I was roused by the opening of the door. Doltaire entered. He advanced
towards me with the manner of an admired comrade, and, with no trace of
what would mark him as my foe, said, as he sniffed the air:
“Monsieur, I have been selfish. I asked myself to breakfast with you,
yet, while I love the new experience, I will deny myself in this. You
shall breakfast with me, as you pass to your new lodgings. You must not
say no,” he added, as though we were in some salon. “I have a sleigh
here at the door, and a fellow has already gone to fan my kitchen fires
and forage for the table. Come,” he went on, “let me help you with your
cloak.”
He threw my cloak around me, and turned towards the door. I had not
spoken a word, for what with weakness, the announcement that I was to
have new lodgings, and the sudden change in my affairs, I was like a
child walking in its sleep. I could do no more than bow to him and force
a smile, which must have told more than aught else of my state, for he
stepped to my side and offered me his arm. I drew back from that with
thanks, for I felt a quick hatred of myself that I should take favours
of the man who had moved for my destruction, and to steal from me my
promised wife. Yet it was my duty to live if I could, to escape if that
were possible, to use every means to foil my enemies. It was all a
game; why should I not accept advances at my enemy’s hands, and match
dissimulation with dissimulation?
When I refused his arm, he smiled comically, and raised his shoulders in
deprecation.
“You forget your dignity, monsieur,” I said presently as we walked on,
Gabord meeting us and lighting us through the passages; “you voted me a
villain, a spy, at my trial!”
“Technically and publicly, you are a spy, a vulgar criminal,” he
replied; “privately, you are a foolish, blundering gentleman.”
“A soldier, also, you will admit, who keeps his compact with his enemy.”
“Otherwise we should not breakfast together this morning,” he answered.
“What difference would it make to this government if our private matter
had been dragged in? Technically, you still would have been the spy. But
I will say this, monsieur, to me you are a man better worth torture than
death.”
“Do you ever stop to think of how this may end for you?” I asked
quietly.
He seemed pleased with the question. “I have thought it might be
interesting,” he answered; “else, as I said, you should long ago have
left this naughty world. Is it in your mind that we shall cross swords
one day?”
“I feel it in my bones,” said I, “that I shall kill you.”
At that moment we stood at the entrance to the citadel, where a good
pair of horses and a sleigh awaited us. We got in, the robes were piled
around us, and the horses started off at a long trot. I was muffled to
the ears, but I could see how white and beautiful was the world, how the
frost glistened in the trees, how the balsams were weighted down with
snow, and how snug the chateaux looked with the smoke curling up from
their hunched chimneys.
Presently Doltaire replied to my last remark. “Conviction is the
executioner of the stupid,” said he. “When a man is not great enough to
let change and chance guide him, he gets convictions, and dies a fool.”
“Conviction has made men and nations strong,” I rejoined.
“Has made men and nations asses,” he retorted. “The Mohammmedan has
conviction, so has the Christian: they die fighting each other, and the
philosopher sits by and laughs. Expediency, monsieur, expediency is the
real wisdom, the true master of this world. Expediency saved your life
to-day; conviction would have sent you to a starry home.”
As he spoke a thought came in on me. Here we were in the open world,
travelling together, without a guard of any kind. Was it not possible to
make a dash for freedom? The idea was put away from me, and yet it was a
fresh accent of Doltaire’s character that he tempted me in this way. As
if he divined what I thought, he said to me--for I made no attempt to
answer his question:
“Men of sense never confuse issues or choose the wrong time for their
purposes. Foes may have unwritten truces.”
There was the matter in a nutshell. He had done nothing carelessly; he
was touching off our conflict with flashes of genius. He was the man who
had roused in me last night the fiercest passions of my life, and yet
this morning he had saved me from death, and, though he was still my
sworn enemy, I was about to breakfast with him.
Already the streets of the town were filling; for it was the day before
Christmas, and it would be the great market-day of the year. Few noticed
us as we sped along down Palace Street and I could not conceive whither
we were going, until, passing the Hotel Dieu, I saw in front the
Intendance. I remembered the last time I was there, and what had
happened then, and a thought flashed through me that perhaps this was
another trap. But I put it from me, and soon afterwards Doltaire said:
“I have now a slice of the Intendance for my own, and we shall breakfast
like squirrels in a loft.”
As we drove into the open space before the palace, a company of soldiers
standing before the great door began marching up to the road by which
we came. With them was a prisoner. I saw at once that he was a British
officer, but I did not recognize his face. I asked his name of Doltaire,
and found it was one Lieutenant Stevens, of Rogers’ Rangers, those brave
New Englanders. After an interview with Bigot he was being taken to
the common jail. To my request that I might speak with him Doltaire
assented, and at a sign from my companion the soldiers stopped.
Stevens’s eyes were fixed on me with a puzzled, disturbed expression.
He was well built, of intrepid bearing, with a fine openness of manner
joined to handsome features. But there was a recklessness in his eye
which seemed to me to come nearer the swashbuckling character of a young
French seigneur than the wariness of a British soldier.
I spoke his name and introduced myself. His surprise and pleasure were
pronounced, for he had thought (as he said) that by this time I would be
dead. There was an instant’s flash of his eye, as if a suspicion of
my loyalty had crossed his mind; but it was gone on the instant, and
immediately Doltaire, who also had interpreted the look, smiled, and
said he had carried me off to breakfast while the furniture of my former
prison was being shifted to my new one. After a word or two more, with
Stevens’s assurance that the British had recovered from Braddock’s
defeat and would soon be knocking at the portals of the Chateau St.
Louis, we parted, and soon Doltaire and I got out at the high stone
steps of the palace.
Standing there a moment, I looked round. In this space surrounding the
Intendance was gathered the history of New France. This palace, large
enough for the king of a European country with a population of a
million, was the official residence of the commercial ruler of a
province. It was the house of the miller, and across the way was the
King’s storehouse, La Friponne, where poor folk were ground between the
stones. The great square was already filling with people who had come to
trade. Here were barrels of malt being unloaded; there, great sacks
of grain, bags of dried fruits, bales of home-made cloth, and loads of
fine-sawn boards and timber. Moving about among the peasants were the
regular soldiers in their white uniforms faced with blue, red, yellow,
or violet, with black three-cornered hats, and black gaiters from foot
to knee, and the militia in coats of white with black facings. Behind a
great collar of dogskin a pair of jet-black eyes flashed out from under
a pretty forehead; and presently one saw these same eyes grown sorrowful
or dull under heavy knotted brows, which told of a life too vexed by
care and labour to keep alive a spark of youth’s romance. Now the bell
in the tower above us rang a short peal, the signal for the opening of
La Friponne, and the bustling crowd moved towards its doors. As I stood
there on the great steps, I chanced to look along the plain, bare front
of the palace to an annex at the end, and standing in a doorway opening
on a pair of steps was Voban. I was amazed that he should be there--the
man whose life had been spoiled by Bigot. At the same moment Doltaire
motioned to him to return inside; which he did.
Doltaire laughed at my surprise, and as he showed me inside the
palace said: “There is no barber in the world like Voban. Interesting
interesting! I love to watch his eye when he draws the razor down my
throat. It would be so easy to fetch it across; but Voban, as you see,
is not a man of absolute conviction. It will be sport, some day, to
put Bigot’s valet to bed with a broken leg or a fit of spleen, and send
Voban to shave him.”
“Where is Mathilde?” I asked, as though I knew naught of her
whereabouts.
“Mathilde is where none may touch her, monsieur; under the protection
of the daintiest lady of New France. It is her whim; and when a lady is
charming, an Intendant, even, must not trouble her caprice.”
He did not need to speak more plainly. It was he who had prevented Bigot
from taking Mathilde away from Alixe, and locking her up, or worse. I
said nothing, however, and soon we were in a large room, sumptuously
furnished, looking out on the great square. The morning sun stared in,
some snowbirds twittered on the window-sill, and inside, a canary, in
an alcove hung with plants and flowers, sang as if it were the heart of
summer. All was warm and comfortable, and it was like a dream that I had
just come from the dismal chance of a miserable death. My cloak and cap
and leggings had been taken from me when I entered, as courteously
as though I had been King Louis himself, and a great chair was drawn
solicitously to the fire. All this was done by the servant, after
one quick look from Doltaire. The man seemed to understand his master
perfectly, to read one look as though it were a volume--
“The constant service of the antique world.”
Such was Doltaire’s influence. The closer you came to him, the more
compelling was he--a devilish attraction, notably selfish, yet capable
of benevolence. Two years before this time I saw him lift a load from
the back of a peasant woman and carry it home for her, putting into her
hand a gold piece on leaving. At another time, an old man had died of
a foul disease in a miserable upper room of a warehouse. Doltaire was
passing at the moment when the body should be carried to burial. The
stricken widow of the dead man stood below, waiting, but no one would
fetch the body down. Doltaire stopped and questioned her kindly, and
in another minute he was driving the carter and another upstairs at the
point of his sword. Together they brought the body down, and Doltaire
followed it to the burying-ground; keeping the gravedigger at his task
when he would have run away, and saying the responses to the priest in
the short service read above the grave.
I said to him then, “You rail at the world and scoff at men and many
decencies, and yet you do these things!”
To this he replied--he was in my own lodgings at the time--“The brain
may call all men liars and fools, but the senses feel the shock of
misery which we do not ourselves inflict. Inflicting, we are prone to
cruelty, as you have seen a schoolmaster begin punishment with tears,
grow angry at the shrinking back under his cane, and give way to a
sudden lust of torture. I have little pity for those who can help
themselves--let them fight or eat the leek; but the child and the
helpless and the sick it is a pleasure to aid. I love the poor as much
as I love anything. I could live their life, if I were put to it. As a
gentleman, I hate squalor and the puddles of wretchedness but I could
have worked at the plough or the anvil; I could have dug in the earth
till my knuckles grew big and my shoulders hardened to a roundness,
have eaten my beans and pork and pea-soup, and have been a healthy
ox, munching the bread of industry and trailing the puissant pike, a
diligent serf. I have no ethics, and yet I am on the side of the just
when they do not put thorns in my bed to keep me awake at night!”
Upon the walls hung suits of armour, swords of beautiful make, spears,
belts of wonderful workmanship, a tattered banner, sashes knit by
ladies’ fingers, pouches, bandoleers, and many strong sketches of scenes
that I knew well. Now and then a woman’s head in oils or pencil peeped
out from the abundant ornaments. I recalled then another thing he said
at that time of which I write:
“I have never juggled with my conscience--never ‘made believe’ with it.
My will was always stronger than my wish for anything, always stronger
than temptation. I have chosen this way or that deliberately. I am ever
ready to face consequences, and never to cry out. It is the ass who does
not deserve either reward or punishment who says that something carried
him away, and, being weak, he fell. That is a poor man who is no
stronger than his passions. I can understand the devil fighting God, and
taking the long punishment without repentance, like a powerful prince as
he was. I could understand a peasant, killing King Louis in the palace,
and being ready, if he had a hundred lives, to give them all, having
done the deed he set out to do. If a man must have convictions of that
sort, he can escape everlasting laughter--the final hell--only by facing
the rebound of his wild deeds.”
These were strange sentiments in the mouth of a man who was ever the
mannered courtier, and as I sat there alone, while he was gone elsewhere
for some minutes, many such things he had said came back to me,
suggested, no doubt, by this new, inexplicable attitude towards myself.
I could trace some of his sentiments, perhaps vaguely, to the fact
that--as I had come to know through the Seigneur Duvarney--his mother
was of peasant blood, the beautiful daughter of a farmer of Poictiers,
who had died soon after giving birth to Doltaire. His peculiar nature
had shown itself in his refusal to accept a title. It was his whim to be
the plain “Monsieur”; behind which was, perhaps, some native arrogancy
which made him prefer that to being a noble whose origin, well known,
must ever interfere with his ambitions. Then, too, maybe, the peasant in
him--never in his face or form, which were patrician altogether--spoke
for more truth and manliness than he was capable of, and so he chose to
be the cynical, irresponsible courtier, while many of his instincts had
urged him to the peasant’s integrity. He had undisturbed, however, one
instinct of the peasant--a directness, which was evident chiefly in the
clearness of his thoughts.
As these things hurried through my mind, my body sunk in a kind of
restfulness before the great fire, Doltaire came back.
“I will not keep you from breakfast,” said he. “Voban must wait, if you
will pass by untidiness.”
A thought flashed through my mind. Maybe Voban had some word for me from
Alixe! So I said instantly, “I am not hungry. Perhaps you will let
me wait yonder while Voban tends you. As you said, it should be
interesting.”
“You will not mind the disorder of my dressing-room? Well, then, this
way, and we can talk while Voban plays with temptation.”
So saying, he courteously led the way into another chamber, where Voban
stood waiting. I spoke to him, and he bowed, but did not speak; and then
Doltaire said:
“You see, Voban, your labour on Monsieur was wasted so far as concerns
the world to come. You trimmed him for the glorious company of the
apostles, and see, he breakfasts with Monsieur Doltaire--in the
Intendance, too, my Voban, which, as you know, is wicked--a very nest of
wasps!”
I never saw more hate than shot out of Voban’s eyes at that moment; but
the lids drooped over them at once, and he made ready for his work, as
Doltaire, putting aside his coat, seated himself, laughing. There was no
little daring, as there was cruelty, in thus torturing a man whose life
had been broken by Doltaire’s associate. I wondered now and then if
Doltaire were not really putting acid on the barber’s bare nerves for
some other purpose than mere general cruelty. Even as he would have
understood the peasant’s murder of King Louis, so he would have seen a
logical end to a terrible game in Bigot’s death at the hand of Voban.
Possibly he wondered that Voban did not strike, and he himself took
a delight in showing him his own wrongs occasionally. Then, again,
Doltaire might wish for Bigot’s death, to succeed him in his place!
But this I put by as improbable, for the Intendant’s post was not his
ambition, or, favourite of La Pompadour as he was, he would, desiring,
have long ago achieved that end. Moreover, every evidence showed that
he would gladly return to France, for his clear brain foresaw the final
ruin of the colony and the triumph of the British. He had once said in
my hearing:
“Those swaggering Englishmen will keep coming on. They are too stupid to
turn back. The eternal sameness of it all will so distress us we shall
awake one morning, find them at our bedsides, give a kick, and die from
sheer ennui. They’ll use our banners to boil their fat puddings in,
they’ll roast oxen in the highways, and after our girls have married
them they’ll turn them into kitchen wenches with frowsy skirts and
ankles like beeves!”
But, indeed, beneath his dangerous irony there was a strain of
impishness, and he would, if need be, laugh at his own troubles, and
torture himself as he had tortured others. This morning he was full of a
carbolic humour. As the razor came to his neck he said:
“Voban, a barber must have patience. It is a sad thing to mistake friend
for enemy. What is a friend? Is it one who says sweet words?”
There was a pause, in which the shaving went on, and then he continued:
“Is it he who says, I have eaten Voban’s bread, and Voban shall
therefore go to prison, or be hurried to Walhalla? Or is it he who stays
the iron hand, who puts nettles in Voban’s cold, cold bed, that he may
rise early and go forth among the heroes?”
I do not think Voban understood that, through some freak of purpose,
Doltaire was telling him thus obliquely he had saved him from Bigot’s
cruelty, from prison or death. Once or twice he glanced at me, but not
meaningly, for Doltaire was seated opposite a mirror, and could see each
motion made by either of us. Presently Doltaire said to me idly:
“I dine to-day at the Seigneur Duvarney’s. You will be glad to hear
that mademoiselle bids fair to rival the charming Madame Cournal. Her
followers are as many, so they say, and all in one short year she has
suddenly thrown out a thousand new faculties and charms. Doubtless
you remember she was gifted, but who would have thought she could have
blossomed so! She was all light and softness and air; she is now all
fire and skill as well. Matchless! matchless! Every day sees her with
some new capacity, some fresh and delicate aplomb. She has set the town
admiring, and jealous mothers prophesy trist ending for her. Her swift
mastery of the social arts is weird, they say. La! la! The social
arts! A good brain, a gift of penetration, a manner--which is a grand
necessity, and it must be with birth--no heart to speak of, and the rest
is easy. No heart--there is the thing; with a good brain and senses all
warm with life--to feel, but never to have the arrow strike home. You
must never think to love and be loved, and be wise too. The emotions
blind the judgment. Be heartless, be perfect with heavenly artifice,
and, if you are a woman, have no vitriol on your tongue--and you may
rule at Versailles or Quebec. But with this difference: in Quebec you
may be virtuous; at Versailles you must not. It is a pity that you may
not meet Mademoiselle Duvarney. She would astound you. She was a simple
ballad a year ago; to-morrow she may be an epic.”
He nodded at me reflectively, and went on:
“‘Mademoiselle,’ said the Chevalier de la Darante to her at dinner,
some weeks ago, ‘if I were young, I should adore you.’ ‘Monsieur,’ she
answered, ‘you use that “if” to shirk the responsibility.’ That put him
on his mettle. ‘Then, by the gods, I adore you now,’ he answered. ‘If I
were young, I should blush to hear you say so,’ was her reply. ‘I empty
out my heart, and away trips the disdainful nymph with a laugh,’ he
rejoined gaily, the rusty old courtier; ‘there’s nothing left but to
fall upon my sword!’ ‘Disdainful nymphs are the better scabbards for
distinguished swords,’ she said, with charming courtesy. Then, laughing
softly, ‘There is an Egyptian proverb which runs thus: “If thou, Dol,
son of Hoshti, hast emptied out thy heart, and it bring no fruit
in exchange, curse not thy gods and die, but build a pyramid in the
vineyard where thy love was spent, and write upon it, Pride hath no
conqueror.”’ It is a mind for a palace, is it not?”
I could see in the mirror facing him the provoking devilry of his eyes.
I knew that he was trying how much he could stir me. He guessed my love
for her, but I could see he was sure that she no longer--if she ever
had--thought of me. Besides, with a lover’s understanding, I saw also
that he liked to talk of her. His eyes, in the mirror, did not meet
mine, but were fixed, as on some distant and pleasing prospect, though
there was, as always, a slight disdain at his mouth. But the eyes
were clear, resolute, and strong, never wavering--and I never saw them
waver--yet in them something distant and inscrutable. It was a candid
eye, and he was candid in his evil; he made no pretense; and though the
means to his ends were wicked, they were never low. Presently, glancing
round the room, I saw an easel on which was a canvas. He caught my
glance.
“Silly work for a soldier and a gentleman,” he said, “but silliness is
a great privilege. It needs as much skill to carry folly as to be an
ambassador. Now, you are often much too serious, Captain Moray.”
At that he rose, and, after putting on his coat, came over to the
easel and threw up the cloth, exposing a portrait of Alixe! It had been
painted in by a few bold strokes, full of force and life, yet giving her
face more of that look which comes to women bitterly wise in the ways of
this world than I cared to see. The treatment was daring, and it cut me
like a knife that the whole painting had a red glow: the dress was red,
the light falling on the hair was red, the shine of the eyes was red
also. It was fascinating, but weird, and, to me, distressful. There
flashed through my mind the remembrance of Mathilde in her scarlet robe
as she stood on the Heights that momentous night of my arrest. I
looked at the picture in silence. He kept gazing at it with a curious,
half-quizzical smile, as if he were unconscious of my presence. At last
he said, with a slight knitting of his brows:
“It is strange--strange. I sketched that in two nights ago, by the light
of the fire, after I had come from the Chateau St. Louis--from memory,
as you see. It never struck me where the effect was taken from, that
singular glow over all the face and figure. But now I see it; it
returns: it is the impression of colour in the senses, left from the
night that lady-bug Mathilde flashed out on the Heights! A fine--a fine
effect! H’m! for another such one might give another such Mathilde!”
At that moment we were both startled by a sound behind us, and,
wheeling, we saw Voban, a mad look in his face, in the act of throwing
at Doltaire a short spear which he had caught up from a corner. The
spear flew from his hand even as Doltaire sprang aside, drawing his
sword with great swiftness. I thought he must have been killed, but the
rapidity of his action saved him, for the spear passed his shoulder
so close that it tore away a shred of his coat, and stuck in the wall
behind him. In another instant Doltaire had his sword-point at Voban’s
throat. The man did not cringe, did not speak a word, but his hands
clinched, and the muscles of his face worked painfully. There was at
first a fury in Doltaire’s face and a metallic hardness in his eyes,
and I was sure he meant to pass his sword through the other’s body;
but after standing for a moment, death hanging on his sword-point,
he quietly lowered his weapon, and, sitting on a chair-arm, looked
curiously at Voban, as one might sit and watch a mad animal within
a cage. Voban did not stir, but stood rooted to the spot, his eyes,
however, never moving from Doltaire. It was clear that he had looked
for death, and now expected punishment and prison. Doltaire took out his
handkerchief and wiped a sweat from his cheeks. He turned to me soon,
and said, in a singularly impersonal way, as though he were speaking of
some animal:
“He had great provocation. The Duchess de Valois had a young panther
once which she had brought up from the milk. She was inquisitive, and
used to try its temper. It was good sport, but one day she took away
its food, gave it to the cat, and pointed her finger at monsieur the
panther. The Duchess de Valois never bared her breast thereafter to an
admiring world--a panther’s claws leave scars.” He paused, and presently
continued: “You remember it, Voban; you were the Duke’s valet then--you
see I recall you! Well, the panther lost his head, both figuratively and
in fact. The panther did not mean to kill, maybe, but to kill the lady’s
beauty was death to her.... Voban, yonder spear was poisoned!”
He wiped his face, and said to me, “I think you saw that at the
dangerous moment I had no fear; yet now when the game is in my own
hands, my cheek runs with cold sweat. How easy to be charged with
cowardice! Like evaporation, the hot breath of peril passing suddenly
into the cold air of safety leaves this!”--he wiped his cheek again.
He rose, moved slowly to Voban, and, pricking him with his sword, said,
“You are a bungler, barber. Now listen. I never wronged you; I have only
been your blister. I prick your sores at home. Tut! tut! they prick them
openly in the market-place. I gave you life a minute ago; I give you
freedom now. Some day I may ask that life for a day’s use, and then,
Voban, then will you give it?”
There was a moment’s pause, and the barber answered, “M’sieu’, I owe you
nothing. I would have killed you then; you may kill me, if you will.”
Doltaire nodded musingly. Something was passing through his mind. I
judged he was thinking that here was a man who as a servant would be
invaluable.
“Well, well, we can discuss the thing at leisure, Voban,” he said at
last. “Meanwhile you may wait here till Captain Moray has breakfasted,
and then you shall be at his service; and I would have a word with you,
also.”
Turning with a polite gesture to me, he led the way into the
breakfast-room, and at once, half famished, I was seated at the table,
drinking a glass of good wine, and busy with a broiled whitefish of
delicate quality. We were silent for a time, and the bird in the alcove
kept singing as though it were in Eden, while chiming in between the
rhythms there came the silvery sound of sleigh-bells from the world
without. I was in a sort of dream, and I felt there must be a rude
awakening soon. After a while, Doltaire, who seemed thinking keenly,
ordered the servant to take in a glass of wine to Voban.
He looked up at me after a little, as if he had come back from a long
distance, and said, “It is my fate to have as foes the men I would have
as friends, and as friends the men I would have as foes. The cause of my
friends is often bad; the cause of my enemies is sometimes good. It
is droll. I love directness, yet I have ever been the slave of
complication. I delight in following my reason, yet I have been of the
motes that stumble in the sunlight. I have enough cruelty in me, enough
selfishness and will, to be a ruler, and yet I have never held an
office in my life. I love true diplomacy, yet I have been comrade to the
official liar, and am the captain of intrigue--la! la!”
“You have never had an enthusiasm, a purpose?” said I.
He laughed, a dry, ironical laugh. “I have both an enthusiasm and a
purpose,” he answered, “or you would by now be snug in bed forever.”
I knew what he meant, though he could not guess I understood. He was
referring to Alixe and the challenge she had given him. I did not
feel that I had anything to get by playing a part of friendliness, and
besides, he was a man to whom the boldest speaking was always palatable,
even when most against himself.
“I am sure neither would bear daylight,” said I.
“Why, I almost blush to say that they are both honest--would at this
moment endure a moral microscope. The experience, I confess, is new, and
has the glamour of originality.”
“It will not stay honest,” I retorted. “Honesty is a new toy with you.
You will break it on the first rock that shows.”
“I wonder,” he answered, “I wonder,... and yet I suppose you are right.
Some devilish incident will twist things out of gear, and then the
old Adam must improvise for safety and success. Yes, I suppose my one
beautiful virtue will get a twist.”
What he had said showed me his mind as in a mirror. He had no idea that
I had the key to his enigmas. I felt as had Voban in the other room. I
could see that he had set his mind on Alixe, and that she had roused in
him what was perhaps the first honest passion of his life.
What further talk we might have had I can not tell, but while we were
smoking and drinking coffee the door opened suddenly, and the servant
said, “His Excellency the Marquis de Vaudreuil!”
Doltaire got to his feet, a look of annoyance crossing his face; but he
courteously met the Governor, and placed a chair for him. The Governor,
however, said frostily, “Monsieur Doltaire, it must seem difficult for
Captain Moray to know who is Governor in Canada, since he has so many
masters. I am not sure who needs assurance most upon the point, you or
he. This is the second time he has been feasted at the Intendance when
he should have been in prison. I came too late that other time; now it
seems I am opportune.”
Doltaire’s reply was smooth: “Your Excellency will pardon the liberty.
The Intendance was a sort of halfway house between the citadel and the
jail.”
“There is news from France,” the Governor said, “brought from Gaspe. We
meet in council at the Chateau in an hour. A guard is without to take
Captain Moray to the common jail.”
In a moment more, after a courteous good-by from Doltaire, and a remark
from the Governor to the effect that I had spoiled his night’s sleep
to no purpose, I was soon on my way to the common jail, where arriving,
what was my pleased surprise to see Gabord! He had been told off to be
my especial guard, his services at the citadel having been deemed so
efficient. He was outwardly surly--as rough as he was ever before the
world, and without speaking a word to me, he had a soldier lock me in a
cell.