The Helmet of Navarre

Within the spider's web.

ademoiselle slipped softly out of the room, taking our hearts with her. Our one desire now was to be gone; but it was easier wished than accomplished, for there remained the dreary process of bargaining. Mme. de Mayenne had set her heart on a pearl bracelet, Mme. de Brie wanted a vinaigrette, a third lady a pair of shoe-buckles. M. Étienne developed a recklessness about prices that would have whitened the hair of a goldsmith father; I thought the ladies could not fail to be suspicious of such prodigality, to imagine we carried stolen goods. But no; the quick settlements defeated their own ends: they fired our customers with longing to purchase further. I was despairing, when at length Mme. de Mayenne bethought herself that supper-time was at hand, and that no one was yet dressed. To my eyes the company already looked fine enough for a coronation; but I rejoiced to hear them thanking madame for her reminder, with the gratitude of victims snatched from an awful fate. We were commanded to bundle out, which with all alacrity we did.

Freedom was in sight. I was not so nervous on this journey as I had been coming in. As we passed, lackey-led, through the long corridors, I had ease enough of mind to enable me to take my bearings, and to whisper to my master, "That door yonder is the door of the council-room, where I was." Even as I spoke the door opened, two gentlemen appearing at the threshold. One was a stranger; the other was Mayenne.

Our guide held back in deference. The duke and his friend stood a moment or two in low-voiced converse; then the visitor made his farewells, and went off down the staircase.

Mayenne had not appeared aware of our existence, thirty feet up the passage, but now he inquired, as if we had been pieces of merchandise:

"What have you there, Louis?"

"An Italian goldsmith, so please your Grace. Madame has just dismissed him."

He led us forward. Mayenne surveyed us deliberately, and at length said to M. le Comte:

"I will look at your wares."

M. Étienne smiled his eager, deprecating smile, informing his Highness that we, poor creatures, spoke no French.

"How came you in Paris, then?"

M. Étienne for the fourth time went through with his tale. I think this time he must have trembled over it. My Lord Mayenne had not the reputation of being easily gulled. For aught we knew, he might be informed of the name and condition of every person who had entered Paris this year. He might, as he listened stolid-faced, be checking off to himself the number of monsieur's lies. But if M. Étienne trembled in his soul, his words never faltered; he knew his history well, by this. At its finish Mayenne said:

"Come in here."

The lackey was ordered to wait outside, while we followed his Grace of Mayenne across the council-room to that table by the window where he had sat with Lucas night before last. I clinched my teeth to keep them from chattering together. Not Grammont's brutality, not Lucas's venom, not Mlle. de Tavanne's rampant suspicion, had ever frightened me so horribly as did Mayenne's amiable composure. He made me feel as I had felt when I entered the tunnel, helpless in the dark, unable to cope with dangers I could not see. Mayenne was a well, the light shining down its sides a way, and far below the still surface of the water. You hang over the edge and peer till your eyes drop out; you can as easily look through iron as discern how deep the water is. I seemed to see clearly that Mayenne suspected us not in the least. He was as placid as a summer day, turning over the contents of the box, showing little interest in us, much in our wares, every now and then speaking a generous word of praise or asking a friendly question. He was the very model of the gracious prince; the humble tradesmen whom we feigned to be must needs have worshipfully loved him. Yet withal I believed that all the time he knew us; that he was amusing himself with us. Presently, when he tired, he would walk casually out of the room and send in his creatures to stab us.

Had I known this for a truth, that he had discovered us, I should have braced myself, I trow, to meet it. The certainty would have been bearable; I had courage to face ruin. It was the uncertainty that was so heart-shaking—like crossing a morass in the dark. We might be on the safe path; we might with every step be wandering away farther and farther into the treacherous bog; there was no way to tell. Mayenne was quite the man to be kindly patron of the crafts, to pick out a rich present for a friend. He was also the man to sit in the presence of his enemy, unbetraying, tranquil, assured, waiting. It seemed to me that in a few minutes more of this I should go mad; I should scream out: "Yes, I am Félix Broux, and he is M. le Comte de Mar!"

But before I had verily come to this, something happened to change the situation. Entered like a young tempest, slamming the door after him, Lucas.

M. Étienne clutched me by the arm, drawing me back into the embrasure of the window, where we stood in plain sight but with our faces blotted out against the light. Mayenne looked up from two rings he was comparing, one in each hand. Lucas, hat on head, came rapidly across the room.

"So you have appeared again," Mayenne said. "I could almost believe myself back in night before last."

"Aye; at last I have." Lucas was all hot and ruffled, panting half from hurry, half from wrath.

"You saw fit to be absent last night," Mayenne went on indifferently, his eyes on the ring. "I trust, for your sake, you have used your time profitably."

"I have been about my own concerns," Lucas answered lightly, arming himself with his insolence against the other's disdain. In a moment he had mastered the excitement that brought him so stormily into the room. He was once more the Lucas who had entered that other night, nonchalant, mocking.

"Pretty trinkets," he observed, sitting down and lifting a bracelet from the tray.

The close kinship of these men betrayed itself in nothing so sharply as in their unerring instinct for annoying each other. Had Lucas volunteered explanation for his absence, Mayenne would not have listened to it; but as he withheld it, the duke demanded brusquely:

"Well, do you give an account of yourself? You had better."

Lucas repeated the tactics which he had found such good entertainment before. He looked with raised eyebrows toward us.

"You would not have me speak before these vermin, uncle?"

"These vermin understand no French," Mayenne made answer. "But do as it likes you. It is nothing to me."

My master pinched my hand. Mayenne did not know us! After all, he was what M. Étienne had called him—a man, neither god nor devil. He could make mistakes like the rest of us. For once he had been caught napping.

Lucas leaned back in his chair with a meditative air, as if idly wondering whether to speak or not. In his place I should not have wondered one moment. Had Mayenne assured me in that quiet tone that he cared nothing whether I spoke, I should scarce have been able to utter my words fast enough. But there was so strange a twist in Lucas's nature that he must sometimes thwart his own interests, value his caprice above his prosperity. Also, in this case his story was no triumphant one. But at length he did begin it:

"I went to Belin to inform him that day before yesterday Étienne de Mar murdered his lackey, Pontou, in Mar's house in the Rue Coupejarrets."

"Was that your errand?" Mayenne said, looking up in slow surprise. "My faith! your oaths to Lorance trouble you little."

Lucas started forward sharply. "Do you tell me you did not know my purpose?"

"I knew, of course, that you were up to some warlockry," Mayenne answered; "I did not concern myself to discover what."

"There speaks the general! There speaks the gentleman!" Lucas cried out. "A general hangs a spy, yet he profits by spying. The spy runs the risks, incurs the shames; the general sits in his tent, his honour untarnished, pocketing all the glory. Faugh, you gentlemen! You will not do dirty work, but you will have it done for you. You sit at home with clean hands and eyes that see not, while we go forth to serve you. You are the Duke of Mayenne. I am your bastard nephew, living on your favour. But you go too far when you sneer at my smirches."

He was on his feet, standing over Mayenne, his face blazing. M. Étienne made an instinctive step forward, thinking him about to knife the duke. But Mayenne, as we well knew, was no craven.

"Be a little quieter, Paul," he said, unmoved. "You will have the guard in, in a moment."

Lucas held absolutely still for a second. So did Mayenne. He knew that Lucas, standing, could stab quicker than he defend. He sat there with both hands on the table, looking composedly up at his nephew. Lucas flung away across the room.

"I shall have dismissed these people directly," Mayenne continued. "Then you can tell me your tale."

"I can tell it now in two words," Lucas answered, coming abruptly back. "Belin signed the warrant, and sent a young ass of the burgher guard after Mar. I attended to some affairs of my own. Then after a time I went round to the Trois Lanternes to see if they had got him. He was not there—only that cub of a boy of his. When I came in, he swore, the innkeeper swore, the whole crew swore, I was Mar. The fool of an officer arrested me."

I expected Mayenne to burst out laughing in Lucas's chagrined face. But instead he seemed less struck with his nephew's misfortunes than with some other aspect of the affair. He said slowly:

"You told Belin this arrest was my desire?"

"I may have implied something of the sort."

"You repeated it to the arresting officer before Mar's boy!"

"I had no time to say anything before they hustled me off," Lucas exclaimed. "Mille tonnerres! Never had any man such luck as I. It's enough to make me sign papers with the devil."

"Mar would believe I had broken faith with him?"

"I dare say. One isn't responsible for what Mar believes," Lucas answered carelessly.

Mayenne was silent, with knit brows, drumming his hand on the table. Lucas went on with the tale of his woes:

"At the Bastille, I ordered the commissary to send to you. He did not; he sent to Belin. Belin was busy, didn't understand the message, wouldn't be bothered. I lay in my cell like a mouse in a trap till an hour agone, when at last he saw fit to appear—damn him!"

Mayenne fell to laughing. Lucas cried out:

"When they arrested me my first thought was that this was your work."

"In that case, how should you be free now?"

"You found you needed me."

"You are twice wrong, Paul. For I knew nothing of your arrest. Nor do I think I need you. Pardieu! you succeed too badly to give me confidence."

Lucas stood glowering, gnawing his lip, picturing the chagrin, the angry reproaches, the justifications he did not utter. I am certain he pitied himself as the sport of fate and of tyrants, the most shamefully used of mortal men. And so long as he aspired to the hand of Mayenne's ward, so long was he helpless under Mayenne's will.

"'Twas pity," Mayenne said reflectively, "that you thought best to be absent last night. Had you been here, you had had sport. Your young friend Mar came to sing under his lady's window."

"Saw she him?" Lucas cried sharply.

"How should I know? She does not confide in me."

"You took care to find out!" Lucas cried, knowing he was being badgered, yet powerless to keep himself from writhing.

"I may have."

"Did she see him?" Lucas demanded again, the heavy lines of hatred and jealousy searing his face.

"No credit to you if she did not. You accomplish singularly little to harass M. de Mar in his love-making. You deserve that she should have seen him. But, as a matter of fact, she did not. She was in the chapel with madame."

"What happened?"

"François de Brie—now there is a youngster, Paul," Mayenne interrupted himself to point out, "who has not a tithe of your cleverness; but he has the advantage of being on the spot when needed. Desiring a word with mademoiselle, he betook himself to her chamber. She was not there, but Mar was warbling under the window."

"Brie?"

"Brie bestirred himself. He sent two of the guard round behind the house to cut off the retreat, while he and Latour attacked from the front."

"Mar's killed?" Lucas cried. "He's killed!"

"By no means," answered Mayenne. "He got away."

Before he could explain further,—if he meant to,—the door opened, and Mlle. de Montluc came in.

Her eyes travelled first to us, in anxiety; then with relief to Mayenne, sitting over the jewels; last, to Lucas, with startlement. She advanced without hesitation to the duke.

"I am come, monsieur, to fetch you to supper."

"Pardieu, Lorance!" Mayenne exclaimed, "you show me a different face from that of dinner-time." Indeed, so she did, for her eyes were shining with excitement, while the colour that M. Étienne had kissed into them still flushed her cheeks.

"If I do," she made quick answer, "it is because, the more I think on it, the surer I grow that my loving cousin will not break my heart."

"I want a word with you, Lorance," Mayenne said quietly.

"As many as you like, monsieur," she replied promptly. "But will you not send these creatures from the room first?"

"Do you include your cousin Paul in that term?"

"I meant these jewellers. But since you suggest it, perhaps it would be as well for Paul to go."

"You hear your orders, Paul."

"Aye, I hear and I disobey," Lucas retorted. "Mademoiselle, I take too much joy in your presence to be willing to leave it."

"Monsieur," she said to the duke, ignoring her cousin Paul with a coolness that must have maddened him, "will you not dismiss your tradespeople? Then can we talk comfortably."

"Aye," answered Mayenne, "I will. I am more gallant than Paul. If you command it, out they go, though I have not half had time to look their wares over. Here, master jeweller," he addressed M. Étienne, slipping easily into Italian, "pack up your wares and depart."

M. Étienne, bursting into rapid thanks to his Highness for his condescension in noticing the dirt of the way, set about his packing. Mayenne turned to his lovely cousin.

"Now for my word to you, mademoiselle. You wept so last night, it was impossible to discuss the subject properly. But now I rejoice to see you more tranquil. Here is the beginning and the middle and the end of the matter: your marriage is my affair, and I shall do as I like about it."

She searched his face; before his steady look her colour slowly died. M. Étienne, whether by accident or design, knocked his tray of jewels off the table. Murmuring profuse apologies, he dropped on his knees to grope for them. Neither of the men heeded him, but kept their eyes steadily on the lady.

"Mademoiselle," Mayenne deliberately went on, "I have been over-fond with you. Had I followed my own interests instead of bowing to your whims, you had been a wife these two years. I have indulged you, mademoiselle, because you were my ally Montluc's daughter, because you came to me a lonely orphan, because you were my little cousin whose baby mouth I kissed. I have let you cavil at this suitor and that, pout that one was too tall and one too short, and a third too bold and a fourth not bold enough. I have been pleased to let you cajole me. But now, mademoiselle, I am at the end of my patience."

"Monsieur," she cried, "I never meant to abuse your kindness. You let me cajole you, as you say, else I could not have done it. You treated my whims as a jest. You let me air them. But when you frowned, I have put them by. I have always done your will."

"Then do it now, mademoiselle. Be faithful to me and to your birth. Cease sighing for the enemy of our house."

"Monsieur," she said, "when you first brought him to me, he was not the enemy of our house. When he came here, day after day, season after season, he was not our enemy. When I wrote that letter, at Paul's dictation, I did not know he was our enemy. You told me that night that I was not for him. I promised you obedience. Did he come here to me and implore me to wed with him, I would send him away."

Mayenne little imagined how truly she spoke; but he could not look in her eyes and doubt her honesty.

"You are a good child, Lorance," he said. "I could wish your lover as docile."

"He will not come here again," she cried. "He knows I am not for him. He gives it up, monsieur—he takes himself out of Paris. I promise you it is over. He gives me up."

"I have not his promise for that," Mayenne said dryly; "but the next time he comes after you, he may settle with your husband."

She uttered a little gasp, but scarce of surprise—almost of relief that the blow, so long expected, had at last been dealt.

"You will marry me, monsieur?" she murmured. "To M. de Brie?"

"You are shrewd, mademoiselle. You know that it will be a good three months before François de Brie can stand up to be wed. You say to yourself that much may happen in three months. So it may. Therefore will your bridegroom be at hand to-morrow morning."

She made no rejoinder, but her eyes, wide like a hunted animal's, moved fearsomely, loathingly, to Lucas. Mayenne uttered an abrupt laugh.

"No; Paul is not the happy man. Besides bungling the St. Quentin affair, he has seen fit to make free with my name in an enterprise of his own. Therefore, Paul, you will dance at Lorance's wedding a bachelor. Mademoiselle, you marry in the morning Señor el Conde del Rondelar y Saragossa of his Majesty King Philip's court. After dinner you will depart with your husband for Spain."

Lucas sprang forward, hand on sword, face ablaze with furious protest. Mayenne, heeding him no more than if he had not been there, rose and went to Mlle de Montluc.

"Have I your obedience, cousin?"

"You know it, monsieur."

She was curtseying to him when he folded her in his arms, kissing both her cheeks.

"You are as good as you are lovely, and that says much, ma mie. We will talk a little more about this after supper. Permit me, mademoiselle."

He took her hand and led her in leisurely fashion out of the room.

It wondered me that Lucas had not killed him. He looked murder. Haply had the duke disclosed by so much as a quivering eyelid a consciousness of Lucas's rage, of danger to himself, Lucas had struck him down. But he walked straight past, clad in his composure as in armour, and Lucas made no move. I think to stab was the impulse of a moment, gone in a moment. Instantly he was glad he had not killed the Duke of Mayenne, to be cut himself into dice by the guard. After the duke was gone, Lucas stood still a long time, no less furious, but cogitating deeply.

We had gathered up our jewels and locked our box, and stood holding it between us, waiting our chance to depart. We might have gone a dozen times during the talking, for none marked us; but M. Étienne, despite my tuggings, refused to budge so long as mademoiselle was in the room. Now was he ready enough to go, but hesitated to see if Lucas would not leave first. That worthy, however, showed no intention of stirring, but remained in his pose, buried in thought, unaware of our presence. To get out, we had to walk round one end or the other of the table, passing either before or behind him. M. le Comte was for marching carelessly before his face, but I pulled so violently in the other direction that he gave way to me. I think now that had we passed in front of him, Lucas would have let us go by without a look. As it was, hearing steps at his back, he wheeled about to confront us. If the eye of love is quick, so is the eye of hate. He cried out instantly:

"Mar!"

We dropped the box, and sprang at him. But he was too quick for us. He leaped back, whipping out his sword.

"I have you now, Mar!" he cried.

M. Étienne grabbed up the heavy box in both hands to brain him. Lucas retreated. He might run through M. Étienne, but only at the risk of having his head split. After all, it suited his book as well to take us alive. Shouting for the guards, he retreated toward the door.

But I was there before him. As he ran at M. Étienne, I had dashed by, slammed the door shut, and bolted it. If we were caught, we would make a fight for it. I snatched up a stool for weapon.

He halted. Then he darted over to the chimney, and pulled violently the bell-rope hanging near. We heard through the closed door two loud peals somewhere in the corridor.

We both ran for him. Even as he pulled the rope, M. Étienne struck the box over his sword, snapping it. I dropped my stool, as he his box, and we pinned Lucas in our arms.

"The oratory!" I gasped. With a strength born of our desperation, we dragged him kicking and cursing across the room, heaved him with all our force into the oratory, and bolted the door on him.

"Your wig!" cried M. Étienne, running to recover his box. While I picked it up and endeavoured with clumsy fingers to put it on properly, he set on its legs the stool I had flung down, threw the pieces of Lucas's sword into the fireplace, seized his box, dashed to me and set my wig straight, dashed to the outer door, and opened it just as Pierre came up the corridor.

"Well, what do you want?" the lackey demanded. "You ring as if it was a question of life and death."

"I want to be shown out, if the messer will be so kind. His Highness the duke, when he went to supper, left me here to put up my wares, but I know not my way to the door."

It was after sunset, and the room, back from the windows, was dusky. The lackey seemed not to mark our flushed and rumpled looks, and to be quite satisfied with M. Étienne's explanation, when of a sudden Lucas, who had been stunned for the moment by the violent meeting of his head and the tiles, began to pound and kick on the oratory door.

He was shouting as well. But the door closed with absolute tightness; it had not even a keyhole. His cries came to us muffled and inarticulate.

"Corpo di Bacco!" M. Étienne exclaimed, with a face of childlike surprise. "Some one is in a fine hurry to enter! Do you not let him in, Sir Master of the Household?"

"I wonder who he's got there now," Pierre muttered to himself in French, staring in puzzled wise at the door. Then he answered M. Étienne with a laugh:

"No, my innocent; I do not let him in. It might cost me my neck to open that door. Come along now. I must see you out and get back to my trenchers."

We met not a soul on the stairs, every one, served or servants, being in the supper-room. We passed the sentry without question, and round the corner without hindrance. M. Étienne stopped to heave a sigh of thanksgiving.

"I thought we were done for that time!" he panted. "Mordieu! another scored off Lucas! Come, let us make good time home! 'Twere wise to be inside our gates when he gets out of that closet."

We made good time, ever listening for the haro after us. But we heard it not. We came unmolested up the street at the back, of the Hôtel St. Quentin, on our way to the postern. Monsieur took the key out of his doublet, saying as we walked around the corner tower:

"Well, it appears we are safe at home."

"Yes, M. Étienne."

Even as I uttered the words, three men from the shadow of the wall sprang out and seized us.

"This is he!" one cried. "M. le Comte de Mar, I have the pleasure of taking you to the Bastille."

The countersign.

nstantly 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.

I said in pure devilry, to try to ruffle him:

"Vigo, you said you were here to guard Monsieur's interests-his house, his goods, his moneys. Do you desert your trust?"

Mademoiselle turned quickly to him:

"Vigo, you must not let me take you from your rightful post. Félix and your man here will care for me—"

"The boy talks silliness, mademoiselle," Vigo returned tranquilly. "Mademoiselle is worth a dozen hôtels. I go with her."

He walked beside her across the court, I following with Gilles, laughing to myself. Only yesterday had Vigo declared that never would he give aid and comfort to Mlle. de Montluc. It was no marvel she had conquered M. Étienne, for he must needs have been in love with some one, but in bringing Vigo to her feet she had won a triumph indeed.

We had to go out by the great gate, because the key of the postern was in the Bastille. But as if by magic every guardsman and hanger-about had disappeared—there was not one to stare at the lady; though when we had passed some one locked the gates behind us. Vigo called me up to mademoiselle's left. Gilles was to loiter behind, far enough to seem not to belong to us, near enough to come up at need. Thus, at a good pace, mademoiselle stepping out as brave as any of us, we set out across the city for the Porte St. Denis.

Our quarter was very quiet; we scarce met a soul. But afterward, as we reached the neighbourhood of the markets, the streets grew livelier. Now were we gladder than ever of Vigo's escort; for whenever we approached a band of roisterers or of gentlemen with lights, mademoiselle sheltered herself behind the equery's broad back, hidden as behind a tower. Once the gallant M. de Champfleury, he who in pink silk had adorned Mme. de Mayenne's salon, passed close enough to touch her. She heaved a sigh of relief when he was by. For her own sake she had no fear; the midnight streets, the open road to St. Denis, had no power to daunt her: but the dread of being recognized and turned back rode her like a nightmare.

Close by the gate, Vigo bade us pause in the door of a shop while he went forward to reconnoiter. Before long he returned.

"Bad luck, mademoiselle. Brissac's not on. I don't know the officer, but he knows me, that's the worst of it. He told me this was not St. Quentin night. Well, we must try the Porte Neuve."

But mademoiselle demurred:

"That will be out of our way, will it not, Vigo? It is a longer road from the Porte Neuve to St. Denis?"

"Yes; but what to do? We must get through the walls."

"Suppose we fare no better at the Porte Neuve? If your Brissac is suspected, he'll not be on at night. Vigo, I propose that we part company here. They will not know Gilles and Félix at the gate, will they?"

"No," Vigo said doubtfully; "but—"

"Then can we get through!" she cried. "They will not stop us, such humble folk! We are going to the bedside of our dying mother at St. Denis. Your name, Gilles?"

"Forestier, mademoiselle," he stammered, startled.

"Then are we all Forestiers—Gilles, Félix, and Jeanne. We can pass out, Vigo; I am sure we can pass out. I am loath to part with you, but I fear to go through the city to the Porte Neuve. My absence may be discovered—I must place myself without the walls speedily.

"Well, mademoiselle may try it," Vigo gave reluctant consent. "If you are refused, we can fall back on the Porte Neuve. If you succeed—Listen to me, you fellows. You will deliver mademoiselle into Monsieur's hands, or answer to me for it. If any one touches her little finger—well, trust me!"

"That's understood," we answered, saluting together.

"Mademoiselle need have no doubts of them," Vigo said. "Félix is M. le Comte's own henchman. And Gilles is the best man in the household, next to me. God speed you, my lady. I am here, if they turn you back."

We went boldly round the corner and up the street to the gate. The sentry walking his beat ordered us away without so much as looking at us. Then Gilles, appointed our spokesman, demanded to see the captain of the watch. His errand was urgent.

But the sentry showed no disposition to budge. Had we a passport? No, we had no passport. Then we could go about our business. There was no leaving Paris to-night for us. Call the captain? No; he would do nothing of the kind. Be off, then!

But at this moment, hearing the altercation, the officer himself came out of the guard-room in the tower, and to him Gilles at once began his story. Our mother at St. Denis had sent for us to come to her dying bed. He was a street-porter; the messenger had had trouble to find him. His young brother and sister were in service, kept to their duties till late. Our mother might even now be yielding up the ghost! It was a pitiful case, M. le Capitaine; might we not be permitted to pass?

The young officer appeared less interested in this moving tale than in the face of mademoiselle, lighted up by the flambeau on the tower wall.

"I should be glad to oblige your charming sister," he returned, smiling, "but none goes out of the city without a passport. Perhaps you have one, though, from my Lord Mayenne?"

"Would our kind be carrying a passport from the Duke of Mayenne?" quoth Gilles.

"It seems improbable," the officer smiled, pleased with his wit. "Sorry to discommode you, my dear. But perhaps, lacking a passport, you can yet oblige me with the countersign, which does as well. Just one little word, now, and I'll let you through."