Lauriane tossed him a larger coin, the marquis a gold crown, Lucilio some copper, and D'Alvimar a pebble, saying:
"I see that you all give money to the conjurer, but in my opinion he deserves only to be stoned."
"Beware," said Lauriane, smiling, "he will predict only unpleasant things for you; everyone knows that, in the matter of horoscopes, you only get what you pay for."
"Do not think that; destiny is my master," said La Flèche, putting the money into a box, and suddenly affecting to speak simply and with a fatalistic air.
He turned his indescribable hat, which seemed to threaten heaven like an insolent castle tower, pulled it over his eyes like an extinguisher, made several wry faces, pronounced divers unmeaning words supposed to be cabalistic formulas, and, having turned his back in order to wipe off the coarse paint unseen, showed his face made pale by prophetic inspiration.
Then he traced upon the gravel the great asphère of ignorant necromancers, with all the symbols of street-corner astrology; he placed a stone in the centre and threw the box at it, which broke and distributed the contents over the symbols drawn in the different compartments.
Thereupon D'Alvimar stooped to pick up his pebble.
"No, no!" cried the gypsy, darting into the circle with the agility of a monkey, and placing his foot on D'Alvimar's token, without effacing any of the signs that surrounded it; "no, messire, you cannot interfere with destiny. It is above you as it is above me!"
"Certainly not," said Lauriane, putting her little cane between D'Alvimar and La Flèche. "The magician is master in his magic circle, and by disarranging your destiny, you may disarrange ours too."
D'Alvimar submitted; but his face betrayed an extraordinary agitation which he instantly suppressed.
La Flèche began with the token nearest the central stone, which he called Sinai.
It was Lucilio's; the gypsy pretended to measure angles and make computations, then said in rhyming prose:
"You see," whispered Bois-Doré to D'Alvimar, "the rascal has divined our musician's melancholy plight."
"That was not very difficult," rejoined D'Alvimar contemptuously. "For a quarter of an hour past the mute has been talking to you by signs."
"So you have no faith at all in divination?" replied Bois-Doré, while La Flèche continued his calculations with a preoccupied air, but with his ears open to all that was going on about him.
"Why, do you believe in it yourself, messire, I would ask?" said D'Alvimar, pretending to be surprised at the seriousness with which the marquis asked the question.
"I? Why—yes, more or less, like everybody else!"
"No one believes in this nonsense nowadays!"
"Oh! yes; I believe in it quite seriously," said Lauriane. "I beg you, sorcerer, if my destiny is unfavorable, either to leave me a little hope, or to find in your learning some means of averting it."
"Illustrious queen of hearts," replied La Flèche, "I obey your commands. You are threatened by a great danger; but if, during three days from the present moment,
"Can you invent no other rhymes?" exclaimed D'Alvimar. "Your vocabulary is not rich!"
"Everyone is not rich who wishes to be, messire," rejoined the gypsy; "and yet there are those who wish it very earnestly, so earnestly that they do everything to obtain wealth, even at the risk of the axe and the halter!"
"Do you read such things in this gentleman's destiny?" said Lauriane, who had been deeply impressed by the conjurer's warning to herself, and now strove to turn the whole affair into a jest.
"Perhaps!" said Monsieur d'Alvimar carelessly; "one never knows what may happen."
"But one can find out!" cried La Flèche. "Come who wants to know?"
"No one," said the marquis, "no one, if there is anything unpleasant in store for any of us."
"Well, neighbor, you have faith, on my word!" said De Beuvre, who did not exactly believe in anything. "You are an excellent customer for any mountebank who chooses to fill your ears with idle tales!"
"As you please," rejoined Bois-Doré, "but I cannot help it. I have seen such surprising things! A score of times things that have been predicted have happened to me."
"How can you believe that an ignorant idiot like this fellow can look into the future, of which God alone knows the secrets?" said D'Alvimar.
"I do not believe in the knowledge of the operator himself," replied Bois-Doré, "except in so far as, by long practice, he knows how to compute numbers, and those numbers are to him like letters in a book whereof the peculiar quality of numbers composes words and phrases."
De Beuvre laughed at the marquis, and called upon the gypsy to tell all he knew.
D'Alvimar would have been glad of a different result of the discussion, for his incredulity was only feigned; he believed that the devil had a hand in all evil, and he determined inwardly to commend La Flèche to the attention of Monsieur Poulain, to be locked up and burned at the first opportunity. But he was none the less consumed, in spite of himself, with anxiety to open the book of his destiny, and he was strongly impelled, moreover, to assume the rôle of a man free from superstitions, before Madame de Beuvre.
La Flèche, being called upon to speak, since he had studied his chart sufficiently, indulged in some serious reflections. He was afraid of the Spaniard. He knew that he ran no risk with people who believed in nothing, for they are not the sort who denounce or accuse sorcerers; and he was too sharp not to understand that, when he tried to withdraw his token, D'Alvimar's object was to escape the revelations which he pretended to despise.
He adopted the course to which he was accustomed to resort when he had to do with people who were inclined to become over-excited—he began to make meaningless remarks to everybody.
He hoped that D'Alvimar would retire, and that he could make some pleasant prediction for the others, for which they would pay handsomely; for in the three days that he had been wandering about the neighborhood, prowling everywhere, listening at doors, or pretending not to understand French to induce people to talk in his presence, he had learned many things; and he knew one fact about D'Alvimar which that gentleman would have been very glad to bury in profound oblivion.
But D'Alvimar, tranquillized by the trivial nature of the predictions, did not retire; La Flèche had ceased to entertain any of the party, and was on the point of making a fiasco, after great preparations to reap a fine harvest.
They were about to dismiss him. He drew himself up.
"Illustrious noble lords," he said, "I am not a sorcerer, I swear it by the image of my patron saint which I wear upon my breast; I protest against any compact with the devil. I practise only white magic, permitted by the ecclesiastical authorities; but——"
"Well, if you are not pledged to the devil, go to the devil!" laughed Monsieur de Beuvre; "you bore us!"
"Very good," said La Flèche insolently; "you want black magic, and you shall have it, at your own risk and peril! but I will have nothing to do with it, I wash my hands of it!"
He turned at once to a basket which he had brought with him, and in which they supposed that he kept some juggling apparatus or some strange beast, and took from it a little girl of eight or ten years, who seemed to be no more than four or five, she was so small and slender; and, with all the rest, dark-skinned, with a tangled mass of hair; a veritable imp, dressed all in red, who began, while he held her in his arms, by striking him again and again, pulling his hair, and tearing his face with her nails.
They thought at first that this frantic resistance was part of the performance, until they saw the blood flowing in a stream down the gypsy's nose.
He paid little heed to it, but said, as he wiped his face with his sleeve:
"That is nothing; the princess was asleep in her basket, and she is always cross when she wakes."
Then he added in Spanish, speaking to the child in an undertone.
"Never fear! you shall dance for this to-night!"
The child, whom he had deposited on the stone of Sinai, cowered like a monkey and glared about her with the eyes of a wild cat.
In her emaciated ugliness there were such strongly marked indications of suffering and of fierce temper, of unhappiness and of hatred, that she was almost beautiful, and indubitably terrifying.
It made Lauriane's heart ache to see the extreme emaciation of the wretched creature, who was almost naked under the gaudy, but filthy rags she wore. She shuddered as she thought of the probable fate of that child, driven to frenzy doubtless by the tyranny and the blows of a vile mountebank; and she walked away a few steps, leaning on the arm of her good Celadon, Bois-Doré, who, although he did not say so, felt almost as distressed as she.
But De Beuvre was of tougher fibre, and he urged La Flèche to make the evil spirit speak.
"Come, my lovely Pilar," said La Flèche, accompanying each word with a gesture big with threats, which were readily intelligible to his victim; "come, queen of the elves and hobgoblins, you must speak. Pick up that coin which is nearest you."
Pilar sat motionless for a long time, pretending to be asleep; she was shivering with fever.
"Come, come, gallows-bird, tow for the stake!" continued La Flèche, "pick up that gold piece, and I will tell you where Mario, your beloved Mario, is."
"What's that!" said the marquis, turning back; "what does he say about Mario?"
"Who is Mario?" asked Lauriane.
"Silence!" cried De Beuvre; "the devil speaks, and you are interested, neighbor!"
The child spoke thus in French, in a shrill voice and with a strongly marked accent:
"I have said enough, I won't say any more," she added in Spanish.
She had forgotten her lesson. Neither prayers nor threats availed to refresh her memory; but she did not admit that she had been coached; she was already a sorceress and proud of her profession. She knew the magic chart much better than La Flèche, and she loved to prophesy. By trying to teach her poetry, which she called another kind of magic, La Flèche had irritated her, and the feeling that she should not succeed had wounded her self-esteem.
She shook her head, bristling with hair as black as ink, stamped her foot and gave way to a paroxysm of pythoness-like rage.
"Good! good!" cried La Flèche, determined to make use of her, in one way or another. "Now it is coming! the devil is entering her body, she will speak in a moment!"
"Yes," said the child in Spanish, darting madly into the circle, "and I know it all better than you, better than all the others. Come! come! come! I know; question me!"
"Let us speak French," said La Flèche. "What will happen to the noble lord whose token I hold?"
It was the marquis's.
"Joy and consolation!" said the child.
"Very good! but in what form?"
"Vengeance!"
"I, vengeance?" said Bois-Doré. "That is not my disposition."
"No, surely not," said Lauriane, glancing involuntarily at D'Alvimar. "The devil must have mistaken the token."
"No! I am not mistaken," replied the elf.
"Really?" said La Flèche. "If you are quite sure, speak, she-devil! So you think that this noble lord here present has some insult to avenge?"
"In blood!" replied Pilar, with the energy of a tragic actress.
"Alas!" said the marquis to Lauriane under his breath, "that is only too true, I doubt not! My poor brother, you know!" And he added, aloud: "I wish to question this little soothsayer myself."
"Do so, monseigneur," said La Flèche. "Listen, black fly! and speak truly to a gentleman who is of much more consequence than you!"
Thereupon, the marquis, turning to Pilar, questioned her gently:
"Tell me, my poor little girl, what I have lost?"
"A son!" she replied.
"Don't laugh, neighbor," said the marquis to De Beuvre, "she tells the truth. He was like a son to me!"
And to Pilar:
"When did I lose him?"
"Eleven years and five months since."
"And how many days?"
"Less five days."
"She is mistaken there," said the marquis to Lucilio; "for I heard from him after the time she mentions; but let us see if she can read the rest."
Again he turned to the child.
"How did I lose him?" he asked.
"By a violent death!" she replied; "but you will have consolation."
"When?"
"Within three months, three weeks or three days."
"What sort of consolation?"
"Three sorts: vengeance, wisdom, a family."
"A family? Am I to be married, pray?"
"No; you will be a father!"
"Really?" cried the marquis, undisturbed by Monsieur de Beuvre's hearty laughter. "When shall I be a father?"
"Within three months, three weeks or three days. I have told everything about you, and I want to rest."
The sitting was suspended with a deluge of jests showered by Monsieur de Beuvre on the marquis.
In order that the predicted advent of an heir should take place within three months, three weeks or three days, three women must have "received the order."
The poor marquis was so well aware of the contrary that all his faith in magic was destroyed.
He submitted to be made fun of, protesting his innocence, but not over desirous that they should believe it to be so absolute as it really was.
The child asked leave to prepare her conjurations for the last token.
It was D'Alvimar's pebble.
But in order that the reader may understand what follows, it is necessary that he should know what Pilar and her master, La Flèche, had agreed upon.
What La Flèche knew and wished to impart to Bois-Doré, he expected to have the child divulge when D'Alvimar was not present. The child, from caprice and vanity, refused to adhere to the agreement made between them. She insisted upon reciting her whole lesson, even though she had to suffer for it, and though La Flèche might lose his life or his liberty.
It may be that these perils, in which, as she well knew, she could involve him, sharpened her instincts of hate.
So she spoke as she chose, despite the warning gestures and grimaces of her master, who could say nothing to her in Spanish which D'Alvimar would not understand.
She picked up the stone, examined the signs that surrounded it, pretended to make a computation, and said in Spanish, threateningly and with appalling vehemence:
"Woe and disgrace to him whose token fell on the red star!"
"Bravo!" said D'Alvimar, with a nervous, forced laugh; "go on, filthy creature! Go on, go on, progeny of dogs, offscouring of the earth, tell us the decrees of heaven!"
Pilar, angered by these insults, became so wild that she terrified all who saw her, even La Flèche himself.
"Blood and murder!" she shrieked, jumping up and down with convulsive gestures; "murder and damnation! blood, blood, blood!"
"All this for me?" said D'Alvimar, unable to conceal his terror at that moment.
"For you! for you!" cried the frenzied creature, "and death and hell! soon, instantly, within three months, three weeks or three days! damned! damned! hell!"
"Enough! enough!" said Bois-Doré, who understood but little Spanish, but who saw that D'Alvimar was pale and on the verge of swooning; "this child is possessed of a bad devil, and it may be that it is sinful to listen to her."
"Yes, monsieur," rejoined D'Alvimar, "doubtless she is possessed of the devil, and her threats are vain and beneath contempt, for hell is powerless against the will of God; but if I were châtelain and dispenser of justice here, I would throw this brigand and this vile worm into prison, and I would hand them over to——"
"La la!" said Monsieur de Beuvre, "there is no reason for being so angry. I don't know what was said to you, but I am surprised that you ended by sneering at it. However, I agree that this mad young monkey's gusts of temper are a disgusting comedy, and I see that my daughter is disturbed by them. Come, knave," he said to La Flèche, "we have had enough. Keep the tokens, if all consent, and go and get yourself hanged elsewhere."
La Flèche had not awaited this permission to decamp. He was in great haste to elude the Spaniard's benevolent designs in respect to him.
Little Pilar was not at all disturbed. On the contrary, she picked up the gold and silver pieces which had served as tokens, and when she came to D'Alvimar's stone she threw it disdainfully at his feet. He was so angered that he would perhaps have treated her as he did the young wolf, had he still the weapon of which he had made such prompt and deadly use.
But when he involuntarily felt for it, he found nothing, and Lauriane, who was watching him, congratulated herself upon having disarmed him. He met her eyes and made haste to smile; then he tried to change the conversation, and Bois-Doré asked Lucilio for an air on the bagpipe to dispel the unpleasant effect of this episode, while La Flèche, carrying his great basket on his head and his instruments of magic under his arm, and dragging along with the other hand the little sybil, still quivering from head to foot, hastily passed the drawbridge and portcullis.
"Now will you give me something to eat?" she said, when they were in the open country.
"No, you did your work too badly."
"I am hungry."
"So much the better!"
"I am hungry, I can't walk any more."
"Into your cage you go, then!"
And he put her in the basket, despite her resistance, and ran away with her at full speed.
The unfortunate creature's shrieks died away without echo in the vast plain.
"Mario! Mario!" she wailed in a voice broken by sobs; "I want to see Mario. Villain! assassin! You promised that I should see Mario, who used to give me things to eat and play with me, and his mother, who kept me from being beaten! Mercedes! Mario! come to help me! Kill him! he is hurting me, he is shaking me, he is killing me, he is starving me to death! Damnation on him! death and blood and murder! The lash, the stake, the wheel, hell itself for the wicked!"
While the gypsy fled toward the north, the marquis, with D'Alvimar and Lucilio, rode in the opposite direction toward Briantes. He was most anxious to tell his faithful Adamas of what he regarded as a happy issue of his enterprise; and, although he thought that he owed it to his love to indulge in a few stifled sighs of anxiety or impatience, he was by no means ill-pleased, taking everything into consideration, to have seven years before him in which to adopt a new matrimonial resolution.
D'Alvimar was in a very bad humor, not only because of the predictions which had stirred his bile and disturbed his brain, but also because of the tranquil manner in which Madame de Beuvre had taken leave of him, while she had given both her little hands to the marquis, as she gayly promised him a visit on the second day following.
"Can it be possible," he thought, "that she has accepted that old man's gold pieces, and that I am supplanted by a rival of seventy?"
He was exceedingly desirous to question his host, to poke fun at him, to quarrel with him. But it was impossible to enter into conversation with Bois-Doré on that subject. The marquis bore himself with an air of discreet and modest triumph, which caused him to outdo himself in courteous attentions to his guest.
D'Alvimar was able to avenge himself for his discomfiture in no other way than by doing his best to splash Master Jovelin, who rode behind the marquis.
When they reached the château, as the supper hour had not arrived, he walked to the rectory to consult with Monsieur Poulain.
"Well, monsieur," said the trusty Adamas, as he removed his master's boots—in his capacity of homme de chambre he almost never left the château of Briantes—"well, monsieur, must we think about preparing the betrothal banquet?"
"To be sure, my friend. We must think about it at once."
"Really, monsieur? Well, I was sure of it, and I am so pleased that I don't know where I am. Just fancy, monsieur, that that red hackney whom you call Bellinde, and who would be better named Tisiphone——"
"Fie! fie, Adamas! You know that I do not like to hear one of the sex spoken of in a slighting manner. What new trouble is there between you?"
"Pardon me, my noble master, but the trouble is that that ill-tempered creature listens at doors, and that she knows of the step monsieur has taken to-day. Only a little while ago she was laughing about it like a cackling hen with that stupid housekeeper of the rector."
"How do you know that, Adamas?"
"I know it by magic, monsieur; but, at all events, I know it!"
"By magic? Since when have you been dabbling in the occult sciences?"
"I will tell you, monsieur. I have nothing to hide from you, but will you not deign to tell me first how you made your sentiments known to the peerless lady of your thoughts, and how she replied; for I am sure that nothing so eloquent was ever said under the heavens since the world was made, and I would like to be able to write as fast as Master Jovelin, so that I could put it on paper as monsieur repeats it to me."
"No, Adamas, no word of it shall ever issue from my mouth, sealed as it is by the oath of a loyal knight. I swore that I would not divulge the secret of my felicity. All that I can say to you, my friend, is to rejoice now with your master, and to hope with him in the future!"
"Then it is all arranged, is it, monsieur, and——"
Adamas was interrupted by a soft scratching, as of a cat, at the door.
"Ah!" he said, after he had looked out, "it is the child; he wants to bid you good-night.—Go away, my young friend, monseigneur will see you later; he is busy now."
"Yes, yes, Adamas, let him come again! I have something to say about children. Some very strange ideas on the subject of paternity came into my head yesterday. This freak is worthy of the lowest bourgeois! No! no! I am no longer the old bachelor who wanted to marry in hot haste, to have done with it. I am a young man, Adamas, yes, a young lover, a dandy, on my word, affectionately sentenced to prove his constancy by the test of time, to sigh and write poetry; in a word, to await, in the torments and ecstasies of hope, the good pleasure of my sovereign."
"If I understand rightly," said Adamas, "this jealous divinity mistrusts my master's fickle humor, and demands that he renounce all love-making!"
"Yes, yes, that is it, Adamas; that must be it! A little distrust! That is a fitting punishment for my wild youth; but I shall be so well able to prove my sincerity—Go to the door; he is still knocking!"
"What!" said Adamas seriously to Mario, opening the door slightly, "is it you again, my little imp? Did I not tell you to wait?"
"I have waited," Mario replied, in his soft voice—soft and caressing even in his mischief; "you told me to go away and come back. I went to the end of the next room, and now I have come back."
"The little rascal!" said the marquis; "let him come in.—Bonjour, my young friend; just come to kiss me, then play quietly with Fleurial. I have some important business to discuss with good Monsieur Adamas. Come, Adamas, the day after to-morrow I am to entertain my incomparable neighbor. We must be preparing for it; a little informal dinner, fourteen courses at the most."
"You shall have them, monsieur. Do you wish me to call the master-cook?"
"No, I do not like to order my repasts, and, however clean and neat the kitchen people may be, they always smell of the kitchen. Help me to plan——"
"What knife is that?" said Mario, very earnestly, as the marquis, always good-humored and momentarily preoccupied, held him between his legs and allowed him to ransack his pockets.
"Nothing, nothing," said the marquis, trying to recover the pledge that Lauriane had given him. "Give it back to me, my boy; children must not touch such things. They bite, you see! Give it to me!"
"Yes, yes, here it is!" said Mario; "but I saw what was written on it, and I know whose it is."
"You don't know what you are saying!"
"Yes, I do; I say that it belongs to the Spanish gentleman you call Villareal. Did he give it to you?"
"Come, come, what is this you are muttering? You are dreaming!"
"No, kind monsieur! I saw the device on the blade. It is in Spanish, and I know it very well; my mother Mercedes has one just like it, with the same device."
"What does the device mean?"
"I serve God.—S. A."
"What does S. A. mean?"
"They must be the initials of the man who owns the dagger. That is where they are usually put, in open work, near the hilt."
"I know that; but why do you say that this dagger belongs to the Spanish gentleman named Villareal?"
The child made no reply and seemed embarrassed. He was no longer under the Moorish woman's watchful and suspicious eye. He had said more than he ought, and he remembered her injunctions too late.
"Mon Dieu! monsieur," said Adamas, "children talk sometimes for the sake of talking without knowing what they say. Let us go back to the important subject. Your keeper, Père Andoche, brought in to-day a string of birds so fat that——"
"Yes, yes, you are right, my friend; let us arrange about the dinner. But, I don't know—I wonder how she had that Spanish dagger in the pocket of her skirt?"
"Who, monsieur?"
"Why, she, parbleu! Of whom else can I speak henceforth?"
"To be sure; I beg pardon, monsieur! Let us talk about the dagger. I supposed that it was a gift from Monsieur de Villareal, or that he had lent it to you. For it is the truth that it comes from him. Those letters S. A. are on his other weapons, which are very handsome, and which I noticed this morning while his servant was polishing them."
The marquis relapsed into meditation.
How did Lauriane obtain Villareal's dagger? She must have received it from him, since she had disposed of it as her own property.
In vain did he search the genealogical tree of the De Beuvres, he found there no name to which the initials S. A. could refer.
"Can it be," he said to himself, "that she made the same agreement with him that she afterward made with me?"
He consoled himself, however, by the thought that she apparently cared but little for the former compact, since she had sacrificed it to him; but there was none the less something incomprehensible in the episode, and the honest marquis was not yet foolish enough not to fear that he was the victim of some practical joke.
And then, what the child had said complicated the confusion in his mind, and he could not imagine what intrigue of destiny or mystification encompassed that dagger.
He was inclined to go to have an explanation at once with his guest; but he remembered that Lauriane had urged him to conceal her pledge and to let no one see it.
Adamas saw the anxiety on his master's brow and was touched by it.
"What is it, monsieur," he said, "what can your poor old Adamas do to relieve your perplexity?"
"I do not know, my friend. I would like to be able to divine how it happens that the Moor has a weapon like this, bearing the same device and the same initials."
Then, lowering his voice so that Mario could not hear:
"You told me, and it has seemed to me that that young woman was very honest. But can she have stolen this dagger from our guest? That is something that I cannot endure, that there should be thieving in my house."
Adamas instantly espoused his master's suspicions, especially as Mario, feeling that he had spoken heedlessly, was gliding out of the room on tiptoe, to avoid further questions. Adamas detained him.
"You have been telling us fairy tales, my pretty boy," said he, "and for that you deserve to lose my lord and master's favor. It is not true that your Mercedes has what you say she has, or——"
The marquis interrupted him, not wishing that the charge should be made before the child.
"Has your mother had the dagger a long time, my boy?" he said.
The child had passed some time with the gypsies, so he knew what stealing was. He was blest, moreover, with extraordinary shrewdness. He understood the suspicion he had brought on his adopted mother, and he preferred to disobey her rather than not justify her.
"Yes," he replied, "a very long time."
And, as he had assumed an exceedingly proud and self-assured air, the marquis and Adamas felt that they had in their hands a means of making him speak.
"Then it was Monsieur de Villareal who gave it to her?" said Adamas.
"Oh! no, he left it behind——"
"Where?" queried the marquis. "Come, you must tell us, or I shall have no more confidence in you, boy. Where did he leave it?"
"In my father's heart!" replied Mario, in whose eyes there shone an extraordinary light. He longed to pour out his heart; the mystery weighed heavily upon him; he had said the first word and he could not keep silent.
"Adamas," said the marquis, moved by a sudden, indefinable emotion, "close the doors, and do you, my child, come here and speak out. You are with friends, have no fear, we will defend you, we will see that you have justice. Tell me all that you know about your family?"
"If you love me," said the child, "you must punish Monsieur de Villareal, because he murdered my father."
"Murdered him?"
"Yes, Mercedes saw him!"
"When was that?"
"The day I was born, the day my mother died."
"Why did he murder him?"
"To get a lot of money and jewels that my father had."
"Robber and assassin!" said the marquis, looking at Adamas; "a man of quality! a friend of Guillaume d'Ars! Is it conceivable?"
"Monsieur," said Adamas, "children often invent stories, and I believe that this boy is making sport of us."
The blood rose in Mario's cheeks.
"I never tell a lie!" he said with touching vehemence. "Monsieur Anjorrant always said: 'That child is not at all untruthful.' My Mercedes always told me that I must never lie, but keep silent when I didn't wish to reply. Since you make me speak, I say what is true."
"He is right," exclaimed the marquis, "and I see that he has noble blood in his heart, the beautiful boy!—Say on, I believe you. Tell me what your father's name was."
"Ah! that I do not know."
"On your honor, my boy?"
"It is the truth," replied the child; "my mother's name was Marie, that is all I know, and that is why Monsieur Anjorrant gave me the name of Mario when he baptized me."
"But I remember that Mercedes said that the lady gave the curé a wedding ring," said Adamas; "she also spoke of a seal."
"Yes," said Mario, "the seal belonged to my father, there was a coat of arms on it: but it was stolen from us not long ago. As for the ring, neither Monsieur Anjorrant, nor my Mercedes, who is very clever, nor I, nor anybody has ever been able to open it. But there's something inside. My mother, who died without saying a word except her name, Marie, motioned to the curé to open her ring. She had not the strength to do it; but he could not."
"Go and get it," said the marquis, "perhaps we can do it."
"Oh! no," replied Mario in dismay; "my Mercedes won't like it, and, if she knows that I have spoken, she will be very sorry."
"But, after all, why does she conceal all this from us, who may be able to help her to find your family?"
"Because she thinks that you will listen to the Spaniard, and that he will kill her if he learns that she has recognized him."
"But does he not recognize her?"
"He never saw her, for she was hiding."
"Has she ever seen him since that terrible business?"
"No, never."
"And, after ten years, she feels sure that she can identify him! It is very doubtful."
"She says that she is sure of it, that he has grown hardly any older, that he is dressed in black as he was then; and she is very sure that his old servant is the same man who was with him then. Oh! she looked closely at them. When we met them three days ago, near another château not far from here——"
"Ah! yes," said the marquis, "tell us how she met him."
"He was with a kind, handsome young lord, whom I have since heard spoken of as Guillaume. Monsieur Guillaume had given a lot of money to the gypsies we were with. And suddenly, when the Spaniard looked very stern and was going to strike me, Mercedes said:
"'It is he! look! it is he! and the other, the old valet is the other!'
"And she ran after them to see them better, until Monsieur Guillaume told us that we annoyed him. Then Mercedes made some one ask him his name and his friend's name, so that we could pray for them, she said. But Monsieur Guillaume laughed at us, and the gypsies went off in another direction. My Mercedes let them go without us, and said to me:
"'We have your father's murderers, I promise you. We must find out their names.'
"Then we turned back and went to the château of La Motte to beg; and as they didn't pay much attention to us, Mercedes told me to listen to what the servants and the peasants said; and in that way we found out that the Spaniard was going to stay with the marquis, because the marquis had sent for his chariot and ordered his guest chamber to be prepared for a stranger. And then we talked with a shepherdess in a field near there. She told us:
"'The marquis is the kindest of men. You can go to pass the night at his château; he will treat you well. That's his château yonder.'
"So then we came here at once, and yesterday morning we saw the murderer again, the two murderers! And when I saw the letters on the pistols and the great sword that the servant had, and I said to Mercedes:
"'Show me the wicked knife that killed my poor papa; I think those are the same letters that are on it.'"
"And are you sure of it?" said the marquis.
"I am very sure; and you will see for yourself if Mercedes will show them to you."
"Where is she now?"
"With Monsieur Jovelin, whom she is very fond of because he jumped into the water for me."
"Jovelin absolutely must extort her secret from her," said the marquis to Adamas; "go, bring him here, that I may speak with him."
Adamas went out and soon returned to say that Jovelin would come at once. He had found him engaged in a very animated conversation with the Moor, she speaking Arabic, he writing down all that she said, and making many gestures which she seemed to understand.
"He motioned to me that he must not be interrupted," said Adamas; "I think, monsieur, that he is inducing her to tell the truth by gentleness and persuasion; let us not disturb him. He writes quickly, but she does not read very well, even in her own language, and it is wonderful to see how he makes himself understood with his hands. Be patient, monsieur; we shall soon find out something."
They waited a quarter of an hour, which to the marquis seemed a century.
Time was flying; the first bell had rung for supper. It would be necessary to sit at the table with Villareal, without having obtained any definite information.
The marquis was in a state of intense excitement. He kept rising and sitting down again, muttering to himself unintelligible words which sorely puzzled Adamas.
Mario, thinking that he was angry with him, stood apart in a corner, thoughtful and abashed. Fleurial, seeing his master's perplexity, gazed steadfastly at him, followed his every step and whined from time to time, wagging his tail, as if to say: "What is the matter, pray?"
At last Adamas ventured to put the question in words.
"Monsieur," he cried, "you have something in your mind which you are concealing from your servant, and in that way you make your trouble still more painful to him. Speak, monsieur, speak to old Adamas as you would to your night-cap; he will no more repeat what you say than your night-cap would, and it will relieve you so much."
"Adamas," replied Bois-Doré, "I greatly fear that I am mad; for there is something about this child and the story he tells us that excites me more than is natural. You must know that I had my fortune told by a gypsy to-day, and that she used some very obscure words, which may however be fully explained by the interest I feel for this poor little fellow. I was told, among other strange things, that I should be a father within three months, three weeks or three days. Now, as I swear to you, Adamas, that I can look forward to no direct paternity within so short a period, it is evident that I am to become a father by adoption. But another part of that prediction perplexes me even more: my brother's death was referred to as having taken place at exactly the same date that the Moor assigns for the death of this child's father. How can that be explained? The witch spoke in veiled, symbolical words, but she fixed that date clearly, computing the years, months and days that have passed since. And I made the same computation as I was riding home and I found that it carried me back to the very day of our King Henri's death. Come here, Mario; didn't you say that was the day?"
"But, monsieur," observed Adamas, "didn't you say yourself yesterday that Monsieur Florimond's last letter was dated at Genoa on the sixteenth of June?"
"True, my friend; but one may make a mistake in a date and put one month instead of another; that has happened to everybody."
"But, monsieur, isn't the city of Genoa, in Italy, very far from the place where this child puts his father's death?"
"Undoubtedly, my friend. I twist the probabilities in order to confirm the fortune-teller's words, and that is a whim for which I give you leave to rebuke me. But open the cupboard in which my brother's cherished records are kept, including that last letter which I have read so many times without fathoming its meaning."
"Mon Dieu! monsieur," said Adamas, opening the drawer and handing his master the letter, "you divined and understood clearly enough at the time everything that happened and was likely to happen. You heard from Monsieur Florimond very seldom, because of the weighty secret employments he had in the Italian courts, to which his master the Duc de Savoie sent him. He wrote of his journeys without telling you of their object, because he was forbidden to do that by the political party with which he acted, which was not always yours. This last letter tells you of other journeys to be undertaken after that from which he had just returned, and this is what he says to you in his very words: 'If you do not hear of me before autumn, do not be alarmed. My health is good and my personal affairs are not in bad condition.'—The date is evidently accurate, for he begins by saying: 'Monsieur and dear brother, doubtless you received my letter of January last; in the past five months——'"
"I know all that, Adamas, I know it by heart; and, nevertheless, when I went to Italy in 1611, to make personal inquiries for that poor brother of mine, from whom I had never heard again, I was told that he had never returned from a mission to Rome, on which he had set out fifteen months before. And, when I went to Rome, he had not been seen there for more than two years. I travelled all over Italy until late in 1612, without finding any trace of him, so that I finally concluded that he must have undertaken some long voyage, to the East or West Indies, on his own account, and that I should see him again some day; but at last I made up my mind that he had certainly been murdered by the brigands who infest Italy, or had perished in a storm at sea. He had not acquired great wealth in the Savoyard's service, although he never complained; and I think that he seldom had companions in his journeys. In the end I lost all hope of finding him, but not of learning his fate and avenging him if he was slain by treachery."
While the marquis and Adamas were talking thus, Mario, whose presence they had forgotten, had glided behind the marquis's chair.
He listened, and he looked closely at the letter Bois-Doré held in his hands. He could read very well, as we have said, even manuscript; but he was in dire perplexity, fearing lest he should make a mistake and should be accused again of speaking at random.
At last he felt almost perfectly sure of his facts, not only because of the handwriting, but because of the expressions used in the letter and of the peculiar coincidences.
"What!" he cried.
And he ran from the room, his heart swelling with determination and joy, scarcely heeded by the marquis, who was absorbed by his reflections.
Mario knew Master Jovelin's room, and he found his mother there, just about to withdraw without exhibiting the articles of which she was so jealous and distrustful a guardian.
Lucilio had been as profoundly impressed as the marquis by the coincidence of the date fixed in the child's mind by Abbé Anjorrant with that mentioned by the little gypsy as the date of Florimond's death. He had not the slightest belief in magic; but, as he was also struck by La Flèche's mention of the name of Mario, he feared that the marquis was the dupe of some juggling scheme.
He began to suspect the Moorish woman herself, and his first act, on returning to the château, was to send for her and question her in writing, with much conciseness and severity. He insisted that she should produce the ring and the letter from Monsieur Anjorrant of which she had spoken; and, although she felt profound respect and sympathy for him, as his persistence led her to fear the indirect intervention of D'Alvimar in this examination she was undergoing, she had taken refuge in agonized silence.
As soon as Mario appeared, her wounded heart gave vent in the complaint which it dared not address directly to Lucilio.
"Come, my poor child," she said, "we must go away from here, for we are accused of seeking to deceive and of having told a story that is not true. Come, let us go at once, so that they may know that we seek aid only from God and ourselves."
But Mario held her back.
"We have had enough of distrust," he said to her; "we must do what they ask, mother. Give me the letter and the ring! They are mine; I want them this moment!"
Lucilio was impressed by the child's vehemence, and the Moor, utterly dumbfounded, said nothing for several moments.
Never before had Mario spoken so to her; never had she detected in him the slightest tendency to independence; and now, in the most peremptory way, he ordered her to do his bidding.
She was afraid; she thought that some miracle had happened; all her strength of will vanished before the idea that fate had intervened. She took from her belt the sheepskin bag in which she had sewn the precious objects.
"That is not all, mother," said Mario; "I must have the knife too."
"You will not dare to touch it, boy! it is the knife that killed——"
"I know it; I have seen it before now. It is necessary that I should touch it, and I will touch it. Give it to me!"
Mercedes handed him the knife, and said, clasping her hands:
"If it is the evil spirit that guides my son's hand and tongue, we are lost, Mario!"
He did not listen to her, but, placing the little bag on Lucilio's table, hastily ripped it open with the dagger. He took from it the ring, which he placed on his thumb, and Abbé Anjorrant's letter to Monsieur Sully, of which he burst the seal and silk thread, to Mercedes's dire consternation.