THE DOUBLE SPY.
Louison had lured the dwarf to her own lodgings. That moment he was
attempting to force himself from under the powerful hand which she
pressed upon his shoulder.
“Tell me, little wretch, or I will inform your mistress that you spy
upon her!”
“No, no! I pray you.”
“Spy upon her, and for what?”
“Nothing. Oh, madame! it is for nothing. Zamara has all his life had the
habit of listening. He loves to know everything; that is all. He never
betrays.”
“Unless it is for his interest,” said the woman, laughing maliciously,
as her threatening eyes read the little, aged face that had grown dark
and wrinkled, like a withered prune, during the progress of his servile
life. “Of course, in these times, secrets are commodities that sell for
good prices. You have many to sell, and I wish to buy. Is there anything
that Zamara loves better than gold?”
“No, no!” cried the little Indian, and his eyes struck fire. “Nothing
but madame, my mistress.”
“Do you love her better than this head?” exclaimed the woman, burying
her hand in the crisp hair, which was now more than half white, and
shaking the head her words threatened till the creature’s teeth
chattered. “Answer me that, jackanapes.”
The dwarf threw up both his long, thin hands, and held on to his head,
seized with sudden terror.
“My head—my own head? No, no! There is nothing on earth that Zamara
loves better than that. Take your hands away, you hurt me!”
“Well, there, you are free. I don’t mean to hurt you; but understand
this, if you wish to keep this worthless head upon your miserable little
shoulders, you will forget that any mistress exists to you in the world,
except Louison Brisot.”
“And who is Louison Brisot?”
“Look in my face.”
“There, I do,” faltered the dwarf, lifting his heavy eyes to the bold,
handsome face bending down to his level.
“Then do not forget it, for I am your mistress. It is for me that you
must watch, and spy, and listen.”
“But why for you?”
“Because I can have your head cut off if you don’t—cut off and stuck
upon a pike. Have you never seen such things?”
“Yes,” gasped the dwarf, and his dark face turned livid. “I saw them
carried along the road from Versailles. It was terrible.”
“You saw women carrying them?”
“Yes; I saw it.”
The poor dwarf shuddered, and wrenched himself from the hand that seemed
to burn his shoulder.
“Those men were strong, powerful, full of life; but they offended the
women of France. While their huge trunks lay in Versailles, you saw
their heads dancing over that army of women. Look at me. It was I who
lifted this hand, and in the twinkling of an eye those great, shaggy
heads fell.”
“Oh, _mon Dieu_! let me go. Let me go!” cried the poor wretch.
“No; there is no such thing as letting go. You must obey me, or——”
Here the woman drew her finger across her throat with the slightest
possible action, and uttered a short laugh as the dwarf winced in
cowardly fear.
“What is it that you want of me, madame?” he gasped.
“That you report everything to me. A little thing, but it is all I ask
in exchange for your miserable life.”
“But about what?”
“About your mistress; about Count Mirabeau; and, above all, about the
queen.”
“The queen! I—I know nothing about her. How should I?”
“How should you, little craven? Who is it that carries letters from
Mirabeau to the Austrian?”
“It is not Zamara! Upon my life, upon my soul, it is not Zamara!”
“But you know who does take them?”
“No; I am not trusted so far. She doubts me—me, who stood by her when
all her friends fell off, who went with her into exile among the
detestable English, where the skies forever weep rain, and one is
chilled to the soul. All this Zamara did, yet the mistress will not
trust him.”
“But he can find out?”
“Yes; Zamara knows how to do that.”
“Well, listen. Some one takes letters from Count Mirabeau to the queen,
and they pass through the hands of your mistress.”
“No, no; she would not be permitted. She never sees the queen—never!”
“Still, it is through her these letters pass. I know it from words that
fell from the count—careless words, which he fancied I did not heed.
That much I know—you must find out the rest.”
“If I do, what then?”
“Why, that paltry life of yours will be safe. I have the power—I have
the will. No one, great or small, shall touch it.”
“And my mistress?”
“Do not trouble your little head about her. She professes to belong to
the people—she, who came from its dregs. Let her prove herself their
friend, or be proven their enemy. You have nothing to do with that.”
“Ah! but she has been kind to me—only that sometimes she suspects.”
“Not so kind as I will be, if you prove sharp and faithful.”
The dwarf bent low and kissed the hem of that woman’s garment, in token
of submission, as he had often kissed the almost regal robes of the
countess, his mistress.
“I shall remember that madame has the power to kill,” he said, abjectly.
“A safe way of insuring honesty,” laughed the woman. “I am not afraid
that you will venture to trifle with your own life.”
The dwarf took his cap from the floor, where it had fallen in the first
tremor of his fear, and cast a furtive look over his shoulder, longing
to escape from that dreadful presence; but Louison seemed to find
pleasure in tormenting him.
“_Mon Dieu!_ how pale you look through all that blackness!” she said.
“There is wine. What you have to do requires more courage. Drink,
drink!”
The dwarf seized upon the goblet which Louison filled, and drank off
wine enough to have intoxicated a strong man before he relinquished his
hold on the glass.
“That is good wine,” he said, drawing a deep breath, and kindling into
something like courage. “One does not fear so much with that in his
veins. Now will madame, or mademoiselle, I do not know which she is,
inform me exactly what she wishes of Zamara?”
“Sit down here,” said Louison, placing herself on a couch, and tossing
one of its cushions to her feet, on which the Indian crouched like a
dog. “I will tell you just what you are to do—and make sure you do it.”
“Zamara listens,” murmured the dwarf, feeling a warm glow of wine
burning through the duskiness of his cheek.
Thus, with his great, black eyes half closed, and his features relaxing
into something like repose, he sat inertly, while Louison went into the
detail of her plans, in which he was to act the part of a traitor and a
spy upon the only real friend he had ever known.
Persuasion or bribery might have failed to turn that pampered creature
into the foul ingrate he became. But Zamara had seen awful deeds during
the riots of Paris, that the very thought of danger from that quarter
made a craven of him. His own poor life was the only real possession
that he had on earth; when that was threatened, all I that was good and
honest in his nature gave way. He arose from the cushion the abject
slave of the woman whom he regarded with crouching fear and deadly hate.
“You will know where to find me, for this is my home.”
Zamara looked around the room with contempt in his heart. The flimsy
curtains, knotted back with tufts of faded pink ribbon; those poor
plants in the window, pining for want of a little water; the table,
littered over with Jacobin pamphlets and rebellious journals; the
pictures on the walls, those mirrors in tarnished gilding, the faded
silk of the couch, dead flowers in the vases, all bespoke the reckless
desire of their owner to ape the luxury she pretended to despise. Zamara
saw this, and his miserable little heart filled with contempt of the
woman he feared. He had lived too long in the regal splendor of the
little Trianon not to sneer in his soul at the vulgar mockery of
elegance affected by this woman of the people.
“You will know where to find me,” said Louison, again, looking around
her room with great satisfaction. “It is not likely that you can forget,
having once been here.”
“No; I shall never forget,” answered the dwarf, with a gleam in his eye,
and something almost like a sneer in his voice, “never!”
Louison had been terribly wounded in her vanity by the position in which
she discovered Theroigne de Mericourt and Du Berry. Those two women,
both almost as worthless as herself, had become her bane since the night
she had seen Mirabeau smiling on them as guests of a table to which she
was not invited. She had heard of the elegance which Du Berry still kept
up, and knew that Theroigne was following her example, with the fearless
audacity of a bold, beautiful woman, ready to risk her power rather than
sacrifice one iota of the personal luxury which she considered as her
right.
“These women would thrust me aside,” she reasoned, with vindictive hate.
“They have already taken my place in the clubs, and now crowd me away
from Mirabeau’s table. If they can ape queens with safety, so can I. But
let them take care, I have one almost in my grasp. She thinks to play
double, and win on both sides. We shall see! We shall see!”
These thoughts swept through her mind as the dwarf stood by, longing to
go, but afraid to move. She had noticed the incipient sneer on his face,
and it wounded her self-love.
“This is not a palace,” she said, sharply. “I know that; but who can
tell what may happen. I am far more likely to—but no matter. There is no
knowing what ship comes in first when the ocean rages. Remember this,
either Count Mirabeau, or your mistress must not meet or communicate,
without all the particulars coming to me at once. Your life depends on
that. Now go, I think you understand me.”
“Yes, I comprehend,” answered the dwarf, crushing his cap nervously with
both hands as he edged toward the door.
“And you will not forget, I make sure of that,” said Louison, waving her
hand as a signal that he might go.
Zamara took the hint and glided through the door.