“Courage, my son, courage; she will come back--I shall see her
to-day--oh, she has not forgotten you, be sure of it.”
He spoke as a father might have spoken to a son; and pushing the
trembling prisoner gently forward, he closed the door upon him and
hurried back to the light and the life above. Penalty enough that he
should spend moments in an abode of such horrors. Serrefort, on the
other hand, took two steps forward and then sank down upon the mouldy
straw with which the floor of his new prison was covered. There was no
braver man in Paris, none with a stouter heart nor more noble courage;
but the Bombec Tower was quick to conquer him. Fear now dominated his
mind, until his whole body trembled, and his very heart seemed to
stand still. The darkness weighed upon him like a crushing burden. The
foul cell appeared to be full of the shapes of those who had gone
before him to this agony. His lungs were scorched by the stifling air;
the dreadful silence, he said, was the silence of the tomb. Every
moment he waited to feel the touch of some creeping thing upon his
face; he crouched like a driven animal, putting out his hand to find
the walls with his fingers. But his hand was cut by the blade of a
knife protruding from the stone work, and as he drew it back bleeding,
he remembered what Baptiste had said, that he was then in the prison
of swords. Full well he knew what the words meant. Many a time had he
heard of this infamous cell wherein the walls bristled with knives,
and the floor of which, as tradition told, was covered with creeping
things, and even with loathsome reptiles.
“Oh, my God,” he prayed again, “have pity upon me, have pity upon
me--I cannot suffer it--I cannot!”
Maddened, as many prisoners before him, he hurled himself ferociously
upon the floor and writhed there with burning brain, and hands and
arms cut by the sharp blades which protruded from the walls. When the
fever passed, and he lay weak and motionless upon the straw, he began
to ask himself by what right the bailiff inflicted these wrongs upon
him. Years had gone by since he had sinned in striking the Comte de
Châteauneuf, the lord of his province, who had robbed him of a fame
which was more precious to him than wealth, and had sought to injure
the one being for whom he would have given his life willingly. Had
they such memories that they remembered the crime still? He could not
believe it; but as misery grew upon him, there came back, strong and
clear and life-giving, his hate of the man who had doomed him to such
agonies. Often in his prison above had he prayed that the day might be
his when he would meet the Comte de Châteauneuf face to face and
reckon with him for these years. His brightest dreams were those
wherein he fancied that his enemy lay dead at his feet, and that he,
Jacques de Serrefort, had the dripping sword of victory in his hand.
But these dreams were sent for his punishment, since how could he, a
helpless prisoner, revenge himself upon a man who commanded in Paris
an influence no less powerful than in Brittany. He knew that it could
not be; yet hoped the more, and in his hope found the will to live.
It had been very early in the morning when they carried him to the
Bombec Tower and old Baptiste had brought a manchet of bread and a
flask of wine to the dungeon, so that Serrefort could not hope to see
his jailor again before night fell. For the matter of that, he had
nothing to tell him the hour; and he lay, it seemed for days, quite
still in his cell, while the rats ran over his arms, and ever and anon
some living thing would touch his face and fill him with loathing
inexpressible. The patter of these animals was for a long time the
only sign of life down there below the river’s flood; but anon he
heard a gentle lapping of water, and knew that the tide was rising. It
was good at the first to think of Mother Seine, which ran without like
some friend of the world he had forgotten, and he took pleasure in
calling to mind its aspect when last he had seen it. That was when
they carried him over the Pont Neuf to prison. The river had been
alive with boats then; with boats and barges, and gallant going down
to Passy, and merry jesters making merry music, and all the life and
brightness of the great city. To-day, he said grimly, all that world
passed within a stone’s throw of him; yet his eyes were blinded to the
sights; his ears deaf to the music; he would never see that river
again; the world would pass for ever by and no cry of his go out, no
hand of pity be offered to him. And while this thought was in his
mind, the lap of the waves grew stronger; the sound of water began to
fill the whole cell. He realised quite suddenly, yet with a new, an
immeasurable dread, that the river would rise above the level of his
cell. When at last a cold stream of water touched his feet, he cried
out anew, thinking that they meant to drown him and had brought him to
the Bombec Tower with that intent.
The water rose slowly, lapping about the feet and knees and hands of
the prisoner. But he had imagined a fate which was not in the minds of
those who had sent him to the dungeon. Twice every day the Seine
washed the floor of this cell, bringing up great rats in its flood and
leaving the oozing slime and filth of its waters upon the straw which
made the prisoner’s bed. Just when Jacques de Serrefort was telling
himself that the water would cover his mouth presently, its flow
ceased, and taught him the devilish malignity of his captors. Wet and
cold and shivering, the wretched man stood for long hours while the
stream ebbed. Then he sank again upon his reeking bed to ask how he
should support another day of torture so revolting and cruel. He could
not forget that there had been prisoners who had spent long years in
this very cell, who had become raving madmen and yet had lived on;
sport for their jailors, but not food for death. Serrefort swore that
no such fate should be his; he would find another way; he would cast
himself upon the mercy of heaven and end the terror before reason
robbed him of the power.
Until this time, and he judged that it must now be night, no sign had
been given that those above remembered his existence. Though he
listened long and called out with all his strength, he heard no
answering voice, no tread in the passage without. The massive walls
shut down his cries and entombed them. A fearful roof of earth seemed
to weigh upon his prison and heat it with hot and choking air.
Serrefort declared that he realised for the first time what anguish
must be the lot of those who wake in a tomb. He would have welcomed
death as a gift of mercy; but for the time being he had neither the
strength nor the will to compel death. Rather he turned to think of
old Baptiste’s promise that he would come again; of his assurance that
his daughter Irène would return to Paris to bring him the comforts of
the cells above. But the hours wore on and no one came, and hope
ebbed, and the fever of the cell racked his bones. He had been known
ever as one who had a clear mind, quick, active, far-seeing; but the
darkness of the dungeon in the Bombec already warred upon his brain. A
drowsiness crept upon him, nature’s medicine against his terror; he
could not sleep, yet became almost insensible to the horrors of the
cell; he forgot where he was; visions of his home and wife came back
to him, so that when his cell door was opened presently and the flare
of a torch lit up its inmost recesses, those who visited him found
tears running down his cheeks and a word of love upon his lips.
Serrefort had thought when he heard the key grate in the lock that it
was old Baptiste come back as he had promised; but as soon as his eyes
were awake to the light, he looked up to see the bailiff Hubert, the
governor of the prison, and with him a tall grey-haired man, whose
fine dress and white ruffles were strange things to find in the
Conciergerie. The same soldiers who had conducted the prisoner to the
cell in the morning now accompanied the governor and ranged themselves
on either side of the prisoner, bidding him rise and salute the
bailiff. Serrefort did so mechanically, shutting his eyes that he
might not behold the dreadful sights which the torches disclosed. All
his old spirit was broken now; he held his head erect no more--one day
in the Bombec had made him an old man.
“Sirs,” said he, with a sob in his voice, “I beg of your pity carry me
from this place--you see how I suffer--oh, God knows what my
sufferings have been.”
He stood before them sobbing like a child, fearful that they would
leave him to the silence of the pit again, to the flowing waters and
the maddening darkness. At any other time, his distress would have
been a fine subject for merriment to the bailiff Hubert; but the man
was dumb in the presence of a stranger, who did not conceal his
sympathy nor hesitate to utter it.
“Monsieur,” said this stranger, presently, “you are Jacques de
Serrefort, I believe, sent to this place now fifteen years ago for
threatening to kill Monsieur le Comte de Châteauneuf--is that so?”
Serrefort raised his head quickly at the mention of his crime. His
shoulders were squared again; he stood before them erect and fearless,
as he had stood before his officers in the old days.
“Monsieur,” he said, “it is quite true that I am the Jacques de
Serrefort you name. Yet whether it were a crime or no which sent me to
this place I leave my God to judge.”
“Impudent fellow,” cried the bailiff, “I will have you branded upon
the face with an iron.”
The stranger, who did not appear to love the bailiff, hushed him with
a gesture of his hand.
“Please to hold your tongue, monsieur,” cried he, with the air of one
accustomed to command; “I am here to interrogate the prisoner, not to
listen to your angers.”
The bailiff bit his lip and scowled at Serrefort. It was with
difficulty that he turned a smiling face to the stranger at last, and
said as pleasantly as possible:--
“Your pardon, Monsieur le Comte. Yet have a care, I beg of you, how
you deal with this fellow, for he is very dangerous.”
“I will be the judge of that myself,” said the man addressed as count;
and then turning to Serrefort, he continued:--
“Hark you, my friend, you are not to deceive yourself with any hope
that I am come here to serve you. If I carry you away from the
Conciergerie to-night, it will be that I may send you back when a few
hours are passed to do as the bailiff shall bid you. But first you
must give me your word as a man of honour--for such I know you to be,
monsieur--that you will obey me faithfully and return here when
midnight is struck. Are we agreed upon that, Monsieur de Serrefort?”
Serrefort rubbed his eyes; the men, the light, the voices were unreal
to him. He heard the injunction and yet could not gather the words
together.
“Monsieur,” cried he at last, “if you should take me out of this
place, be it only for an hour, I will thank you from my heart. You
know not what a place it is--oh, there is no crime which merits such a
punishment as this, monsieur.”
The count surveyed him with pity in his glance.
“Very well, Monsieur de Serrefort,” cried he, after a moment; “we are
agreed upon the bargain then. You are to have your liberty until
twelve o’clock in return for some information you shall give me
presently. But it is understood that you return here at midnight, and
that you will not seek to escape those who accompany you. I have your
word, monsieur?”
“A hundred times,” replied Serrefort, to whom the thought of an hour’s
liberty was dear beyond price.
The count turned swiftly to the bailiff Hubert.
“Let your prisoner be taken to my carriage at once,” said he; “what
else is to be done you have learnt already. Is it not so?”
The bailiff stammered an answer.
“Monsieur le Comte,” exclaimed he, “this is a serious matter--I have
no authority from the king--and--as monsieur knows--”
“Silence!” cried the count. “Should any ask you upon what authority,
answer them upon the authority of the Count de Saint Florentin and of
this ring.”
He held up a gold signet ring--the ring of Louis, the well-beloved
king of France. That was a talisman powerful even to conquer the
bailiff, who drew back with a little cry when the count spoke, and now
made haste to offer his apologies.
“Sir,” cried he, “had I known that you came upon the king’s business,
it would have been different. Hold me not to blame in that I remember
my duty and the security of those intrusted--”
“Oh, monsieur,” said the count, whose impatience now amounted almost
to anger, “if you would remember that I wait, I would even forget all
your stupidities. Lead the way, sir, and let us hear less of your
pestilent tongue.”
The bailiff, astounded at the rebuke and snarling with temper,
commanded the guards to lead out the prisoner. Serrefort, who said
still that this must be a vision of his sleep, followed the soldiers
with trembling steps. Never in all his life had he known so sweet a
moment as that which carried him from the foul depths of the Bombec
Tower to the world above and the gentle breezes of the night. Had it
not been ever in his mind that he must return to that abode of
suffering when a few hours had passed, he would have said that heaven
had been too good to him and that he was not worthy of such happiness.
But the shadow of the dungeon lay upon him like the shadow of the
living death. He thought still to hear the dreadful lapping of the
water; still to feel the touch of the creeping things; still to be
entombed in the very bowels of the earth, with all the weight of that
mighty stone crushing him down. Nothing could free him from the
loathing and the fear. He saw all things about him, the figures of the
men, the torches and lanterns of the guards, the open square before
the Halls of Justice, of which his prison was a part, and he said that
they were phantoms of his burning brain. Nor was it different when the
Count of Saint Florentin bade him enter a coach drawn up at the gates,
and they drove him quickly across the Pont Neuf and to the heart of
the city which he had not seen for fifteen long years. He was like a
man walking in his sleep. The hum of Paris, awake to the pleasures of
the night, the merry cries from the boatmen upon the river, the crowds
in the streets, the flickering lamps, the great buildings--here was
the world for which he had longed; but it meant nothing to him. “At
midnight,” he said always,--“at midnight they will carry me to the
Bombec again--oh, God have mercy upon me!”
The Count of Saint Florentin, meanwhile, sat back in his carriage and
surveyed the prisoner with curious eyes. He was asking himself a
remarkable question, and was busy in speculation as to the answer. And
his question was this--would Jacques de Serrefort return to his cell a
miserable or a contented man? “The king,” said he to himself, “has
wagered pretty Corinne de Montesson a thousand gold pieces and the
man’s liberty that she will not send him back to the Conciergerie
willingly. She is to have him in her house until the clock strikes
twelve. If then he confesses himself content to go back to his cell,
Corinne wins the wager. Oh, it is a pretty question--yet, I make sure,
she has lost it already. For who ever saw a fellow so gloomy? Saint
Denis, the man is at death’s door now.”
The count, who was then one of the most powerful men in Paris, did not
usually concern himself much about the sufferings of rogues in the
Conciergerie; but something in the face of Jacques de Serrefort
appealed to his pity; and beyond that, he was, like all the world, in
love with Corinne de Montesson, who owned the great Hôtel
Beautreillis. He began to hope that she would win her wager; though,
for the life of him, he had no idea as to the way she would set about
it. He, at any rate, had performed his part faithfully; and when,
anon, the coach drew up before the gates of Corinne’s house, he had
become as much interested in the strange experiment as though his own
money had been ventured upon it.
The gates of the Hôtel Beautreillis were open when the coach rolled
up. Many lights shone from the windows of the great house, and it was
plain that Serrefort had been expected. No sooner did the coachman
rein in the horses than lacqueys came running from the house to greet
the count and to help the prisoner. Serrefort, accustomed to the gloom
and silence of the prison, was half blinded by the brilliancy of all
he saw; deafened by the clamour and the cries of the many servants.
Indeed, he stood for a spell gazing about him wildly, pitifully; and
would have remained so had it not been for a lacquey who touched him
upon the arm and bade him follow. And so he passed the open courtyard
to a pavilion of the house just as a clock in one of the turrets
chimed the hour of nine. The bell reminded him that he had three hours
of liberty before him; three hours when he might live in the world and
hear men’s voices and forget the cell--if that were possible. But the
promise only added to his gloom. “They torture me with a little
liberty,” he said, “to make my punishment more cruel.” Nor could he
imagine what strange mystery had brought him to the house. All the
events of that wonderful night had put a spell upon his mind. He was
like a child, obeying his master in awe and wonder.
But they had conducted him to a room in the house by this time; a
cabinet with painted frieze and thick carpets, and gilded chairs and
many tapers shedding a soft light. He opened his eyes when he saw the
richness of the apartment, and was the more surprised when two or
three servants came up and began to busy themselves with his ragged
clothes.
“Monsieur,” said one of the fellows, bowing with great deference,
“will you be pleased to dress now? Mademoiselle waits and will sup
directly.”
“To dress?” cried Serrefort, wonderingly. “Where am I, then, and whose
house is this that I should be carried here?”
“Oh, sir,” said the man, surprised that such a question should be put,
“you are in the house of Mademoiselle Corinne de Montesson, and be
sure that she wishes well to you. Indeed, you are lucky to have found
such a friend, monsieur.”
“A friend to me,” gasped Serrefort; “how then is that--you jest, sir.”
The lacquey did not heed the question. Rather, he made haste to take
Serrefort’s coat from him and to bring him water for his hands. When
this was done, he spread out a uniform upon the couch and invited his
mistress’s guest to put it on.
“Monsieur,” said he, “my mistress thinks that you would wish to appear
here to-night in the uniform of your old regiment. It is all laid out
there, and I beg you to hasten, for they will sup before the clock
strikes.”
He indicated the articles one by one as he spoke, the coat of bright
blue with the gold facings, the brass helmet, the high boots, the
cunningly wrought sword. Serrefort gave a little cry of delight and
hesitated no longer. His weary brain, thinking ever of the Bombec,
forgot its task for a moment, and carried him back swiftly to the
years when there had been no finer horseman, no more dashing trooper
in all France, than Jacques de Serrefort. They said afterwards that
his hands trembled, that there were tears in his eyes when he stood
before the long glass and buckled the sword to his belt. It was
pitiful to see his snowy white hair straggling beneath the rim of the
great brass helmet, to watch the effort it cost him to square his
shoulders and walk as he had walked in the years long ago. But courage
came with the memories, and erect, proud, almost defiant, he turned to
those who served him and declared that he was ready.
“Tell your mistress,” said he, “that Jacques de Serrefort awaits her
commands.”
The lacquey bowed and bade him, for the second time, to follow. Had it
been any other who had thrown off the veteran to ape the young man,
the fellow would have laughed aloud; but there was a light in
Serrefort’s eyes, a boldness in his carriage, before which many a man
would have quailed. The lacquey said to himself that here was a true
soldier, and there was a certain pride in his voice when he threw open
the doors of a vast salon and announced--
“Monsieur Jacques de Serrefort.”
The great room was magnificently lighted, hundreds of tapers burning
brightly in chandeliers and candelabra of Venetian work. Though the
floor of it was of wood, none the less were the boards polished and
waxed until they shone like glass; while the walls were hid by
paintings of colossal size and all the ceiling was a blaze of mosaic.
So vast was the place that Serrefort remained at the door silent in
awe and wonder; but when he had stood an instant he heard a sweet
young voice greeting him, and looking up, he beheld Mademoiselle
Corinne herself. She was standing by a great armchair, set up like a
throne at the other end of the chamber, a pretty figure superbly
dressed, and surrounded by fifteen men and women, whose fine clothes
and graceful manners were in keeping with the magnificence of the
apartment.
“Monsieur,” she said, holding out both hands, “I welcome you with all
my heart to this house. These are my friends,--the Duc de Richelieu,
the Duc de Cosse-Brissac, the Comte de Vaudreuil, the Duchesse de
Lauzan, the Comtesse d’Egmont--oh, make haste to know them all, for
they will be your friends presently.”
Serrefort was stupefied. He stood motionless, staring at the gorgeous
dresses, the gold, the silver, the diamonds, of the company. Though
his liberty had been offered him for a word of thanks, he could not
have uttered it. Minutes, indeed, passed before emotion conquered him,
and he turned away with a sob in his voice.
“Oh,” cried he, “it is a dream--a dream! I shall awake presently to
the darkness and the silence--God help me.”
That was a cry wrought of long years of misery, and it stilled the
company to a hush of deep sympathy. As for the mistress of the house,
there were tears in her eyes when she advanced swiftly to the old
soldier’s side and took his hand in hers.
“Monsieur,” she said in a low voice, “have courage, I beg of you. I am
your friend; you will trust me. Were you not one of Condé’s legion?
Remember that and forget all else.”
She raised her pretty blue eyes to his in encouragement, and spoke so
tenderly that a memory of his daughter’s voice came back to him. But
chiefly he thought of this--that he had been one of Condé’s legion,
and that he wore the beloved uniform again now at the eventide of his
life.
“Mademoiselle,” said he, proudly, “I will remember naught but your
kindness--do with me what you will.”
His voice was strong now, and he faced the company unflinchingly.
They, in turn, anxious only that he should forget, began to speak of
trivial things; and one of them--a fine fellow who was addressed as
Bénoît--came to Serrefort’s side and talked to him of the old days
in Germany, of the wars which had been his glory, and the triumphs he
had won. And so well did the young man contrive things that when
supper was ready and the company passed into a neighbouring cabinet, a
pretty little room fit for the king, the prisoner had forgotten the
Bombec, even the Conciergerie, and all that he had suffered there.
There were sixteen guests at the table, Serrefort being placed at the
right hand of the hostess, while the old Duc de Richelieu sat opposite
to him, and Bénoît upon his left hand. It was a long meal
exquisitely served, and offering those rare and dainty dishes in which
the cooks of the eighteenth century excelled. Two soups, a bisque of
pigeon and cock’s combs, a side soup of hashed capon, a quarter of
veal, a partridge pie, a grilled turkey, salads, creams, rissoles
beignets--the dishes were multiplied in an abundancy which was to be
found nowhere at that time but in the houses of the French nobles.
Serrefort discovered first that he had little relish for the
delicacies; his palate had been hardened for years of coarse food and
sour wine; but when he had drunk some champagne from a foaming goblet
and had tasted a dish of capon, his old love for good things came back
to him, and he set to work to sup as heartily as the others. As for
his pretty hostess, she babbled away incessantly, telling him all the
news of Paris; all the jests, the humours, the intrigues, just as
though he were a freeman like the rest of them, and not a prisoner
enjoying a terrible furlough. For the matter of that, he began himself
to forget his condition; he ceased to ask after a while, “Why am I
brought here?” He said that some trick of sleep cheated him--but the
sleep was very sweet, and he would enjoy it. Nor would he let himself
willingly remember that when twelve o’clock struck he must set off to
his prison again. The oasis in his life was too dear; heaven had taken
pity upon him, he thought, and here was the answer to his prayer.
In this spirit, he began to talk presently, adding to the anecdotes
and the jests. He spoke of his old deeds with the army; of the duels
he had fought and the intrigues he had known. When at last supper was
done, and the guests went out to enjoy the night air in the beautiful
gardens, he accompanied young Bénoît readily, and found himself
almost in a merry mood. For the garden was fresh and sweet at that
hour; it was good to tread the soft grass; to walk upon the white
moonlit paths; to smell the strong odours of the plants. No memory of
a prison came to mar that hour. He was old Jacques de Serrefort again,
the pride of his regiment.
This forgetfulness endured, it might have been, for the half of an
hour. Young Bénoît had brought him by this time to a little grove
where an arbour stood, and old trees rich in leaf; a flowery dell hid
away from the world like a pool in a forest. Here they walked awhile,
earnest in merry talk; but of a sudden Serrefort stood quite still,
his face paled, his hand trembled. A clock in a church near by was
striking the hour. The wretched man counted the bells as one doomed to
death may count them upon the morning of his execution.
“Eleven o’clock,” he exclaimed at last in a hoarse voice; “you heard
it strike, monsieur?”
“Certainly,” answered the young man; “it is eleven o’clock, as you
say, Monsieur de Serrefort. An hour yet to midnight--when we lose you,
I fear. I am sure that you will remember us all the same--as we shall
remember you in our affection.”
Serrefort did not hear him. His face was set, his shoulders stooped
again. “_Mon Dieu!_” he cried, “I cannot go back--I cannot.”
Bénoît, whose heart was cut by his piteous cry, pretended not to
hear it; but turning quickly to the old soldier he said:--
“Monsieur, when our friend, the Comte de Saint Florentin, brought you
here to-night, he told you that my mistress counted upon you for
certain information. I am sure you will serve her so far as may be
possible. As the time presses, let us talk of it without delay.”
Serrefort answered with an inclination of the head. His thoughts were
set upon the dungeon below the river. The garden, the house, the fine
people--he had forgotten them all again in his overwhelming dread of
the cell. Bénoît observed his abstraction, but continued
nevertheless:--
“Since you are willing, Monsieur de Serrefort, will you permit me to
present to you one whose acquaintance you made in Brittany many years
ago, a man who desires exceedingly to speak with you, and who is
coming here to-night for that purpose?”
Serrefort bowed again.
“Sir,” said he, “your mistress’s wish is my wish. I knew many in the
old days at Brittany, many whom I would well speak of, though, heaven
knows, I shall never see them again.”
“I understand that, Monsieur de Serrefort,” cried Bénoît, “but the
man in whom we are interested should even now be in this garden. I
will go and seek him if you are content to rest here awhile.”
Serrefort assented indifferently. He heard the other’s words with
difficulty; followed his argument at a hazard; had no mind to reason
the proposition. The cool night air, the gentle rustling trees, the
seclusion of the garden, brought back to his memory the years when he
had known the peace of a haven like this in his own fair home at
Brittany. He remembered that the sin of one man had driven him forth
from that home to endure the living death of the prison. Never had his
hate of the Comte de Châteauneuf, the man who had sent him to the
Conciergerie, waxed so strong as it did in that instant. There was a
fever in his blood at the thought of the name. “_Ciel!_” he murmured,
“if I might meet him face to face before I die.”
It was an angry exclamation; his hand was hot upon the hilt of his
sword, while the impulse of vengeance maddened him. He uttered the
name of Monsieur de Châteauneuf again and again, as he paced the path
with unresting steps. When he stopped at last, a great cry frothed
upon his lips, the strength of ten men filled his veins; he knew that
his prayer had been answered. For Monsieur de Châteauneuf stood
before him in the grove--and the two were face to face at the hour of
reckoning.
The count stood before him,--a man in the prime of life, dressed as
the fashion of the hour dictated, in a suit of violet silk slashed
with gold, and embroidered with precious stones. A sword whose hilt
sparkled with diamonds hung at his side; there were diamond buckles
upon his shoes; diamond pins glittering in his snow-white ruffles. But
the easy placid smile which usually characterised his handsome face
lighted it no longer. He stood before Serrefort with terror shining in
his eyes, with quaking knees and beating heart. Ten minutes before
that supreme moment, he had entered the Hôtel Beautreillis, thinking
that little Corinne had some favour to grant him. They had conducted
him to the garden upon that excuse, and young Bénoît had met him and
brought him to the grove. But Bénoît was at his side no longer.
Mysteriously, silently, he and the other guests had withdrawn from the
garden. The two men, he who had sinned and he who had suffered, stood
face to face in the deserted glade, and both of them knew that this
was an hour momentous beyond any they had lived.
The count was the first to speak. He had suppressed a cry at the
moment when first his eyes encountered those of his victim; but now,
after it was plain to him that Serrefort was mad and exultant at the
meeting, he turned round, thinking his guide was still at his heels.
“Monsieur, what liberty is this?”
But no one answered him. Bénoît had vanished. It seemed to the count
that the silence of death was in the place. He had the impulse to flee
the garden; a stupefying fear paralysed his limbs, choked his voice;
the sweat of death seemed already to gather upon his forehead. Since
the day when a word of his had sent Jacques de Serrefort to the
Conciergerie he had forgotten the very fact that his victim lived.
Now, however, it were as though a dead man had come out of his grave
to demand reckoning. As for Serrefort, the ferocity of a wild beast
was upon him. Anger, joy, lust for vengeance, gave incoherency to his
words. The sword with which Corinne de Montesson had armed him flashed
already at the count’s throat. Age, debility, long years of suffering,
were powerless to mar that strength of hate and of victory. Never, in
his day of youth and skill, did the trooper of Condé’s legion stand
up with such confidence. The ring of triumph was already in his voice;
his hand was the hand of a man who knows no mercy.
“Monsieur le Comte de Châteauneuf,” he cried, with terrible
deliberation, “God surely has sent you here that I may kill you. Draw,
monsieur, for your hour has come.”
The count reeled back, crying with all his voice for help. The cry
moved his antagonist to a peal of mocking laughter.
“Ha,” cried he, “you would run like a lacquey, Monsieur le Comte; you
who have boasted of your skill in every salon of Paris--shame on you!
Must I call for a whip to beat you like a dog?--draw, I beg of you,
for my patience is worn. Oh, monsieur, I have waited fifteen long
years for this hour. I swear that all Paris shall not save you now.”
He pressed upon the doomed man with a new ferocity, adding light blows
of his sword to the stinging taunts of invitation. Châteauneuf, who
saw that he had fallen into a trap, hesitated no longer, but drew his
sword and sprang to the engagement. And at this, Serrefort cried out
again, and then, clenching his teeth, began to fight with the cunning
and the resolution of a _maître d’armes_. The night, the garden, the
mystery, the prison--all were gone from his thoughts. He saw but one
object, the pale face of the man who had sent him fifteen years ago
from the happiness of his home to the grave of the Conciergerie. Hate
gave him a skill which had never been his, even in the best hour of
the old time. And to the strength of hate was added the terror and the
confusion and the conscience of Monsieur de Châteauneuf. The count,
indeed, had death at his heart from the first. He fought with
trembling hand, with quaking limbs. There was ever dinning in his ears
the cry--“This is the justice of God.” He knew that he was to die,
there in the silence of the garden; knew that the sun would never
shine for him again.
Twice round the grove the men fought, Serrefort playing with the other
like a beast with its prey. Though the ring of swords made strange
music of the night, though the sharp cries and the fierce stamping of
the two were to be heard even in the street without, the men remained
alone. No witness of the deed was to be found in all the great house;
the silence of desolation was upon it; little Corinne and her guests
had vanished in the darkness. When, at last, the count raised his
voice again to call out that he was the victim of an assassin,
Serrefort answered with a yell of derision.
“Monsieur le Comte,” said he, “ask help of heaven and not of men, for
that shall be your last cry. Ha, you have a cunning hand, monsieur,
but it cannot stand the burden of your sin. Shall I tell them that I
fought with a lacquey? Never let it be said.”
Goaded to madness at the taunt, the Count of Châteauneuf permitted
his anger to master him. He disengaged with the skill and quickness of
an old swordsman, and made to lunge in _quarte_; but his foot failed
him in the heat of the feint, and before he could regain his position
the sword of Serrefort was running through his heart.
“Assassin!” he gasped; but the word was choked upon his lips. For an
instant, he stood quite still, with the sword cutting his flesh; then,
turning sharply upon his heel, he fell headlong, and lay face
downwards upon the grass.
But Serrefort, withdrawing his sword and running wildly into the
lighter place of the garden, stood with the moonlight falling upon his
face and tears glistening in his eyes. It seemed to him that some
mighty miracle was wrought in that hour, for of a sudden men and
women, and lacqueys with lanterns, came running out of the house, and
that which had been a scene of desolation was now a glittering picture
of life.