharp terms? He might have been trifling with me
from the first; or I might have made myself too cheap in his eyes.
But truly I had not looked for such a shameful punishment as this! I
could not think that God would let a girl be so disgraced before a
young man. And now I have told you all, as I am true-born; although
I can scarcely hope that you will believe me, since I fear that my
own uncle does not."
Denis made her a respectful inclination.
"Madam," he said, "you have honoured me by your confidence. It
remains for me to prove that I am not unworthy of the honour. Is
Messire de Malétroit at hand?"
"I believe he is writing in the salle without," she answered.
"May I lead you thither, madam?" asked Denis, offering his hand with
his most courtly bearing.
She accepted it; and the pair passed out of the chapel, Blanche in a
very drooping and shamefaced condition, but Denis strutting and
ruffling in the consciousness of a mission, and the boyish certainty
of accomplishing it with honour.
The Sire de Malétroit rose to meet them with an ironical obeisance.
"Sir," said Denis, with the grandest possible air, "I believe I am to
have some say in the matter of this marriage; and let me tell you at
once, I will be no party to forcing the inclination of this young
lady. Had it been freely offered to me, I should have been proud to
accept her hand, for I perceive she is as good as she is beautiful;
but as things are, I have now the honour, messire, of refusing."
Blanche looked at him with gratitude in her eyes; but the old
gentleman only smiled and smiled, until his smile grew positively
sickening to Denis.
"I am afraid," he said, "Monsieur de Beaulieu, that you do not
perfectly understand the choice I have to offer you. Follow me, I
beseech you, to this window." And he led the way to one of the large
windows which stood open on the night. "You observe," he went on,
"there is an iron ring in the upper masonry, and reeved through that,
a very efficacious rope. Now, mark my words: if you should find your
disinclination to my niece's person insurmountable, I shall have you
hanged out of this window before sunrise. I shall only proceed to
such an extremity with the greatest regret, you may believe me. For
it is not at all your death that I desire, but my niece's
establishment in life. At the same time, it must come to that if you
prove obstinate. Your family, Monsieur de Beaulieu, is very well in
its way; but if you sprang from Charlemagne, you should not refuse
the hand of a Malétroit with impunity--not if she had been as common
as the Paris road--not if she were as hideous as the gargoyle over my
door. Neither my niece nor you, nor my own private feelings, move me
at all in this matter. The honour of my house has been compromised;
I believe you to be the guilty person; at least you are now in the
secret; and you can hardly wonder if I request you to wipe out the
stain. If you will not, your blood be on your own head! It will be
no great satisfaction to me to have your interesting relics kicking
their heels in the breeze below my windows; but half a loaf is better
than no bread, and if I cannot cure the dishonour, I shall at least
stop the scandal."
There was a pause.
"I believe there are other ways of settling such imbroglios among
gentlemen," said Denis. "You wear a sword, and I hear you have used
it with distinction."
The Sire de Malétroit made a signal to the chaplain, who crossed the
room with long silent strides and raised the arras over the third of
the three doors. It was only a moment before he let it fall again;
but Denis had time to see a dusky passage full of armed men.
"When I was a little younger, I should have been delighted to honour
you, Monsieur de Beaulieu," said Sire Alain; "but I am now too old.
Faithful retainers are the sinews of age, and I must employ the
strength I have. This is one of the hardest things to swallow as a
man grows up in years; but with a little patience, even this becomes
habitual. You and the lady seem to prefer the salle for what remains
of your two hours; and as I have no desire to cross your preference,
I shall resign it to your use with all the pleasure in the world. No
haste!" he added, holding up his hand, as he saw a dangerous look
come into Denis de Beaulieu's face. "If your mind revolts against
hanging, it will be time enough two hours hence to throw yourself out
of the window or upon the pikes of my retainers. Two hours of life
are always two hours. A great many things may turn up in even as
little a while as that. And, besides, if I understand her
appearance, my niece has still something to say to you. You will not
disfigure your last hours by a want of politeness to a lady?"
Denis looked at Blanche, and she made him an imploring gesture.
The old gentleman was hugely pleased at this symptom of an
understanding. "Let us give them all the rope we can," he thought;
and then he continued aloud: "If you will give me your word of
honour, Monsieur de Beaulieu, to await my return at the end of the
two hours before attempting anything desperate, I shall withdraw my
retainers, and let you speak in greater privacy with mademoiselle."
Denis again glanced at the girl, who seemed to beseech him to agree.
"I give you my word of honour," he said.
Messire de Malétroit bowed, and proceeded to limp about the
apartment, clearing his throat the while with that odd musical chirp
which had already grown so irritating in the ears of Denis de
Beaulieu. He first possessed himself of some papers which lay upon
the table; then he went to the mouth of the passage and appeared to
give an order to the men behind the arras; and lastly he hobbled out
through the door by which Denis had come in, turning upon the
threshold to address a last smiling bow to the young couple, and
followed by the chaplain with a hand-lamp.
No sooner were they alone than Blanche advanced toward Denis with her
hands extended. Her face was flushed and excited, and her eyes shone
with tears.
"You shall not die!" she cried, "you shall marry me after all."
"You seem to think, madam," replied Denis, "that I stand much in fear
of death."
"Oh no, no," she said, "I see you are no poltroon. It is for my own
sake--I could not bear to have you slain for such a scruple."
"I am afraid," returned Denis, "that you underrate the difficulty,
madam. What you may be too generous to refuse, I may be too proud to
accept. In a moment of noble feeling toward me, you forget what you
perhaps owe to others."
He had the decency to keep his eyes upon the floor as he said this,
and after he had finished, so as not to spy upon her confusion. She
stood silent for a moment, then walked suddenly away, and sitting
down in her uncle's chair, fairly burst out sobbing. Denis was in
the acme of embarrassment. He looked round, as if to seek for
inspiration, and seeing a stool, plumped down upon it for something
to do. There he sat, playing with the guard of his rapier, and
wishing himself dead a thousand times over, and buried in the
nastiest kitchen-heap in France. His eyes wandered round the
apartment, but found nothing to arrest them. There were such wide
spaces between the furniture, the light fell so baldly and
cheerlessly over all, the dark outside air looked in so coldly
through the windows, that he thought he had never seen a church so
vast, nor a tomb so melancholy. The regular sobs of Blanche de
Malétroit measured out the time like the ticking of a clock. He read
the device upon the shield over and over again, until his eyes became
obscured; he stared into shadowy corners until he imagined they were
swarming with horrible animals; and every now and again he awoke with
a start, to remember that his last two hours were running, and death
was on the march.
Oftener and oftener, as the time went on, did his glance settle on
the girl herself. Her face was bowed forward and covered with her
hands, and she was shaken at intervals by the convulsive hiccup of
grief. Even thus she was not an unpleasant object to dwell upon, so
plump and yet so fine, with a warm brown skin, and the most beautiful
hair, Denis thought, in the whole world of womankind. Her hands were
like her uncle's; but they were more in place at the end of her young
arms, and looked infinitely soft and caressing. He remembered how
her blue eyes had shone upon him, full of anger, pity, and innocence.
And the more he dwelt on her perfections, the uglier death looked,
and the more deeply was he smitten with penitence at her continued
tears. Now he felt that no man could have the courage to leave a
world which contained so beautiful a creature; and now he would have
given forty minutes of his last hour to have unsaid his cruel speech.
Suddenly a hoarse and ragged peal of cockcrow rose to their ears from
the dark valley below the windows. And this shattering noise in the
silence of all around was like a light in a dark place, and shook
them both out of their reflections.
"Alas, can I do nothing to help you?" she said, looking up.
"Madam," replied Denis, with a fine irrelevancy, "if I have said
anything to wound you, believe me, it was for your own sake and not
for mine."
She thanked him with a tearful look.
"I feel your position cruelly," he went on. "The world has been
bitter hard on you. Your uncle is a disgrace to mankind. Believe
me, madam, there is no young gentleman in all France but would be
glad of my opportunity, to die in doing you a momentary service."
"I know already that you can be very brave and generous," she
answered. "What I want to know is whether I can serve you--now or
afterward," she added, with a quaver.
"Most certainly," he answered with a smile. "Let me sit beside you
as if I were a friend, instead of a foolish intruder; try to forget
how awkwardly we are placed to one another; make my last moments go
pleasantly; and you will do me the chief service possible."
"You are very gallant," she added, with a yet deeper sadness ...
"very gallant ... and it somehow pains me. But draw nearer, if you
please; and if you find anything to say to me, you will at least make
certain of a very friendly listener. Ah! Monsieur de Beaulieu," she
broke forth--"ah! Monsieur de Beaulieu, how can I look you in the
face?" And she fell to weeping again with a renewed effusion.
"Madam," said Denis, taking her hand in both of his, "reflect on the
little time I have before me, and the great bitterness into which I
am cast by the sight of your distress. Spare me, in my last moments,
the spectacle of what I cannot cure even with the sacrifice of my
life."
"I am very selfish," answered Blanche. "I will be braver, Monsieur
de Beaulieu, for your sake. But think if I can do you no kindness in
the future--if you have no friends to whom I could carry your adieux.
Charge me as heavily as you can; every burden will lighten, by so
little, the invaluable gratitude I owe you. Put it in my power to do
something more for you than weep."
"My mother is married again, and has a young family to care for. My
brother Guichard will inherit my fiefs; and if I am not in error,
that will content him amply for my death. Life is a little vapour
that passeth away, as we are told by those in holy orders. When a
man is in a fair way and sees all life open in front of him, he seems
to himself to make a very important figure in the world. His horse
whinnies to him; the trumpets blow and the girls look out of windows
as he rides into a town before his company; he receives many
assurances of trust and regard--sometimes by express in a
letter--sometimes face to face, with persons of great consequence
falling on his neck. It is not wonderful if his head is turned for a
time. But once he is dead, were he as brave as Hercules or as wise
as Solomon, he is soon forgotten. It is not ten years since my
father fell, with many other knights around him, in a very fierce
encounter, and I do not think that any one of them, nor so much as
the name of the fight, is now remembered. No, no, madam, the nearer
you come to it, you see that death is a dark and dusty corner, where
a man gets into his tomb and has the door shut after him till the
judgment day. I have few friends just now, and once I am dead I
shall have none."
"Ah, Monsieur de Beaulieu!" she exclaimed, "you forget Blanche de
Malétroit."
"You have a sweet nature, madam, and you are pleased to estimate a
little service far beyond its worth."
"It is not that," she answered. "You mistake me if you think I am so
easily touched by my own concerns. I say so, because you are the
noblest man I have ever met; because I recognize in you a spirit that
would have made even a common person famous in the land."
"And yet here I die in a mousetrap--with no more noise about it than
my own squeaking," answered he.
A look of pain crossed her face, and she was silent for a little
while. Then a light came into her eyes, and with a smile she spoke
again.
"I cannot have my champion think meanly of himself. Anyone who gives
his life for another will be met in Paradise by all the heralds and
angels of the Lord God. And you have no such cause to hang your
head. For ... Pray, do you think me beautiful?" she asked, with a
deep flush.
"Indeed, madam, I do," he said.
"I am glad of that," she answered heartily. "Do you think there are
many men in France who have been asked in marriage by a beautiful
maiden--with her own lips--and who have refused her to her face? I
know you men would half despise such a triumph; but believe me, we
women know more of what is precious in love. There is nothing that
should set a person higher in his own esteem; and we women would
prize nothing more dearly."
"You are very good," he said; "but you cannot make me forget that I
was asked in pity and not for love."
"I am not so sure of that," she replied, holding down her head.
"Hear me to an end, Monsieur de Beaulieu. I know how you must
despise me; I feel you are right to do so; I am too poor a creature
to occupy one thought of your mind, although, alas! you must die for
me this morning. But when I asked you to marry me, indeed, and
indeed, it was because I respected and admired you, and loved you
with my whole soul, from the very moment that you took my part
against my uncle. If you had seen yourself, and how noble you
looked, you would pity rather than despise me. And now," she went
on, hurriedly checking him with her hand, "although I have laid aside
all reserve and told you so much, remember that I know your
sentiments toward me already. I would not, believe me, being nobly
born, weary you with importunities into consent. I, too, have a
pride of my own; and I declare before the holy mother of God, if you
should now go back from your word already given, I would no more
marry you than I would marry my uncle's groom."
Denis smiled a little bitterly.
"It is a small love," he said, "that shies at a little pride."
She made no answer, although she probably had her own thoughts.
"Come hither to the window," he said, with a sigh. "Here is the
dawn."
And indeed the dawn was already beginning. The hollow of the sky was
full of essential daylight, colourless and clean; and the valley
underneath was flooded with a grey reflection. A few thin vapours
clung in the coves of the forest or lay along the winding course of
the river. The scene disengaged a surprising effect of stillness,
which was hardly interrupted when the cocks began once more to crow
among the steadings. Perhaps the same fellow who had made so horrid
a clangour in the darkness not half an hour before, now sent up the
merriest cheer to greet the coming day. A little wind went bustling
and eddying among the tree-tops underneath the windows. And still
the daylight kept flooding insensibly out of the east, which was soon
to grow incandescent and cast up that red-hot cannon-ball, the rising
sun.
Denis looked out over all this with a bit of a shiver. He had taken
her hand, and retained it in his almost unconsciously.
"Has the day begun already?" she said; and then, illogically enough:
"The night has been so long! Alas! what shall we say to my uncle
when he returns?"
"What you will," said Denis, and he pressed her fingers in his. She
was silent.
"Blanche," he said, with a swift, uncertain, passionate utterance,
"you have seen whether I fear death. You must know well enough that
I would as gladly leap out of that window into the empty air as lay a
finger on you without your free and full consent. But if you care
for me at all do not let me lose my life in a misapprehension; for I
love you better than the whole world; and though I will die for you
blithely, it would be like all the joys of Paradise to live on and
spend my life in your service."
As he stopped speaking, a bell began to ring loudly in the interior
of the house; and a clatter of armour in the corridor showed that the
retainers were returning to their post, and the two hours were at an
end.
"After all that you have heard?" she whispered, leaning toward him
with her lips and eyes.
"I have heard nothing," he replied.
"The captain's name was Florimond de Champdivers," she said in his
ear.
"I did not hear it," he answered, taking her supple body in his arms
and covering her wet face with kisses.
A melodious chirping was audible behind, followed by a beautiful
chuckle, and the voice of Messire de Malétroit wished his new nephew
a good morning.
II
A DOUBLE-DYED DECEIVER
O. HENRY
The trouble began in Laredo. It was the Llano Kid's fault, for he
should have confined his habit of manslaughter to Mexicans. But the
Kid was past twenty; and to have only Mexicans to one's credit at
twenty is to blush unseen on the Rio Grande border.
It happened in old Justo Valdo's gambling house. There was a poker
game at which sat players who were not all friends, as happens often
where men ride in from afar to shoot Folly as she gallops. There was
a row over so small a matter as a pair of queens; and when the smoke
had cleared away it was found that the Kid had committed an
indiscretion, and his adversary had been guilty of a blunder. For,
the unfortunate combatant, instead of being a Greaser, was a
high-blooded youth from the cow ranches, of about the Kid's own age
and possessed of friends and champions. His blunder in missing the
Kid's right ear only a sixteenth of an inch when he pulled his gun
did not lessen the indiscretion of the better marksman.
The Kid, not being equipped with a retinue, nor bountifully supplied
with personal admirers and supporters--on account of a rather
umbrageous reputation, even for the border--considered it not
incompatible with his indisputable gameness to perform that judicious
tractional act known as "pulling his freight."
Quickly the avengers gathered and sought him. Three of them overtook
him within a rod of the station. The Kid turned and showed his teeth
in that brilliant but mirthless smile that usually preceded his deeds
of insolence and violence, and his pursuers fell back without making
it necessary for him even to reach for his weapon.
But in this affair the Kid had not felt the grim thirst for encounter
that usually urged him on to battle. It had been a purely chance
row, born of the cards and certain epithets impossible for a
gentleman to brook that had passed between the two. The Kid had
rather liked the slim, haughty, brown-faced young chap whom his
bullet had cut off in the first pride of manhood. And now he wanted
no more blood. He wanted to get away and have a good long sleep
somewhere in the sun on the mesquit grass with his handkerchief over
his face. Even a Mexican might have crossed his path in safety while
he was in this mood.
The Kid openly boarded the north-bound passenger train that departed
five minutes later. But at Webb, a few miles out, where it was
flagged to take on a traveller, he abandoned that manner of escape.
There were telegraph stations ahead; and the Kid looked askance at
electricity and steam. Saddle and spur were his rocks of safety.
The man whom he had shot was a stranger to him. But the Kid knew
that he was of the Coralitos outfit from Hidalgo; and that the
punchers from that ranch were more relentless and vengeful than
Kentucky feudists when wrong or harm was done to one of them. So,
with the wisdom that has characterized many great fighters, the Kid
decided to pile up as many leagues as possible of chaparral and pear
between himself and the retaliation of the Coralitos bunch.
Near the station was a store; and near the store, scattered among the
mesquits and elms, stood the saddled horses of the customers. Most
of them waited, half asleep, with sagging limbs and drooping heads.
But one, a long-legged roan with a curved neck, snorted and pawed the
turf. Him the Kid mounted, gripped with his knees, and slapped
gently with the owner's own quirt.