"But in truth," Monsieur added, "I did not expect waylaying. If these
fellows watched by the gate, they hid cleverly. I never saw a finger-tip
of them till they sprang upon us by the corner here, when we were almost
home."
M. Étienne bent over and turned face up the man whom Monsieur had run
through the heart. He was an ugly enough fellow, one eye entirely closed
by a great scar that ran from his forehead nearly to his grizzled
mustache.
"This is Bernet le Borgne," he said. "Have you encountered him before,
Monsieur? He was a soldier under Guise once, they say, but he has done
naught but hang about Paris taverns this many a year. We used to wonder
how he lived; we knew he did somebody's dirty work. Clisson employed
him once, so I know something of him. With his one eye he could fence
better than most folks with two. My congratulations to you, Monsieur."
But Monsieur, not heeding, was bending over the other man.
"Your acquaintance is wider than mine. Do you know this one?"
M. Étienne shook his head over this other man, who lay face up, staring
with wide dark eyes into the sky. His hair curled in little rings about
his forehead, and his cheeks were smooth; he looked no older than I.
"He dashed at me the first of all," Monsieur said in a low voice. "I ran
him through before the others came up. Mordieu! I am glad it was dark. A
boy like that!"
"He had good mettle to run up first," M. Étienne said. "And it is no
disgrace to fall to your sword, Monsieur. Come, let us go."
But Monsieur looked back again at the dead lad, and then at his son and
at me, and came with us heavy of countenance.
On the stones before us lay a trail of blood-drops.
"Now, that is where Huguet ran with his wounded arm," I said to M.
Étienne.
"Aye, and if we did not know the way home we could find it by this red
track."
But the trail did not reach the door; for when we turned into the little
street where the arch is, where I had waited for Martin, as we turned
the familiar corner under the walls of the house itself, we came
suddenly on the body of a man. Monsieur ran forward with a cry, for it
was the squire Huguet.
He wore a leather jerkin lined with steel rings, mail as stout as any
forged. Some one had stabbed once and again at the coat without avail,
and had then torn it open and stabbed his defenceless breast. Though we
had killed two of their men, they had rained blows enough on this man of
ours to kill twenty.
Monsieur knelt on the ground beside him, but he was quite cold.
"The man who fled when we charged them must have lurked about," I said.
"Huguet's sword-arm was useless; he could not defend himself."
"Or else he fainted from his wound, he bled so," M. Étienne answered.
"And one of those who fled last came upon him helpless and did this."
"Why didn't I follow him instead of sitting down, a John o'dreams?" I
cried. "But I was thinking of you and Monsieur; I forgot Huguet."
"I forgot him, too," Monsieur sorrowed. "Shame to me; he would not have
forgotten me."
"Monsieur," his son said, "it was no negligence of yours. You could have
saved him only by following when he ran. And that was impossible."
"In sight of the door," Monsieur said sadly. "In sight of his own door."
We held silent. Monsieur got soberly to his feet.
"I never lost a better man."
"Monsieur," I cried, "he asks no better epitaph. If you will say that
of me when I die, I shall not have lived in vain."
He smiled at the outburst, but I did not care; if he would only smile, I
was content it should be at me.
"Nay, Félix," he said. "I hope it will not be I who compose your
epitaph. Come, we must get to the house and send after poor Huguet."
"Félix and I will carry him," M. Étienne said, and we lifted him between
us--no easy task, for he was a heavy fellow. But it was little enough to
do for him.
We bore him along slowly, Monsieur striding ahead. But of a sudden he
turned back to us, laying quick fingers on the poor torn breast.
"What is it, Monsieur?" cried his son.
"My papers."
We set him down, and the three of us examined him from top to toe,
stripping off his steel coat, pulling apart his blood-clotted linen,
prying into his very boots. But no papers revealed themselves.
"What were they, Monsieur?"
A drawn look had come over Monsieur's face.
"Papers which the king gave me, and which I, fool and traitor, have
lost."
I ran back to the spot where we had found Huguet; there was his hat on
the ground, but no papers. I followed up the red trail to its beginning,
looking behind every stone, every bunch of grass; but no papers. In my
desperation I even pulled about the dead man, lest the packet had been
covered, falling from Huguet in the fray. The two gentlemen joined me
in the search, and we went over every inch of the ground, but to no
purpose.
"I thought them safer with Huguet than with me," Monsieur groaned. "I
knew we ran the risk of ambush. Myself would be the object of attack; I
bade Huguet, were we waylaid, to run with the papers."
"And of course he would not."
"He should; it was my command. He stayed and saved my life perhaps, and
lost me what is dearer than life--my honour."
"He could not leave you to be killed, Monsieur; that were asking the
impossible."
"Aye, but I am saved at the ruin of a hundred others!" Monsieur cried.
"The papers contained certain lists of names of Mayenne's officers
pledged to support the king if he turn Catholic. I had them for
Lemaître. But at this date, in Mayenne's hands, they spell the men's
destruction. Huguet should have known that if I told him to desert me, I
meant it."
M. Étienne ventured no word, understanding well enough that in such
bitter moments no consolation consoles. M. le Duc added after a moment:
"Mordieu! I am ashamed of myself. I might be better occupied than in
blaming the dead--the brave and faithful dead. Belike he could not run,
they set on us so suddenly. When he could, he did go, and he went to his
death. They were my charge, the papers. I had no right to put the
responsibility on any other. I should have kept them myself. I should
have gone to Tarigny. I should never have ventured myself through these
black lanes. Fool! traitorous fool!"
"Nay, Monsieur, the mischance might have befallen any one."
"It would not have befallen Villeroi! It would not have befallen Rosny!"
Monsieur exclaimed bitterly. "It befalls me because I am a lack-wit who
rushes into affairs for which he is not fit. I can handle a sword, but I
have no business to meddle in statecraft."
"Then have those wiseheads out at St. Denis no business to employ you,"
M. Étienne said. "He is not unknown to fame, this Duke of St. Quentin;
everybody knows how he goes about things. Monsieur, they gave you the
papers because no one else would carry them into Paris. They knew you
had no fear in you; and it is because of that that the papers are
lacking. But take heart, Monsieur. We'll get them back."
"When? How?"
"Soon," M. Étienne answered, "and easily, if you will tell me what they
are like. Are they open?"
"I fear by now they may be. There are three sheets of names, and a
fourth sheet, a letter--all in cipher."
"Ah, but in that case--"
Monsieur cut short his son's jubilation.
"But--Lucas."
"Of course--I forgot him. He knows your ciphers, then?"
"Dolt that I was, he knows everything."
"Then must we lay hands on the papers before they reach Mayenne, and
all is saved," M. Étienne declared cheerfully. "These fellows can't read
a cipher. If the packet be not open, Monsieur?"
"It was a span long, and half as wide; for all address, the letters _St.
Q._ in the corner. It was tied with red cord and bore the seal of a
flying falcon, and the motto, _Je reviendrai_."
"What! the king's seal? That's serious. Expect, then, Monsieur, to see
the papers in an hour's time."
"Étienne, Étienne," Monsieur cried, "are you mad?"
"No madder than is proper for a St. Quentin. It's simple enough. I told
you I recognized that worthy back there for one Bernet, who lodged at an
inn I wot of over beyond the markets. Do we betake ourselves thither, we
may easily fall in with some comrades of his bosom who have not the
misfortune to be lying dead in a back lane, who will know something of
your loss. Bernet's sort are no bigots; while they work for the League,
they will lend a kindly ear to the chink of Kingsmen's florins."
"Ah," cried Monsieur, "then let us go." But M. Étienne laid a
restraining hand on his shoulder.
"Not you. I. They will kill you in the Halles just as cheerfully as in
the Quartier Marais. This is my affair."
He looked at Monsieur with kindling eyes, seeing his chance to prove his
devotion. The duke yielded to his eagerness.
"But," M. Étienne added generously, "you may have the honour of paying
the piper."
"I give you carte blanche, my son. Étienne, if you put that packet into
my hand, it is more than if you brought the sceptre of France."
"Then go practise, Monsieur, at feeling more than king."
He embraced his father, and we turned off down the street.
The sun was well up by this time, and the city rousing to the labours of
the day. Half was I glad of the lateness of the hour, for we ran no risk
now of cutthroats; and half was I sorry, for it behooves not a man
supposed to be in the Bastille to show himself too liberally to the
broad eye of the streets. Every time--and it was often--that we
approached a person who to my nervous imagination looked official, I
shook in my shoes. The way seemed fairly to bristle with soldiers,
officers, judges; for aught I knew, members of the Sixteen, Governor
Belin himself. It was a great surprise to me when at length we arrived
without let or hindrance before the door of a mean little
drinking-place, our goal.
We went in, and M. Étienne ordered wine, much to my satisfaction. My
stomach was beginning to remind me that I had given it nothing for
twelve hours or so, while I had worked my legs hard.
"Does M. Bernet lodge with you?" my master asked of the landlord. We
were his only patrons at the moment.
"M. Bernet? Him with the eye out?"
"The same."
"Why, no, monsieur. I don't let lodgings. The building is not mine. I
but rent the ground floor for my purposes."
"But M. Bernet lodges in the house, then?"
"No, he doesn't. He lodges round the corner, in the court off the Rue
Clichet."
"But he comes here often?"
"Oh, aye. Every morning for his glass. And most evenings, too."