_The countersign._
Instantly two more men came running from the postern arch. The five were
upon us like an avalanche. One pinned my arms while another gagged me.
Two held M. Étienne, a third stopping his mouth.
"Prettily done," quoth the leader. "Not a squeal! Morbleu! I wasn't
anxious to have old Vigo out disputing my rights."
M. Étienne's wrists were neatly trussed by this time. At a word from the
leader, our captors turned us about and marched us up the lane by
Mirabeau's garden, where Bernet's blood lay rusty on the stones. We
offered no resistance whatever; we should only have been prodded with a
sword-point for our pains. I made out, despite the thickening twilight,
the familiar uniform of the burgher guard; M. de Belin, having bagged
the wrong bird once, had now caught the right one.
The captain bade one of the fellows go call the others off; I could
guess that the job had been done thoroughly, every approach to the house
guarded. I gnashed my teeth over the gag, that I had not suspected the
danger. The truth was, both of us had our heads so full of mademoiselle,
of Mayenne, and of Lucas, that we had forgotten the governor and his
preposterous warrant.
They led us into the Rue de l'Évêque, where was waiting the same black
coach that had stood before the Oie d'Or, the same Louis on the box. Its
lamps were lighted; by their glimmer our captors for the first time saw
us fairly.
"Why, captain," cried the man at M. Étienne's elbow, "this is no Comte
de Mar! The Comte de Mar is fair-haired; I've seen him scores of times."
"The Comte de Mar answers to the name of Étienne, and so does this
fellow," the captain answered. He took the candle from one of the lamps
and held it in M. Étienne's face. Then he put out a sudden hand, and
pulled the wig off.
"Good for you, captain!" cried the men. We were indeed unfortunate to
encounter an officer with brains.
"We'll take your gag off too, M. le Comte, in the coach," the captain
told him.
"Will you bring the lass along, captain?"
"Not exactly," the leader laughed. "A fine prison it would be, could a
felon have his bonnibel at his side. No, I'll leave the maid; but she
needn't give the alarm yet. Do you stay awhile with her, L'Estrange;
you'll not mind the job. Keep her a quarter of an hour, and then let her
go her ways."
They bundled my lord into the coach, box and all, the captain and two
men with him. The fourth clambered up beside Louis as he cracked his
whip and rattled smartly down the street.
My guardian stole a loving arm around my waist and marched me down the
quiet lane between the garden walls. He was clutching my right wrist,
but my left hand was free, and I fumbled at my gag. In the middle of the
deserted lane he halted.
"Now, my beauty, if you'll be good I'll take that stopper off. But if
you make a scream, by Heaven, it'll be your last!"
I shook my head and squeezed his hand imploringly, while he, holding me
tight in one sinewy arm, plucked left-handedly at the knot. I waited,
meek as Griselda, till the gag was off, and then I let him have it.
Volleying curses, I hammered him square in the eye.
It was a mad course, for he was armed, I not. But instead of stabbing,
he dropped me like a hot coal, gasping in the blankest consternation:
"Thousand devils! It's a boy!"
A second later, when he recollected himself, I was tearing down the
lane.
I am a good runner, and then, any one can run well when he runs for his
life. Despite the wretched kirtle tying up my legs, I gained on him, and
when I had reached the corner of our house, he dropped the pursuit and
made off in the darkness. I ran full tilt round to the great gate,
bellowing for the sentry to open. He came at once, with a dripping
torch, to burst into roars of laughter at the sight of me. My wig was
somewhere in the lane behind me; he knew me perfectly in my silly
toggery. He leaned against the wall, helpless with laughing, shouting
feebly to his comrades to come share the jest. I, you may well imagine,
saw nothing funny about it, but kicked and shook the grilles in my rage
and impatience. He did open to me at length, and in I dashed, clamouring
for Vigo. He had appeared in the court by this, as also half a dozen of
the guard, who surrounded me with shouts of astonished mockery; but I,
little heeding, cried to the equery:
"Vigo, M. le Comte is arrested! He's in the Bastille!"
Vigo grasped my arm, and lifted rather than led me in at the guard-room
door, slamming it in the soldiers' faces.
"Now, Félix."
"M. Étienne!" I gasped--"M. Étienne is arrested! They were lying in wait
for him at the back of the house, by the tower. They've taken him off in
a coach to the Bastille."
"Who have?"
"The governor's guard. You'll saddle and pursue? You'll rescue him?"
"How long ago?"
"About ten minutes. The coach was standing in the Rue de l'Évêque. They
left a man guarding me, but I broke away."
"It can't be done," Vigo said. "They'll be out of the quarter by now. If
I could catch them at all, it would be close by the Bastille. No good in
that; no use fighting four regiments. What the devil are they arresting
him for, Félix? I understand Mayenne wants his blood, but what has the
city guard to do with it?"
"It's Lucas's game," I said. Then I remembered that we had not confided
to him the tale of the first arrest. I went on to tell of the adventure
of the Trois Lanternes, and, reflecting that he might better know just
how the land lay with us, I made a clean breast of everything--the fight
before Ferou's house, the rescue, the rencounter in the tunnel, to-day's
excursion, and all that befell in the council-room. I wound up with a
second full account of our capture under the very walls of the house,
our garroting before we could cry on the guards to save us. Vigo said
nothing for some time; at length he delivered himself:
"Monsieur wouldn't have a patrol about the house. He wouldn't publish to
the mob that he feared any danger whatever. Of course no one foresaw
this. However, the arrest is the best thing could have happened."
"Vigo!" I gasped in horror. Was Vigo turned traitor? The solid earth
reeled beneath my feet.
"He'd never rest till he got himself killed," Vigo went on. "Monsieur's
hot enough, but M. Étienne's mad to bind. If they hadn't caught him
to-night he'd have been in some worse pickle to-morrow; while, as it is,
he's safe from swords at least."
"But they can murder as well in the Bastille as elsewhere!" I cried.
Vigo shook his head.
"No; had they meant murder, they'd have settled him here in the alley.
Since they lugged him off unhurt, they don't mean it. I know not what
the devil they are up to, but it isn't that."
"It was Lucas's game in the first place," I repeated. "He's too prudent
to come out in the open and fight M. Étienne. He never strikes with his
own hand; his way is to make some one else strike for him. So he gets M.
Étienne into the Bastille. That's the first step. I suppose he thinks
Mayenne will attend to the second."
"Mayenne dares not take the boy's life," Vigo answered. "He could have
killed him, an he chose, in the streets, and nobody the wiser. But now
that monsieur's taken publicly to the Bastille, Mayenne dares not kill
him there, by foul play or by law--the Duke of St. Quentin's son. No;
all Mayenne can do is to confine him at his good pleasure. Whence
presently we will pluck him out at King Henry's good pleasure."
"And meantime is he to rot behind bars?"
"Unless Monsieur can get him out. But then," Vigo went on, "a month or
two in a cell won't be a bad thing for him, neither. His head will have
a chance to cool. After a dose of Mayenne's purge he may recover of his
fever for Mayenne's ward."
"Monsieur! You will send to Monsieur?"
"Of course. You will go. And Gilles with you to keep you out of
mischief."
"When? Now?"
"No," said Vigo. "You will go clothe yourself in breeches first, else
are you not likely to arrive anywhere but at the mad-house. And then eat
your supper. It's a long road to St. Denis."
I ran at once, through a fusillade of jeers from soldiers, grooms, and
house-men, across the court, through the hall, and up the stairs to
Marcel's chamber. Never was I gladder of anything in my life than to
doff those swaddling petticoats. Two minutes, and I was a man again. I
found it in my heart to pity the poor things who must wear the trappings
their lives long.
But for all my joy in my freedom, I choked over my supper and pushed it
away half tasted, in misery over M. Étienne. Vigo might say comfortably
that Mayenne dared not kill him, but I thought there were few things
that gentleman dared not do. Then there was Lucas to be reckoned with.
He had caught his fly in the web; he was not likely to let him go long
undevoured. At best, if M. Étienne's life were safe, yet was he
helpless, while to-morrow our mademoiselle was to marry. Vigo seemed to
think that a blessing, but I was nigh to weeping into my soup. The one
ray of light was that she was not to marry Lucas. That was something.
Still, when M. Étienne came out of prison, if ever he did,--I could
scarce bring myself to believe it,--he would find his dear vanished over
the rocky Pyrenees.
Vigo would not even let me start when I was ready. Since we were too
late to find the gates open, we must wait till ten of the clock, at
which hour the St. Denis gate would be in the hands of a certain
Brissac, who would pass us with a wink at the word St. Quentin.
I was so wroth with Vigo that I would not stay with him, but went
up-stairs into M. Étienne's silent chamber, and flung myself down on the
window-bench his head might never touch again, and wondered how he was
faring in prison. I wished I were there with him. I cared not much what
the place was, so long as we were together. I had gone down the mouth of
hell smiling, so be it I went at his heels. Mayhap if I had struggled
harder with my captors, shown my sex earlier, they had taken me too.
Heartily I wished they had; I trow I am the only wight ever did wish
himself behind bars. And promptly I repented me, for if Vigo had proved
but a broken reed, there was Monsieur. Monsieur was not likely to sit
smug and declare prison the best place for his son.
The slow twilight faded altogether, and the dark came. The city was very
still. Once in a while a shout or a sound of bell was borne over the
roofs, or infrequent voices and footsteps sounded in the street beyond
our gate. The men in the court under my window were quiet too, talking
among themselves without much raillery or laughter; I knew they
discussed the unhappy plight of the heir of St. Quentin. The chimes had
rung some time ago the half-hour after nine, and I was fidgeting to be
off, but huffed as I was with him, I could not lower myself to go ask
Vigo's leave to start. He might come after me when he wanted me.
"Félix! Félix!" Marcel shouted down the corridor. I sprang up; then,
remembering my dignity, moved no further, but bade him come in to me.
"Where are you mooning in the dark?" he demanded, stumbling over the
threshold. "Oh, there you are. Dame! you'd come down-stairs mighty quick
if you knew what was there for you?"
"What?" I cried, divided between the wild hope that it was Monsieur and
the wilder one that it was M. Étienne.
"Don't you wish I'd tell you? Well, you're a good boy, and I will. It's
the prettiest lass I've seen in a month of Sundays--you in your
petticoats don't come near her."
"For me?" I stuttered.
"Aye; she asked for M. le Duc, and when he wasn't here, for you. I
suppose it's some friend of M. Étienne's."
I supposed so, indeed; I supposed it was the owner of my borrowed
plumage come to claim her own, angry perhaps because I had not returned
it to her. I wondered whether she would scratch my eyes out because I
had lost the cap--whether I could find it if I went to look with a
light. None too eagerly I descended to her.
She was standing against the wall in the archway. Two or three of the
guardsmen were about her, one with a flambeau, by which they were all
surveying her. She wore the coif and blouse, the black bodice and short
striped skirt, of the country peasant girl, and, like a country girl,
she showed a face flushed and downcast under the soldiers' bold
scrutiny. She looked up at me as at a rescuing angel. It was Mlle. de
Montluc!
I dashed past the torch-bearer, nearly upsetting him in my haste, and
snatched her hand.
"Mademoiselle! Come into the house!"
She clutched me with fingers as cold as marble, which trembled on mine.
"Where is M. de St. Quentin?"
"At St. Denis."
"You must take me there to-night."
"I was going," I stammered, bewildered; "but you, mademoiselle--"
"You knew of M. de Mar's arrest?"
"Aye."
"What coil is this, Félix?" demanded Vigo, coming up. He took the torch
from his man, and held it in mademoiselle's face, whereupon an amazing
change came over his own. He lowered the light, shielding it with his
hand, as if it were an impertinent eye.
"You are Vigo," she said at once.
"Yes; and I know not what noble lady mademoiselle can be, save--will it
please her to come into the house?"
He led the way with his torch, not suffering himself to look at her
again. He had his foot on the staircase, when she called to him, as if
she had been accustomed to addressing him all her life:
"Vigo, this will do. I will speak to you here."
"As mademoiselle wishes. I thought the salon fitter. My cabinet here
will be quieter than the hall, mademoiselle."
He opened the door, and she entered. He pushed me in next, giving me the
torch and saying:
"Ask mademoiselle, Félix, whether she wants me." He amazed me--he who
always ordered.
"I want you, Vigo," mademoiselle answered him herself. "I want you to
send two men with me to St. Denis."
"To-morrow?"
"No; to-night."
"But mademoiselle cannot go to St. Denis."
"I can, and I must."
"They will not let a horse-party through the gate at night," Vigo began.
"We will go on foot."
"Mademoiselle," Vigo answered, as if she had proposed flying to the
moon, "you cannot walk to St. Denis."
"I must!" she cried.
I had put the flambeau in a socket on the wall. Now that the light shone
on her steadily, I saw for the first time, though I might have known it
from her presence here, how rent with emotion she was, white to the
lips, with gleaming eyes and stormy breast. She had spoken low and
quietly, but it was a main-force composure, liable to snap like glass. I
thought her on the very verge of passionate tears. Vigo looked at her,
puzzled, troubled, pitying, as on some beautiful, mad creature. She
cried out on him suddenly, her rich voice going up a key:
"You need not say 'cannot' to me, Vigo! You know not how I came here. I
was locked in my chamber. I changed clothes with my Norman maid. There
was a sentry at each end of the street. I slid down a rope of my
bedclothes; it was dark--they did not see me. I knocked at Ferou's
door--thank the saints, it opened to me quickly! I told M. Ferou--God
forgive me!--I had business for the duke at the other end of the tunnel.
He took me through, and I came here."
"But, mademoiselle, the bats!" I cried.
"Yes, the bats," she returned, with a little smile. "And my hands on the
ropes!" She turned them over; the skin was torn cruelly from her
delicate palms and the inside of her fingers. Little threads of blood
marked the scores. "Then I came here," she repeated. "In all my life I
have never been in the streets alone--not even for one step at noonday.
Now will you tell me, M. Vigo, that I cannot go to St. Denis?"
"Mademoiselle, it is yours to say what you can do."
As for me, I dropped on my knees and laid my lips to her fingers,
softly, for fear even their pressure might hurt her tenderness.
"Mademoiselle!" I cried in pure delight. "Mademoiselle, that you are
here!"
She flushed under my words.
"Ah, it is no little thing brought me. You knew M. de Mar was arrested?"
We assented; she went on, more to me than to Vigo, as if in telling me
she was telling M. Étienne. She spoke low, as if in pain.
"After supper M. de Mayenne went back to his cabinet and let out Paul de
Lorraine."
"I wish we had killed him," I muttered. "We had no time or weapons."
"M. de Mayenne sent for me then," she went on, wetting her lips. "I have
never seen him so angry. He was furious because M. de Mar had been
before his face and he had not known it. He felt he had been made a mock
of. He raged against me--I never knew he could be so angry. He said the
Spanish envoy was too good for me; I should marry Paul de Lorraine
to-morrow."
"Mordieu, mademoiselle!"
"That was not it. I had borne that!" she cried. "Mayhap I deserved it.
But while my lord thundered at me, word came that M. de Mar was taken.
My lord swore he should die. He swore no man ever set him at naught and
lived to boast of it."
"Will--"
She swept on unheeding:
"He said he should be tried for the murder of Pontou--he should be
tortured to make him confess it."
She dropped down on her knees, hiding her face in her arms on the table,
shaking from head to foot as in an ague. Vigo swore to himself, loudly,
violently: "If Mayenne do that, by the throne of Heaven, I'll kill him!"
She sprang to her feet, dry-eyed, fierce as a young lioness.
"Is that all you can say? Mayenne may torture him and be killed for it?"
"I shall send to the duke--" Vigo began.
"Aye! I shall go to the duke! I can say who killed Pontou. I know much
besides to tell the king. I was Mayenne's cousin, but if he would save
his secrets he must give up M. de Mar. Mother of God! I have been his
obedient child; I have let him do so with me as he would. I sent my
lover away. I consented to the Spanish marriage. But to this I will not
submit. He shall not torture and kill Étienne de Mar!"
Vigo took her hand and kissed it.
"Shall we start, Vigo? Once at St. Denis, I am hostage for his safety.
The king can tell Mayenne that if Mar is tortured he will torture me!
Mayenne may not tender me greatly, but he will not relish his cousin's
breaking on the wheel."
"Mayenne won't torture M. Étienne," Vigo said, patting her hand in both
of his, forgetting she was a great lady, he an equery. "Fear not! you
will save him, mademoiselle."
"Let us go!" she cried feverishly. "Let us go!"
Gilles was in the court waiting, stripped of his livery, dressed
peaceably as a porter, but with a mallet in his hand that I should not
like to receive on my crown. I thought we were ready, but Vigo bade us
wait. I stood on the house-steps with mademoiselle, while he took aside
Squinting Charlot for a low-voiced, emphatic interview.
"Must we wait?" mademoiselle urged me, quivering like the arrow on the
bow-string. "They may discover I am gone. Need we wait?"
"Aye," I answered; "if Vigo bids us. He knows."
We waited then. Vigo disappeared presently. Mademoiselle and I stood
patient, with, oh! what impatience in our hearts, wondering how he could
so hinder us. Not till he came back did it dawn on me for what we had
stayed. He was dressed as an under-groom, not a tag of St. Quentin
colours on him.
"I beg a thousand pardons, mademoiselle. I had to give my lieutenant his
orders. Now, if you will give the word, we go."
"Do you go, M. Vigo?" She breathed deep. It was easy to see she looked
upon him as a regiment.
"Of course," Vigo answered, as if there could be no other way.