CHAPTER XIX. MEN CALL IT CHANCE.
If I were telling more than the truth, or had it in my mind to embellish my adventures, I could, doubtless, by the exercise of a little ingenuity make it appear that I owed my escape from Father Antoine's meshes to my own craft; and tell, en fin, as pretty a story of plots and counterplots as M. de Brantome has ever woven. Having no desire, however, to magnify myself and, at this time of day, scarcely any reason, I am fain to confess that the reverse was the case; and that while no man ever did less to free himself than I did, my adversary retained his grasp to the end, and had surely, but for a strange interposition, effected my ruin. How relief came, and from what quarter, I might defy the most ingenious person, after reading my memoirs to this point, to say; and this not so much by reason of any subtle device, as because the hand of Providence was for once directly manifest.
The three days of grace which the priest had granted I passed in anxious but futile search for some means of escape, every plan I conceived dying stillborn, and not the least of my miseries lying in the fact that I could discern no better course than still to sit and think, and seemed doomed to perpetual inaction. M. de Rambouillet being a strict Catholic, though in all other respects a patriotic man, I knew better than to have recourse to him; and the priest's influence over M. d'Agen I had myself witnessed. For similar reasons I rejected the idea of applying to the king; and this exhausting the list of those on whom I had any claim, I found myself thrown on my own resources, which seemed limited-my wits failing me at this pinch-to my sword and Simon Fleix.
Assured that I must break out of Blois if I would save not myself only, but others more precious because entrusted to my charge, I thought it no disgrace to appeal to Simon; describing in a lively fashion the danger which threatened us, and inciting the lad by every argument which I thought likely to have weight with him to devise some way of escape.
Now is the time, my friend,' I said, 'to show your wits, and prove that M. de Rosny, who said you had a cunning above the ordinary, was right. If your brain can ever save your head, now is the time! For I tell you plainly, if you cannot find some way to outmanoeuvre this villain before to-morrow, I am spent. You can judge for yourself what chance you will have of going free.'
I paused at that, waiting for him to make some suggestion. To my chagrin he remained silent, leaning his head on his hand, and studying the table with his eyes in a sullen fashion; so that I began to regret the condescension I had evinced in letting him be seated, and found it necessary to remind him that he had taken service with me, and must do my bidding.
'Well,' he said morosely, and without looking up, 'I am ready to do it. But I do not like priests, and this one least of all. I know him, and I will not meddle with him.'
'You will not meddle with him?' I cried, almost beside myself with dismay.
'No, I won't,' he replied, retaining his listless attitude. 'I know him, and I am afraid of him. I am no match for him.'
'Then M. de Rosny was wrong, was he?' I said, giving way to my anger.
'If it please you,' he answered pertly.
This was too much for me. My riding-switch lay handy, and I snatched it up. Before he knew what I would be at, I fell upon him, and gave him such a sound wholesome drubbing as speedily brought him to his senses. When he cried for mercy-which he did not for a good space, being still possessed by the peevish devil which had ridden him ever since his departure from Rosny-I put it to him again whether M. de Rosny was not right. When he at last admitted this, but not till then, I threw the whip away and let him go, but did not cease to reproach him as he deserved.
'Did you think,' I said, 'that I was going to be ruined because you would not use your lazy brains? That I was going to sit still, and let you sulk, while mademoiselle walked blindfold into the toils? Not at all, my friend!'
'Mademoiselle!' he exclaimed, looking at me with a sudden change of countenance, end ceasing to rub himself and scowl, as he had been doing. 'She is not here, and is in no danger.'
'She will be here to-morrow, or the next day,' I said.
You did not tell me that!' he replied, his eyes glittering. 'Does Father Antoine know it?'
'He will know it the moment she enters the town,' I answered.
Noting the change which the introduction of mademoiselle's name into the affair had wrought in him, I felt something like humiliation. But at the moment I had no choice; it was my business to use such instruments as came to my hand, and not, mademoiselle's safety being at stake, to pick and choose too nicely. In a few minutes our positions were reversed. The lad had grown as hot as I cold, as keenly excited as I critical. When he presently came to a stand in front of me, I saw a strange likeness between his face and the priest's; nor was I astonished when he presently made just such a proposal as I should have expected from Father Antoine himself.
'There is only one thing for it,' he muttered, trembling all over. 'He must be got rid of!'
'Fine talking!' I said, contemptuously. 'If he were a soldier he might be brought to it. But he is a priest, my friend, and does not fight.'
'Fight? Who wants him to fight?' the lad answered, his face dark, his hands moving restlessly. 'It is the easier done. A blow in the back, and he will trouble us no more.'
'Who is to strike it?' I asked drily.
Simon trembled and hesitated; but presently, heaving a deep sigh, he said, 'I will.'
'It might not be difficult,' I muttered, thinking it over.
'It would be easy,' he answered under his breath. His eyes shone, his lips were white, and his long dark hair hung wet over his forehead.
I reflected, and the longer I did so the more feasible seemed the suggestion. A single word, and I might sweep from my path the man whose existence threatened mine; who would not meet me fairly, but, working against me darkly and treacherously, deserved no better treatment at my hands than that which a detected spy receives. He had wronged my mother; he would fain destroy my friends!
And, doubtless, I shall be blamed by some and ridiculed by more for indulging in scruples at such a time. But I have all my life long been prejudiced against that form of underhand violence which I have heard old men contend came into fashion in our country in modern times, and which certainly seems to be alien from the French character. Without judging others too harshly, or saying that the poniard is never excusable-for then might some wrongs done to women and the helpless go without remedy-I have set my face against its use as unworthy of a soldier. At the time, moreover, of which I am now writing the extent to which our enemies had lately resorted to it tended to fix this feeling with peculiar firmness in my mind; and, but for the very desperate dilemma in which I stood at the moment-and not I alone-I do not think that I should have entertained Simon's proposal for a minute.
As it was, I presently answered him in a way which left him in no doubt of my sentiments. 'Simon, my friend,' I said-and I remember I was a little moved-'you have something still to learn, both as a soldier and a Huguenot. Neither the one nor the other strikes at the back.'
'But if he will not fight?' the lad retorted rebelliously. 'What then?'
It was so clear that our adversary gained an unfair advantage in this way that I could not answer the question. I let it pass, therefore, and merely repeating my former injunction, bade Simon think out another way.
He promised reluctantly to do so, and, after spending some moments in thought, went out to learn whether the house was being watched.
When he returned, his countenance wore so new an expression that I saw at once that something had happened. He did not meet my eye, however, and did not explain, but made as if he would go out again, with something of confusion in his manner. Before finally disappearing, however, he seemed to change his mind once more; for, marching up to me where I stood eyeing him with the utmost astonishment, he stopped before me, and suddenly drawing out his hand, thrust something into mine.
'What is it, man?' I said mechanically.
'Look!' he answered rudely, breaking silence for the first time. 'You should know. Why ask me? What have I to do with it?'
I looked then, and saw that he had given me a knot of velvet precisely similar is shape, size, and material to that well-remembered one which had aided me so opportunely in my search for mademoiselle. This differed from that a little in colour, but in nothing else, the fashion of the bow being the same, and one lappet hearing the initials 'C. d. l. V.,' while the other had the words, 'A moi.' I gazed at it in wonder. 'But, Simon,' I said, 'what does it mean? Where did you get it?'
'Where should I get it?' he answered jealously. Then, seeming to recollect himself, he changed his tone. 'A woman gave it to me in the street,' he said.
I asked him what woman.
'How should I know?' he answered, his eyes gleaming with anger. 'It was a woman in a mask.'
'Was it Fanchette?' I said sternly.
'It might have been. I do not know,' he responded.
I concluded at first that mademoiselle and her escort had arrived in the outskirts of the city, and that Maignan had justified his reputation for discretion by sending in to learn from me whether the way was clear before he entered. In this notion I was partly confirmed and partly shaken by the accompanying message; which Simon, from whom every scrap of information had to be dragged as blood from a stone, presently delivered.
'You are to meet the sender half an hour after sunset to-morrow evening,' he said, 'on the Parvis at the north-east corner of the cathedral.'
'To-morrow evening?'
'Yes, when else?' the lad answered ungraciously. 'I said to-morrow evening.'
I thought this strange. I could understand why Maignan should prefer to keep his charge outside the walls until he heard from me, but not why he should postpone a meeting so long. The message, too, seemed unnecessarily meagre, and I began to think Simon was still withholding something.
'Was that all?' I asked him.
'Yes, all,' he answered, 'except-'
'Except what?' I said sternly.