_The three men in the window_
I tore the cloth from my head and sprang up. I was in pitch-darkness. I
dashed against the door to no avail. Feeling the walls, I discovered
myself to be in a small, empty closet. With all my force I flung myself
once more upon the door. It stood firm.
"Dame! but I have got into a pickle," I thought.
They were no ghosts, at all events. Scared as I was, I rejoiced at that.
I could cope with men, but who can cope with the devil? These might be
villains--doubtless were, skulking in this deserted house,--yet with
readiness and pluck I could escape them.
It was as hot as a furnace in my prison, and as still as the grave. The
men, who seemed by their footsteps to be several, had gone cautiously
down the stairs after caging me. Evidently I had given them a fine
fright, clattering through the house as I had, and even now they were
looking for my accomplices.
It seemed hours before the faintest sound broke the stillness. If ever
you want to squeeze away a man's cheerfulness like water from a rag,
shut him up alone in the dark and silence. He will thank you to take him
out into the daylight and hang him. In token whereof, my heart welcomed
like brothers the men returning.
They came into the room, and I thought they were three in number. I
heard the door shut, and then steps approached my closet.
"Have a care now, monsieur; he may be armed," spoke the rough voice of a
man without breeding.
"Doubtless he carries a culverin up his sleeve," sneered the deep tones
of my captor.
Some one else laughed, and rejoined, in a clear, quick voice:
"Natheless, he may have a knife. I will open the door, and do you look
out for him, Gervais."
I had a knife and had it in my hand, ready to charge for freedom. But
the door opened slowly, and Gervais looked out for me--to the effect
that my knife went one way and I another before I could wink. I reeled
against the wall and stayed there, cursing myself for a fool that I had
not trusted to fair words instead of to my dagger.
"Well done, my brave Gervais!" cried he of the vivid voice--a tall
fair-haired youth, whom I had seen before. So had I seen the stalwart
blackbeard, Gervais. The third man was older, a common-looking fellow
whose face was new to me. All three were in their shirts on account of
the heat; all were plain, even shabby, in their dress. But the two young
men wore swords at their sides.
The half-opened shutters, overhanging the court, let plenty of light
into the room. It had two straw beds on the floor and a few old chairs
and stools, and a table covered with dishes and broken food and
wine-bottles. More bottles, riding-boots, whips and spurs, two or three
hats and saddle-bags, and various odds and ends of dress littered the
floor and the chairs. Everything was of mean quality except the bearing
of the two young men. A gentleman is a gentleman even in the Rue
Coupejarrets--all the more, maybe, in the Rue Coupejarrets. These two
were gently born.
The low man, with scared face, held off from me. He whose name was
Gervais confronted me with an angry scowl. Yeux-gris alone--for so I
dubbed the third, from his gray eyes, well open under dark
brows--Yeux-gris looked no whit alarmed or angered; the only emotion to
be read in his face was a gay interest as the blackavised Gervais put me
questions.
"How came you here? What are you about?"
"No harm, messieurs," I made haste to protest, ruing my stupidity with
that dagger. "I climbed in at a window for sport. I thought the house
was deserted."
He clutched my shoulder till I could have screamed for pain.
"The truth, now. If you value your life you will tell the truth."
"Monsieur, it is the truth. I came in idle mischief; that was the whole
of it. I had no notion of breaking in upon you or any one. They said the
house was haunted."
"Who said that?"
"Maître Jacques, at the Amour de Dieu."
He stared at me in surprise.
"What had you been asking about this house?"
Yeux-gris, lounging against the table, struck in:
"I can tell you that myself. He told Jacques he saw us in the window
last night. Did you not?"
"Aye, monsieur. The thunder woke me, and when I looked out I saw you
plain as day. But Maître Jacques said it was a vision."
"I flattered myself I saw you first and got that shutter closed very
neatly," said Yeux-gris. "Dame! I am not so clever as I thought. So old
Jacques called us ghosts, did he?"
"Yes, monsieur. He told me this house belonged to M. de Béthune, who was
a Huguenot and killed in the massacre."
Yeux-gris burst into joyous laughter.
"He said my house belonged to the Béthunes! Well played, Jacques! You
owe that gallant lie to me, Gervais, and the pains I took to make him
think us Navarre's men. He is heart and soul for Henri Quatre. Did he
say, perchance, that in this very courtyard Coligny fell?"
"No," said I, seeing that I had been fooled and had had all my terrors
for naught, and feeling much chagrined thereat. "How was I to know it
was a lie? I know naught about Paris. I came up but yesterday from St.
Quentin."
"St. Quentin!" came a cry from the henchman. With a fierce "Be quiet,
fool!" Gervais turned to me and demanded my name.
"Félix Broux."
"Who sent you here?"
"Monsieur, no one."
"You lie."
Again he gripped me by the shoulder, gripped till the tears stood in my
eyes.
"No one, monsieur; I swear it."
"You will not speak! I'll make you, by Heaven."
He seized my thumb and wrist to bend one back on the other, torture with
strength such as his. Yeux-gris sprang off the table.
"Let alone, Gervais! The boy's honest."
"He is a spy."
"He is a fool of a country boy. A spy in hobnailed shoes, forsooth! No
spy ever behaved as he has. I said when you first seized him he was no
spy. I say it again, now I have heard his story. He saw us by chance,
and Maître Jacques's bogy story spurred him on instead of keeping him
off. You are a fool, my cousin."
"Pardieu! it is you who are the fool," growled Gervais. "You will bring
us to the rope with your cursed easy ways. If he is a spy it means the
whole crew are down upon us."
"What of that?"
"Pardieu! is it nothing?"
Yeux-gris returned with a touch of haughtiness:
"It is nothing. A gentleman may live in his own house."
Gervais looked as if he remembered something. He said much less
boisterously:
"And do you want Monsieur here?"
Yeux-gris flushed red.
"No," he cried. "But you may be easy. He will not trouble himself to
come."
Gervais regarded him silently an instant, as if he thought of several
things he did not say. What he did say was: "You are a pair of fools,
you and the boy. Whatever he came for, he has spied on us now. He shall
not live to carry the tale of us."
"Then you have me to kill as well!"
Gervais turned on him snarling. Yeux-gris laid a hand on his sword-hilt.
"I will not have an innocent lad hurt. I was not bred a ruffian," he
cried hotly. They glared at each other. Then Yeux-gris, with a sudden
exclamation, "Ah, bah, Gervais!" broke into laughter.
Now, this merriment was a heart-warming thing to hear. For Gervais was
taking the situation with a seriousness that was as terrifying as it was
stupid. When I looked into his dogged eyes I could not but think the end
of me might be near. But Yeux-gris's laugh said the very notion was
ridiculous; I was innocent of all harmful intent, and they were
gentlemen, not cutthroats.
"Messieurs," I said, "I swear by the blessed saints I am what I told
you. I am no spy, and no one sent me here. Who you are, or what you do,
I know no more than a babe unborn. I belong to no party and am no man's
man. As for why you choose to live in this empty house, it is not my
concern and I care no whit about it. Let me go, messieurs, and I will
swear to keep silence about what I have seen."
"I am for letting him go," said Yeux-gris.
Gervais looked doubtful, the most encouraging attitude toward me he had
yet assumed. He answered:
"If he had not said the name--"
"Stuff!" interrupted Yeux-gris. "It is a coincidence, no more. If he
were what you think, it is the very last name he would have said."
This was Greek to me; I had mentioned no names but Maître Jacques's and
my own. And he was their friend.
"Messieurs," I said, "if it is my name that does not please you, why, I
can say for it that if it is not very high-sounding, at least it is an
honest one and has ever been held so down where we live."
"And that is at St. Quentin," said Yeux-gris.
"Yes, monsieur. My father, Anton Broux, is Master of the Forest to the
Duke of St. Quentin."
He started, and Gervais cried out:
"Voilà! who is the fool now?"
My nerves, which had grown tranquil since Yeux-gris came to my rescue,
quivered anew. The common man started at the very word St. Quentin, and
the masters started when I named the duke. Was it he whom they had
spoken of as Monsieur? Who and what were they? There was more in this
than I had thought at first. It was no longer a mere question of my
liberty. I was all eyes and ears for whatever information I could
gather.
Yeux-gris spoke to me, for the first time gravely:
"This is not a time when folks take pleasure-trips to Paris. What
brought you?"
"I used to be Monsieur's page down at St. Quentin," I answered, deeming
the straight truth best. "When we learned that he was in Paris, my
father sent me up to him. I reached the city last night, and lay at the
Amour de Dieu. This morning I went to the duke's hôtel, but the guard
would not let me in. Then, when Monsieur drove out I tried to get speech
with him, but he would have none of me."
The bitterness I felt over my rebuff must have been in my voice and
face, for Gervais spoke abruptly:
"And do you hate him for that?"
"Nay," said I, churlishly enough. "It is his to do as he chooses. But I
hate the Comte de Mar for striking me a foul blow."
"The Comte de Mar!" exclaimed Yeux-gris.
"His son."
"He has no son."
"But he has, monsieur. The Comte de--"
"He is dead," said Yeux-gris.
"Why, we knew naught--" I was beginning, when Gervais broke in:
"You say the fellow's honest, when he tells such tales as this! He saw
the Comte de Mar--!"
"I thought it must be he," I protested. "A young man who sat by
Monsieur's side, elegant and proud-looking, with an aquiline face--"
"That is Lucas, that is his secretary," declared Yeux-gris, as who
should say, "That is his scullion."
Gervais looked at him oddly a moment, then shrugged his shoulders and
demanded of me:
"What next?"
"I came away angry."
"And walked all the way here to risk your life in a haunted house?
Pardieu! too plain a lie."
"Oh, I would have done the like; we none of us fear ghosts in the
daytime," said Yeux-gris.
"You may believe him; I am no such fool. He has been caught in two lies;
first the Béthunes, then the Comte de Mar. He is a clumsy spy; they
might have found a better one. Not but what that touch about
ill-treatment at Monsieur's hand was well thought of. That was
Monsieur's suggestion, I warrant, for the boy has talked like a dolt
else."
"I am no liar," I cried hotly. "Ask Jacques whether he did not tell me
about the Béthunes. It is his lie, not mine. I did not know the Comte de
Mar was dead, and this Lucas of yours is handsome enough for a count. I
came here, as I told you, in curiosity concerning Maître Jacques's
story. I had no idea of seeing you or any living man. It is the truth,
monsieur."
"I believe you," Yeux-gris answered. "You have an honest face. You came
into my house uninvited. Well, I forgive it, and invite you to stay. You
shall be my valet."
"He shall be nobody's valet," Gervais cried.
The gray eyes flashed, but their owner rejoined lightly:
"You have a man; surely I should have one, too. And I understand the
services of M. Félix are not engaged."
"Mille tonnerres! you would take this spy--this sneak--"
"As I would take M. de Paris, if I chose," responded Yeux-gris, with a
cold hauteur that smacked more of a court than of this shabby room. He
added lightly again:
"You think him a spy, I do not. But in any case, he must not blab of us.
Therefore he stays here and brushes my clothes. Marry, they need it."
Easily, with grace, he had disposed of the matter. But I said:
"Monsieur, I shall do nothing of the kind."
"What!" he cried, as if the clothes-brush itself had risen in rebellion,
"what! you will not."
"No," said I.
"And why not?" he demanded, plainly thinking me demented.
"Because I know you are against the Duke of St. Quentin."
Whatever they had thought me, neither expected that speech.
"I am no spy or sneak," said I. "It is true I came here by chance; it is
true Monsieur turned me off this morning. But I was born on his land and
I am no traitor. I will not be valet or henchman for either of you, if I
die for it."
I was like to die for it. For Gervais whipped out his sword and sprang
for me. I thought I saw Yeux-gris's out, too, when Gervais struck me
over the head with his sword-hilt. The rest was darkness.
V
_Rapiers and a vow._
I came to my senses slowly, to hear loud, angry voices. As I opened my
eyes and stirred, the room reeled from me and all was blank again.
Awhile after, I grew aware of a clashing of steel. I lay wondering
thickly what it was and why it had to be going on while my head ached
so, till at length it dawned on my dull brain that swords were crossing.
I opened my eyes again, then.
They were fighting each other, Yeux-gris and Gervais. The latter was
almost trampling on me, Yeux-gris had pressed him so close to the wall.
Then he forced his way out, and they drove each other round in a circle
till the room seemed to spin once more.
I crawled out of the way and watched them, bewildered, absorbed. I had
more reason to thrill over the contest than the mere excellence of
it,--which was great,--since I was the cause of the duel, and my very
life, belike, hung on its issue.
They were both admirable swordsmen, yet it was clear from the first
where the palm lay. Anything nimbler, lighter, easier than the
sword-play of Yeux-gris I never hope to see in this imperfect world.
The heavier adversary was hot, angry, breathing hard. A smile hovered
over Yeux-gris's lips; already a red disk on Gervais's shirt showed
where his cousin's sword had been and would soon go again, and deeper. I
had forgotten my bruise in my interest and delight, when, of a sudden,
one whom we all had ignored took a hand in the game. Gervais's lackey
started forward and knocked up Yeux-gris's arm. His sword flew wide, and
Gervais slashed his arm from wrist to elbow.
With a smothered cry, Yeux-gris caught at his wound. Gervais, ablaze
with rage, sprang past him on his creature. The man gaped with
amazement; then, for there was no time for parley, leaped for the door.
It was locked. He turned, and with a look of deathly terror fell on his
knees, crouched up against the door-post. Gervais lunged. His blade
passed clean through the man's shoulders and pinned him to the door. His
head fell heavily forward.
"Have you killed him?" cried Yeux-gris.
"By my faith! I meant to," came the answer. Gervais was bending over the
man. With an abrupt laugh he called out: "Killed him, pardieu! He has
come off cheap."
He raised the fellow's limp head, and we saw that the sword had passed
just over his shoulder, piercing the linen, not the flesh. He had
swooned from sheer terror, being in truth not so much as scratched.
Gervais turned to his cousin.
"I never meant that foul trick. It was no thought of mine. I would have
turned the blade if I could. I will kill Pontou now, if you say the
word."
"Nay," answered the other, faintly; "help me."
The blood was pouring from his arm; he was half swooning. Gervais and I
ran to him and, between us, bathed the cut, bandaged it with strips torn
from a shirt, and made a sling of a scarf. The wound was long, but not
deep, and when we had poured some wine down his throat he was himself
again.
"You will not bear me malice for that poltroon's work, Étienne?" Gervais
asked, more humbly than I ever thought to hear him speak. "That was a
foul cut, but it was no fault of mine. I am no blackguard; I fight fair.
I will kill the knave, if you like."
"You are ungrateful, Gervais; he saved you when you needed saving,"
Yeux-gris laughed. "Faith! let him live. I forgive him. You will pay me
for my hurt by yielding me Félix."
Gervais looked at me. While we had worked side by side over Yeux-gris he
seemed to have forgotten that he was my enemy. But now all the old
suspicion and dislike came into his face again. However, he answered:
"Aye, you would have been the victor had it not been for Pontou. You
shall do what you like with your boy. I promise you that."
"Now that is well said, Gervais," returned Yeux-gris, rising, and
picking up his sword, which he sheathed. "That is very well said. For if
you did not feel like promising it, why, I should have to begin over
again with my left hand."
"Oh, I give you the boy," Gervais repeated rather sullenly, turning away
to pour himself some wine.
I could not but wonder at Yeux-gris, at his gaiety and his
steadfastness. He had hardly looked grave through the whole affair; he
had fought with a smile on his lips and had taken a cruel wound with a
laugh. Withal, he had been the constant champion of my innocence, even
to drawing his sword on his cousin for me. Now, with his bloody arm in
its sling, he was as debonair and careless as ever. I had been stupid
enough to imagine the big Gervais the leader of the two, and I found
myself mistaken. I dropped on my knee and kissed my saviour's hand in
all gratitude.
"Aha," said Yeux-gris, "what think you now of being my valet?"
Verily, I was hard pushed.
"Monsieur," I said, "I owe you much more than I can ever pay. If you
were any man's enemy but my duke's, I would serve you on my knees. But I
was born on the duke's land and I cannot be disloyal. You may kill me
yourself, if you like."
"No," he answered gravely, "that is not my métier."
Gervais laughed.
"Make me that offer, and I accept."
Yeux-gris turned to him with that little hauteur he assumed
occasionally.
"You are helpless, my cousin. You have passed your word."
"Aye. I leave him to you."
His sullen eyes told me it was no new-born tenderness for me that
prompted his surrender. Nor had I, truth to tell, any great faith in the
sacredness of his word. Yet I believed he would let me be. For it was
borne in upon me that, despite his passion and temper, he had no wish to
quarrel with Yeux-gris. Whether at bottom he loved him or in some way
dreaded him, I could not tell; but of this my fear-sharpened wits were
sure: he had no desire to press an open breach. He was honestly ashamed
of his henchman's low deed; yet even before that his judgment had
disliked the quarrel. Else why had he struck me with the hilt of the
sword?
"I leave him to you," he repeated. "Do as you choose. If you deem his
life a precious thing, cherish it. When did you learn a taste for
insolence, Étienne? Time was when you were touchy on that score."
"Time never was when I did not love courage."
"Oh, it is courage!" With a sneer he turned away.
"Gervais," said Yeux-gris, "have the kindness to unlock the door."
Gervais wheeled around, his face an angry question.
Yeux-gris answered it with cold politeness:
"That Félix Broux may pass out."
"By Heaven, he shall not!"
"You gave your word you would leave him to me. Did you lie?"
"I do leave him to you!" Gervais thundered. "I would slit his impudent
throat; but since you love him, you may have him to eat out of your
plate and sleep in your bosom. I will put up with it. But go out of
that door till the thing is done, sang dieu! he shall not!"
"If he goes straight to the duke, what then? He will say he found us
living in my house. What harm? We are no felons. Let him say it."
"And put Lucas on his guard?" returned Gervais. He was angry, yet he
spoke with evident attempt at restraint. "Put Lucas on the trail? He is
wary as a cat. Let him get wind of us here, and he will never let us
catch him."
"Well," said Yeux-gris, reluctantly, "it is true. And though I will not
have the boy harmed, he shall stay here. I will not put a spoke in the
wheel. We will take no risks till Lucas is shent. The boy shall be held
prisoner. And afterward--"
"I will come myself and let him out," said Gervais, and laughed.
I glanced at my protector, not liking to think of that moment, whenever
it might be, "afterward." He went up to Gervais.
"My cousin, are we friends or foes? For, faith! you treat me strangely
like a foe."
"We are friends."
"I am your friend, since it is in your cause that I am here. I have
stood at your shoulder like a brother--you cannot deny it."
"No," Gervais answered; "you stood my friend,--my one friend in that
house,--as I was yours. I stood at your shoulder in the Montluc
affair--you cannot deny that. I have been your ally, your servant, your
messenger to mademoiselle, your envoy to Mayenne. I have done all in my
power to win you your lady."
A shadow fell over Yeux-gris's open face.
"That task needs a greater power than yours, my Gervais."
He regarded Gervais with a rueful smile, his thoughts of a sudden as far
away from me as if I had never set foot in the Rue Coupejarrets. He
shook his head, sighing, and said, with a hand on Gervais's shoulder:
"It's beyond you, cousin."
Gervais brought him back to the point.
"Well, I've done what I could for you. But you don't help me when you
let loose a spy to warn Lucas."
"He shall not go. You know well, cousin, you will be no gladder than I
when that knave is dead. But I will not have Félix Broux suffer because
he dared speak for the Duke of St. Quentin."
"As you choose, then. I will not touch a hair of his head if you keep
him from Lucas."
Once more he turned away across the room. My bewilderment was so great
that the words came out of themselves:
"Messieurs, is it Lucas you mean to kill?"
Yeux-gris looked at me, not instantly replying. I cried again to him:
"Monsieur, is it Lucas or the duke?"
Then Yeux-gris, despite a gesture from Gervais, who would have told me
nothing I might ask, exclaimed:
"Why, Lucas!"
He said it in such honest surprise and with such a steady glance that
the heavy fear that had hung on me dropped from me like a dead-weight,
and suddenly I turned quite dizzy and fell into the nearest chair.
A dash of water in the face made me look up, to see Yeux-gris standing
wet-handed by me.
"Mon dieu!" he cried, "you were as white as the wall. Do you love so
much this Lucas who struck you?"
"No," I said, rising; "I thought you meant to kill the duke."
"Did you take us for Leaguers?"