MIDNIGHT ALARMS.
Bonne's first thought when her brother darted to the stranger's rescue
was to seek aid from Ampoule, who, it will be remembered, sat drinking
beside the fire in the outer hall. But the man's coarse address, and
the nature of his employment at the moment, checked the impulse; and
the girl returned to the window, and, flattening her face against the
panes, sought to learn what fortune her brother had. The fire, still
burning high, cast its light as far as the gateway. But the tower to
which Roger had hastened, being in a line with the window, was not
visible, and though Bonne pressed her face as closely as possible
against the panes, she could discover nothing. Yet her brother did not
come back. The murmur of jeers and laughter persisted, but he did not
appear.
She turned at last, impelled to seek aid from some one. But at sight
of the room, womanish panic took her by the throat, and the hysterical
fit almost overcame her. For what help, what hope of help, lay in any
of those whom she saw round her? The Countess indeed had crept to her
side, and cast her arm about her, but she was a child, and ashake
already. For the others, the Vicomte sat sunk in lethargy, heeding no
one, ignorant apparently that his son had left the room; and Fulbert,
whose wits had exhausted themselves in the effort that had saved his
mistress, stood faithful indeed, but brainless, dull, dumb. Only
Solomon, who leant against the wall beside the door, his old face
gloomy, his eyebrows knit, only to him could she look for a spark of
comfort or suggestion. He, it was clear, appreciated the crisis, for
he was listening intently, his head inclined, his hand on a weapon.
But he was old, and there was not a man of Vlaye's troopers who was
not more than a match for him foot to foot.
Still, he was her only hope, if her brother did not return. And she
turned again to the casement, and, scarcely breathing, listened with a
keenness of anxiety almost indescribable. If only Roger would return!
Roger, who had seemed so weak a prop a few minutes before, and who,
now that she had lost him, seemed everything! But the voices of
Ampoule and his companion disputing in the outer hall rose louder,
drowning more distant sounds; and the minutes were passing. And still
Roger did not return.
Then a thought came to her; or rather two thoughts. The first was that
all now hung on her--and that steadied her. The second, that he whose
grasp had brought the blood to her cheeks that morning had bidden her
hold out to the last, fight to the last, play the man to the last; and
this moved her to action. Better do anything than succumb like her
father. She flew to Solomon, dragging the Countess with her.
"We are not safe here," she said. "These men are drinking. They have
kept Roger, and that bodes us no good. Were it not better to go
upstairs to the Tower Room?"
"It were the best course," the old man answered slowly, with his eyes
on the Vicomte. "Out and away the best course, mademoiselle. Fulbert
and I could guard the stairs awhile at any rate."
"Then let us go!"
But he looked at the Vicomte. "If my lord says so," he answered. All
his life the Vicomte's word had been his law.
In a moment she was at her father's side. "The Countess will be safer
upstairs, sir," she said, speaking with a boldness that surprised
herself--but who could long remain in fear of the failing old man
whose leaden eyes met hers with scarce a gleam of meaning? "The
Countess is frightened here, sir," she continued. "If you would guard
us upstairs----"
"Have done!" he struck at her with feeble passion, and waved her off.
"Let me alone."
"But----"
"Peace, girl, I say!" he repeated irascibly. "Who are you to fix
comings and goings? Get to your stool and your needle. God knows," in
a burst of childish petulance, "what the world is coming to--when
children order their elders! But since--there, begone! Begone!"
She wrung her hands in despair. Outside, fuel was beginning to fail,
the fire was burning low, the court growing dark. Within, the two
guttering candles showed only the Vicomte's figure sunk low in his
chair, and here and there a pale face projected from the shadow. But
the noise of riot and disorder did not slacken, rather it grew more
menacing; and what was she to do? Desperate, she returned to the
attack.
"Sir," she said, "there is no one to escort the Countess of
Rochechouart to her room. She wishes to retire, and it is late."
He got abruptly to his feet, and looked about him with something of
his ordinary air. "Where is the Countess?" he asked peevishly. And
then addressing Solomon, "Take candles! Take candles!" he continued.
"And you, sirrah, light the way! Don't you know your duty? The
Countess to her room! Mordieu, girl, we are fallen low indeed if we
don't know how to behave to our guests. Madame--or, to be sure,
Mademoiselle la Comtesse," with a puzzled look at the shrinking child,
"let me have the honour. Things are out of gear to-night, and we must
do the best we can. But to-morrow--to-morrow all shall be in order."
He marshalled Solomon out and followed, bowing the young Countess
before him. Bonne overjoyed went next; Fulbert, like a patient dog,
brought up the rear. All was not done yet, however, as Bonne knew; and
she nerved herself for the effort. On the landing her father would
have stopped, but she passed him lightly and opened the door that led
by way of the roof, to the Tower Chamber. "This way!" she muttered to
Solomon, as he hesitated. "The Countess is timid to-night, sir," she
continued aloud, "and craves leave to lie in the Tower as the room is
empty."
He frowned. "Still this silliness!" he exclaimed, and then passing his
hand over his brow, "There was something said about it, I remember.
But I thought I----"
"Gave permission, sir? Yes!" Bonne murmured, pushing the girl steadily
forward. "Solomon, do you hear? Light along the leads!"
Great as was his fear of the Vicomte, the old porter succumbed to her
will, and all were on the point of following, when a door on the
landing opened, and the Abbess appeared on the threshold of her room.
She held a light above her head, and with a sneer on her handsome
face, contemplated the group.
"What is this?" she asked. And then, gathering their intention from
their looks--possibly she had had some inkling of it, "You do not mean
to tell me," she continued, partly in temper, and partly in feigned
surprise, "that a half-dozen of roystering troopers, sir, are driving
the Vicomte de Villeneuve from his own chamber? To take refuge among
the owls and bats? For shame, sir, for shame!"
Bonne tried to stay her by a gesture.
In vain. "A fine tale they will have to tell to-morrow!" the elder
sister continued in tones of savage raillery. "M. de Villeneuve afraid
of a handful of rascals, whom their master keeps within bounds with a
stick! The Lord of Villeneuve bearded in his own house by a scum of
riders!"
"Peace, daughter!" the Vicomte cried; he even raised his hand in
anger. "You lie! It is not I"--his head trembling--"I indeed, but the
Countess! You don't see her. The Countess of Rochechouart----"
"Oh!" said the Abbess. And, the light she held shining on her arrogant
beauty, she swept a great curtsy, as if she had not seen her intended
guest before; as if her scornful eyes had not from the first descried
the girl; as if the small beginnings of hate, hate that scarcely knew
itself, were not already in her breast. "Oh," she said again, "it is
the Countess of Rochechouart, is it, who is afraid?"
"And with reason," Bonne answered, intervening hurriedly, but in a low
voice. "The men are drinking and growing violent. Roger went to them
some time ago, and has not come back."
"Roger!" the Abbess ejaculated, shrugging her shoulders. "Did you
think that he could do anything?"
But she who of all those present seemed least likely to interfere
spoke up at that. Whether the young Countess resented--Heaven knows
why she should--the sneer at Roger's expense, or only the contempt of
herself which the Abbess's manner expressed, she plucked up a spirit.
After all she was not only a Rochechouart, but she was a woman; and
there is in all women, even the meekest, a spark of temper that, being
fanned by one of their own sex, blazes up. "It is true," she replied
coldly, her face faintly pink. "It is I who am afraid, mademoiselle.
But it is not of the men downstairs. It is their master whom I fear."
"You fear M. de Vlaye?" the Abbess repeated. And she laughed aloud, a
little over merrily, at the absurdity of the notion. "You--fear M. de
Vlaye? Why? If I may venture to ask?"
"Why?" the Countess replied. She had learned somewhat during the day,
and was too young to hide her knowledge, being provoked. "Do you ask
why, mademoiselle? Because, to be plain, I fear that which it may be
you do not fear."
The Abbess flushed crimson to her very throat. "And what, to be plain,
do you mean by that?" she retorted in a tone that shook with passion.
"If you think that this story is true that they tell----"
"That M. de Vlaye waylaid and would have seized me?" the little
Countess retorted undismayed. "It is quite true."
"You say that!" The young Abbess was pale and red by turns. "How do
you know? What do you know?"
"I know the Captain of Vlaye," the girl answered firmly. "I have seen
him more than once at Angouleme, His mask fell yesterday, and I could
not be mistaken. It was he!"
The Abbess bit her lip until the blood came in the vain attempt to
mask feelings which her temper rendered her impotent to control. She
no longer doubted the story. She saw that it was true; and jealousy,
rage, and amazement--amazement at Vlaye's treachery, amazement
at the discovery of a rival in one so insignificant in all save
rank--deprived her of the power of speech. Fortunately at this moment
the clash of steel reached Solomon's ears, and, startled, the porter
gave the alarm.
"My lord, they are fighting!" he cried. And then emboldened by the
emergency, "Were it not well," he continued, "to put the ladies in a
place of safety?"
The Vicomte, urged up the steps by the women, leant over the parapet,
and learned the truth for himself. Bonne, the Countess, the Abbess and
her women, all followed, and in a twinkling were standing on the roof
in the dark night, the round tower rising beside them, and the
croaking of the frogs coming up to them from below.
But the brief clash of weapons was over, and they could make out no
more than a group of figures gathered about two prostrate men. The
movement of the lights, now here now there, augmented the difficulty
of seeing, and for a while Bonne's heart stood still. She made no
lamentations, for she came of the old blood, but she thought Roger
dead. And then a man raised a light, and she distinguished his figure
leaning over one of the injured men.
"Thank God!" she murmured. "There is Roger. He is not hurt!"
"Who are they? Who are they?" the Vicomte babbled, clinging to the
parapet. "Eh? Who are they? Cannot any one see?"
But no one could see, and the Abbess's women began to cry. She paid no
heed to them. She leant with the others over the parapet, and she
listened with them to the shuffling feet of the men below, as slowly
in a double line they bore the cloaked form towards the house. But
whether their thoughts were her thoughts, their anxiety her anxiety,
whether she was wrapt, as they were, in the scene that passed below,
or chewed instead the cud of other and more bitter reflections, was
known only to herself. Her proud spirit, whose worst failings hitherto
had not gone beyond selfishness and vanity, hung, it may be, during
those moments between good and evil, the better and the worse; took,
perhaps, the turn that must decide its life; flung from it, perhaps,
in passionate abandonment the last heart-strings that bound it to the
purer and more generous affections.
Perhaps; but none of those who stood beside her had an inkling of her
mood. For the troopers had passed with their mysterious burden into
the house, and no sooner were they gone than one of the Abbess's women
cried in a panic that they would be murdered, and in a trice all,
succumbing to the impulse, made for the Tower Chamber, and herded into
it pell-mell, some shrugging their shoulders and showing that they
gave way to the more timid, and the men not knowing from whom to take
orders. In the chamber were already two or three of the house-women,
who had sought that refuge earlier in the evening, and these, seeing
the Vicomte, looked for nothing but slaughter, and by their shrill
lamentations added to the confusion.
The security of all depended entirely on their holding the way across
the leads, and here the men should have remained; but the women would
not part with them and all entered together. Some one locked the outer
door, and there they were, in all eleven or twelve persons, in the
great, dreary chamber, where a few feeble candles that served to make
darkness visible disclosed their blanched faces. At the slightest
sound the women shrieked or clung to one another, and with every
second the boldest expected to hear the tramp of feet without, and the
clatter of weapons on the oak.
There was something ridiculous in this noisy panic; yet something
terrifying also to those who, like Bonne, kept their heads. She strove
in vain to make herself heard; her voice was drowned; the disorder
overwhelmed her as a flood overwhelms a strong swimmer. She seized a
girl by the arm to silence her: the wench took it for a fresh alarm
and squalled the louder. She flew to her father and begged him to
interpose; flurried, he fell into a rage with her, and stormed at her
as if it were she who caused the confusion. For the others the young
Countess, though quiet, was scared; and Odette, seated at a distance,
noticed her companions only at intervals in the dark current of her
thoughts--and then with a look of disdain.
At length Bonne betook herself to Solomon. "Some one should hold the
roof!" she said.
He shrugged his shoulders. "Ay, ay, mademoiselle," he said, "but we
have no orders and the door is locked, and he has the key."
"You could do something there?"
"Ay, if we had orders."
She flew to the Vicomte at that. "Some one should be holding the roof,
sir," she said. "Solomon and Fulbert could maintain it awhile. Could
you not give them orders?"
He swore at her. "We are mad to be here," he exclaimed, veering about
on an instant. "This comes of letting women have a voice! Silence, you
hell-babes!" he continued, turning with his staff raised upon two of
the women, who had chosen that moment to raise a new outcry. "We are
all mad! Mad, I say!"
"I will silence them, sir," she answered. And stepping on a bed,
"Listen! Listen to me!" she cried stoutly. "We are in little danger
here if we are quiet. Therefore let us make no noise. They will not
then know where to find us. And let the men go to the door, and the
maids to the other end of the room. And----"
Shrieks stopped her. The two whom the Vicomte had upbraided flung
themselves screaming on Solomon. "The window! The window!" they cried,
glaring over their shoulders. And before the astonished old man could
free himself, or the Vicomte give vent to his passion, "The window!
They are coming in!" they shrieked.
The words were the signal for a wild rush towards the door. Two or
three of the candles were knocked down, the Vicomte was well-nigh
carried off his legs, the Abbess, who tried to rise, was pinned where
she was by her women; who flung themselves on their knees before her
and hid their faces in her robe. Only Bonne, interrupted in the midst
of her appeal, retained both her presence of mind and her freedom of
action. After obeying the generous instinct which bade her thrust the
young Countess behind her, she remained motionless, staring intently
at the window--staring in a mixture of hope and fear.
The hope was justified. They were the faces of friends that showed in
the dark opening of the window. They were friends who entered--Charles
first, that the alarm might be the sooner quelled, des Ageaux second;
if first and second they could be called, when the feet of the two
touched the floor almost at the same instant. But Charles wore a new
and radiant face, and des Ageaux a look of command, that to Bonne
after what she had gone through was as wine to a fainting man. There
were some whom that look did not reach, but even these--women with
their faces hidden--stilled their cries, and raised their heads
when he spoke. For a trumpet could not have rung more firm in that
panic-laden air.
"We are friends!" he said. "And we are in time! M. le Vicomte, we must
act and ask your leave afterwards." Turning again to the window he
spoke to the night.
Not in vain. At the word troopers came tumbling in man after man; the
foremost, a lean, lank-visaged veteran, who looked neither to right
nor left, but in three strides, and with one salute in the Vicomte's
direction, put himself at the door and on guard. He had a long,
odd-looking sword with a steel basket hilt, with which he signed to
the men to stand here or there.
For they continued to come in, until the Vicomte, stunned by the sight
of his son, awoke to fresh wonder; and, speechless, counted a round
dozen and three to boot, besides his guest and Charles. Moreover they
were men of a certain stamp, quiet but grim, who, being bidden, did
and asked no questions.
When they had all filed through the group of staring women now fallen
silent, and had ranged themselves beside the Bat--for he it was--at
the door, des Ageaux spoke.
"Do you hear them?"
"No, my lord."
"Unlock softly, then, but do not open! And wait the word! M. le
Vicomte"--he turned courteously to the old man--"the occasion presses,
or I would ask your pardon. Mademoiselle"--but as he turned to Bonne
he lowered his voice, and what he said escaped other ears. Not her
ears, for from brow to neck, though he had but praised her courage and
firmness, she blushed vividly.
"I did only what I could," she replied, lifting her eyes once to his
and as quickly dropping them. "Roger----"
"Ha! What of Roger?"
She told him as concisely as she could.
He knit his brows. "That was not of my contrivance," he said. And
then with a gleam of humour in his eyes, "Masked was he? Another
knight-errant, it seems, and less fortunate than the first! You do not
lack supporters in your misfortunes, mademoiselle. But--what is it?"
"They come, my lord," the Bat answered, raising his hand to gain
attention.
All, at the word, listened with quickened pulses, and in the silence
the harsh rending of wood came to the ear, a little dulled by
distance. Then a murmur of voices, then another crash! The men about
the door poised themselves, each with a foot advanced, and his weapon
ready; their strained muscles and gleaming eyes told of their
excitement. A moment and they would be let loose! A moment--and then,
too late, Bonne saw Charles beside the Bat.
Too late; but it mattered nothing. She might have spoken, but he,
panting for the fight, exulting in the occasion, would not have heeded
if an angel had spoken. And before she could find words, the thing was
done. The Bat flung the door open, and with a roar of defiance the mob
of men charged out and across the roof, Charles among the foremost.
A shot, a scream, a tumult of cries, the jarring of steel on steel,
and the fight rolled down through the house in a whirl of strident
voices. The candles, long-wicked and guttering, flamed wildly in the
wind; the room was half in shadow, half in light. The Vicomte, who had
seen all in a maze of stupefaction, stiffened himself--as the old
war-horse that scents the battle. Bonne hid her face and prayed.
Not so the Abbess. She sat unmoved, a sneer on her face, a dark
look in her eyes. And so Bonne, glancing up, saw her; and a strange
pang shot through the younger girl's breast. If he had praised her
courage--and that with a look and in a tone that had brought the blood
to her cheeks--what would he think of her handsome sister? How could
he fail to admire her, not for her beauty only, but for her stately
pride, for the composure that not even this could alter, for the
challenge that shone in her haughty eyes?
The next moment Bonne reproached herself for entertaining such a
thought, while Charles's life and perhaps Roger's hung in the balance,
and the cries of men in direst straits still rung in her ears. What a
worm she was, what a crawling thing! God pardon her! God protect them!
The Abbess's voice--she had risen at last and moved--cut short her
supplications. "Who is he?" Odette de Villeneuve muttered in a fierce
whisper. "Who is he, girl?" She pointed to des Ageaux, who kept his
station on the threshold, his ear following the course of the fight.
"Who is that man? They call him my lord! Who is he?"
"I do not know," Bonne said.
"You do not know?"
"No."
The candles flared higher. The Lieutenant turned and saw the two
sisters standing together looking at him.
He crossed the room to them, halting midway to listen, his attention
divided between them and the conflict below. His eyes dwelt awhile on
the Abbess, but settled, as he drew nearer, on Bonne. He desired to
reassure her. "Have no fear, mademoiselle," he said quietly. "Your
brother runs little risk. They were taken by surprise. By this time it
is over."
The Vicomte heard and his lips trembled, but no words came. It was the
Abbess who spoke for him. "And what next?" she asked harshly.
Des Ageaux, still lending an ear to the sounds below, looked at her
with attention, but did not answer.
"What next?" she repeated. "You have entered forcibly. By what right?"
"The right, mademoiselle," he replied, "that every man has to resist a
wrong. The right that every man has to protect women, and to save his
friends. If you desire more than this," he continued, with a change of
tone that answered the challenge of her eyes, "in the King's name,
mademoiselle, and my own!"
"And you are?"
"His Majesty's Lieutenant in Perigord," he answered, bowing. His
attention was fixed on her, yet he was vividly conscious of the colour
that mounted suddenly to Bonne's cheeks, dyed her brows, shone in her
eyes.
"Of Perigord?" the Abbess repeated in astonishment.
"Of Perigord," he replied, bowing again. "It is true," he continued,
shrugging his shoulders, "that I am a league or two beyond my border,
but great wrongs beget little ones, mademoiselle."
She hated him. As he stood there successful, she hated him. But she
had not found an answer, nor had Bonne stilled the fluttering, half
painful, half pleasant, of her heart, when the tread of returning feet
heralded news. The Bat and two others entered, bearing a lanthorn that
lit up their damp swarthy faces. The first was Roger.
He was wildly excited. "Great news!" he cried, waving his hand. "Great
news! I have downstairs----"
One look from des Ageaux's eyes silenced him. Des Ageaux looked from
him to the Bat. "What have you done?" he asked curtly.
"Taken two unwounded, three wounded," the tall man answered as
briefly. "The others escaped."
"Their horses?"
"We have their horses."
Des Ageaux paused an instant. Then, "You have closed the gates?"
"And set a guard, my lord!" the Bat answered. "We have no wounded,
but----"
"The Duke of Joyeuse lies below, and is wounded!" Roger cried in a
breath. He could restrain himself no longer.
If his object was to shatter des Ageaux's indifference, he succeeded
to a marvel. "The Duke of Joyeuse?" the Lieutenant exclaimed in
stupefaction. "Impossible!"
"But no!" Roger retorted. "He is lying below--wounded. It is not
impossible!"
"But he was not--of those?" des Ageaux returned, indicating by a
gesture the men whom they had just expelled. For an instant the notion
that he had attacked and routed friends instead of foes darkened his
face.
"No!" Roger explained fluently--excitement had rid him of his
diffidence. "No! He was the man who rode into the courtyard--but you
have not heard? They were going to maltreat him, and he killed their
leader, Ampoule--that was before you came!" Roger's eyes shone; it was
evident that he had transferred his allegiance.
Des Ageaux's look sought the Bat and asked a question. "There is a
dead man below," the Bat answered. "He had it through the throat."
"And the Duke of Joyeuse?"
"He is there--alone apparently."
"Alone?"
The Bat's eyes sought the wall and gazed on it stonily. "There are
more fools than one in the world," he said gruffly.
Des Ageaux pondered an instant. Then, "I will see him," he said. "But
first," he turned courteously to the Vicomte, "I have to provide for
your safety, M. le Vicomte, and that of your family. I can only ensure
it, I fear, by removing you from here. I have not sufficient force to
hold the chateau, and short of that I see no way of protecting you
from the Captain of Vlaye's resentment."
The Vicomte, who had aged years in the last few days, as the old
sometimes do, sat down weakly on a bed. "Go--from here?" he muttered,
his hands moving nervously on his knees. "From my house?"
"It is necessary."
"Why?" A younger and stronger voice flung the question at des Ageaux.
The Abbess stood forward beside her father. "Why?" she repeated
imperiously. "Why should we go from here--from our own house? Or why
should we fear M. de Vlaye?"
"To the latter question--because he does not lightly forgive,
mademoiselle," des Ageaux replied drily. "To the former because I have
neither men nor means to defend this house. To both, because you have
with you"--he pointed to the Countess--"this lady, whom it is not
consonant with the Vicomte's honour either to abandon or to surrender.
To be plain, M. de Vlaye's plans have been thwarted and his men
routed, and to-morrow's sun will not be an hour high before he takes
the road. To remain here were to abide the utmost of his power;
which," he added drily, "is at present of importance, however it may
stand in a week's time."
She looked at him darkly beautiful, temper and high disdain in her
face. And as she looked there began to take shape in her mind the wish
to destroy him; a wish that even as she looked, in a space of time too
short to be measured by our clumsy methods, became a fixed thought.
Why had he intervened? Who had invited him to intervene? With a
woman's inconsistency she left out of sight the wrong M. de Vlaye
would have done her, she forgot the child-Countess, she overlooked all
except that this man was the enemy of the man she loved. She felt that
but for him all would have been well! But for him--for even that she
laid at his door--and his hostility the Captain of Vlaye had never
been driven to think of that other way of securing his fortunes.
These thoughts passed through her mind in a pause so short that the
listeners scarcely marked it for a pause. Then, "And if we will not
go?" she cried.
"All in the house will go," he replied.
"Whither?"
"I shall decide that," he answered coldly. And he turned from her.
Before she could retort he was giving orders, and men were coming and
going and calling to one another, and lights were flitting in all
directions through the house, and all about her was hubbub and stir
and confusion. She saw that resistance was vain. Her father was
passive, her brothers were des Ageaux's most eager ministrants. The
servants were awed into silence, or, like old Solomon, who for once
was mute on the glories of the race, were anxious to escape for their
own sakes.
Then into her hatred of him entered a little of that leaven of fear
which makes hatred active. For amid the confusion he was cool. His
voice was firm, his eye commanded on this side, his hand beckoned on
that, men ran for him. She knew the dread in which M. de Vlaye was
held. But this she saw was not the awe in which men hold him whose
caprice it may be to punish, but the awe in which men stand of him who
is just; whose nature it is out of chaos to create order, and who to
that end will spend himself and all. A man cold of face and something
passionless; even hard, we have seen, when a rope, a bough, and a
villain forced themselves on his attention.
She would not have known him had she seen him leaning over Joyeuse a
few minutes later, while his lean subaltern held a shaded taper on the
other side of the makeshift pallet. The door was locked on them, they
had the room to themselves, and between them the Duke lay in the dead
sleep of exhaustion. "I do not think that we can move him," des Ageaux
muttered, his brow clouded by care.
The Bat, with the light touch of one who had handled many a dying man,
felt the Duke's pulse, without rousing him. "He will bear it," he
said, "in a litter."
"Over that road? Think what a road it is!"
"Needs must!"
"He brought the money, found me gone, and followed," des Ageaux
murmured in a voice softening by feeling. "You think we dare take
him?"
"To leave him to the Captain of Vlaye were worse."
"Worse for us," des Ageaux muttered doubtfully. "That is true."
"Worse for all," the Bat grunted. He took liberties in private that
for all the world he would not have had suspected.
Still his master, who had been so firm above-stairs, hung undecided
over the sick man's couch. "M. de Vlaye would not be so foolish as to
harm him," he said.
"He would only pluck him!" the Bat retorted. "And wing us with the
first feather, the Lady Countess with the second, the Crocans with the
third, and the King with the fourth." He stopped. It was a long speech
for him.
Des Ageaux assented. "Yes, he is the master-card," he said slowly. "I
suppose we must take him. But Heavens knows how we shall get him
there."
"Leave that to me!" said the Bat, undertaking more than he knew. Nor
did he guess with whose assistance he was to perform the task.