IV
_The three men in the window_
I tore the cloth from my head and sprang up. I was in pitch-darkness. Idashed against the door to no avail. Feeling the walls, I discoveredmyself to be in a small, empty closet. With all my force I flung myselfonce more upon the door. It stood firm.
"Dame! but I have got into a pickle," I thought.
They were no ghosts, at all events. Scared as I was, I rejoiced at that.I could cope with men, but who can cope with the devil? These might bevillains--doubtless were, skulking in this deserted house,--yet withreadiness and pluck I could escape them.
It was as hot as a furnace in my prison, and as still as the grave. Themen, who seemed by their footsteps to be several, had gone cautiouslydown the stairs after caging me. Evidently I had given them a finefright, clattering through the house as I had, and even now they werelooking for my accomplices.
It seemed hours before the faintest sound broke the stillness. If everyou want to squeeze away a man's cheerfulness like water from a rag,shut him up alone in the dark and silence. He will thank you to take himout into the daylight and hang him. In token whereof, my heart welcomedlike brothers the men returning.
They came into the room, and I thought they were three in number. Iheard the door shut, and then steps approached my closet.
"Have a care now, monsieur; he may be armed," spoke the rough voice of aman without breeding.
"Doubtless he carries a culverin up his sleeve," sneered the deep tonesof my captor.
Some one else laughed, and rejoined, in a clear, quick voice:
"Natheless, he may have a knife. I will open the door, and do you lookout for him, Gervais."
I had a knife and had it in my hand, ready to charge for freedom. Butthe door opened slowly, and Gervais looked out for me--to the effectthat my knife went one way and I another before I could wink. I reeledagainst the wall and stayed there, cursing myself for a fool that I hadnot trusted to fair words instead of to my dagger.
"Well done, my brave Gervais!" cried he of the vivid voice--a tallfair-haired youth, whom I had seen before. So had I seen the stalwartblackbeard, Gervais. The third man was older, a common-looking fellowwhose face was new to me. All three were in their shirts on account ofthe heat; all were plain, even shabby, in their dress. But the two youngmen wore swords at their sides.
The half-opened shutters, overhanging the court, let plenty of lightinto the room. It had two straw beds on the floor and a few old chairsand stools, and a table covered with dishes and broken food andwine-bottles. More bottles, riding-boots, whips and spurs, two or threehats and saddle-bags, and various odds and ends of dress littered thefloor and the chairs. Everything was of mean quality except the bearingof the two young men. A gentleman is a gentleman even in the RueCoupejarrets--all the more, maybe, in the Rue Coupejarrets. These twowere gently born.
The low man, with scared face, held off from me. He whose name wasGervais confronted me with an angry scowl. Yeux-gris alone--for so Idubbed the third, from his gray eyes, well open under darkbrows--Yeux-gris looked no whit alarmed or angered; the only emotion tobe read in his face was a gay interest as the blackavised Gervais put mequestions.
"How came you here? What are you about?"
"No harm, messieurs," I made haste to protest, ruing my stupidity withthat dagger. "I climbed in at a window for sport. I thought the housewas deserted."
He clutched my shoulder till I could have screamed for pain.
"The truth, now. If you value your life you will tell the truth."
"Monsieur, it is the truth. I came in idle mischief; that was the wholeof it. I had no notion of breaking in upon you or any one. They said thehouse was haunted."
"Who said that?"
"Maitre Jacques, at the Amour de Dieu."
He stared at me in surprise.
"What had you been asking about this house?"
Yeux-gris, lounging against the table, struck in:
"I can tell you that myself. He told Jacques he saw us in the windowlast night. Did you not?"
"Aye, monsieur. The thunder woke me, and when I looked out I saw youplain as day. But Maitre Jacques said it was a vision."
"I flattered myself I saw you first and got that shutter closed veryneatly," said Yeux-gris. "Dame! I am not so clever as I thought. So oldJacques called us ghosts, did he?"
"Yes, monsieur. He told me this house belonged to M. de Bethune, who wasa Huguenot and killed in the massacre."
Yeux-gris burst into joyous laughter.
"He said my house belonged to the Bethunes! Well played, Jacques! Youowe that gallant lie to me, Gervais, and the pains I took to make himthink us Navarre's men. He is heart and soul for Henri Quatre. Did hesay, perchance, that in this very courtyard Coligny fell?"
"No," said I, seeing that I had been fooled and had had all my terrorsfor naught, and feeling much chagrined thereat. "How was I to know itwas a lie? I know naught about Paris. I came up but yesterday from St.Quentin."
"St. Quentin!" came a cry from the henchman. With a fierce "Be quiet,fool!" Gervais turned to me and demanded my name.
"Felix Broux."
"Who sent you here?"
"Monsieur, no one."
"You lie."
Again he gripped me by the shoulder, gripped till the tears stood in myeyes.
"No one, monsieur; I swear it."
"You will not speak! I'll make you, by Heaven."
He seized my thumb and wrist to bend one back on the other, torture withstrength such as his. Yeux-gris sprang off the table.
"Let alone, Gervais! The boy's honest."
"He is a spy."
"He is a fool of a country boy. A spy in hobnailed shoes, forsooth! Nospy ever behaved as he has. I said when you first seized him he was nospy. I say it again, now I have heard his story. He saw us by chance,and Maitre Jacques's bogy story spurred him on instead of keeping himoff. You are a fool, my cousin."
"Pardieu! it is you who are the fool," growled Gervais. "You will bringus to the rope with your cursed easy ways. If he is a spy it means thewhole crew are down upon us."
"What of that?"
"Pardieu! is it nothing?"
Yeux-gris returned with a touch of haughtiness:
"It is nothing. A gentleman may live in his own house."
Gervais looked as if he remembered something. He said much lessboisterously:
"And do you want Monsieur here?"
Yeux-gris flushed red.
"No," he cried. "But you may be easy. He will not trouble himself tocome."
Gervais regarded him silently an instant, as if he thought of severalthings he did not say. What he did say was: "You are a pair of fools,you and the boy. Whatever he came for, he has spied on us now. He shallnot live to carry the tale of us."
"Then you have me to kill as well!"
Gervais turned on him snarling. Yeux-gris laid a hand on his sword-hilt.
"I will not have an innocent lad hurt. I was not bred a ruffian," hecried hotly. They glared at each other. Then Yeux-gris, with a suddenexclamation, "Ah, bah, Gervais!" broke into laughter.
Now, this merriment was a heart-warming thing to hear. For Gervais wastaking the situation with a seriousness that was as terrifying as it wasstupid. When I looked into his dogged eyes I could not but think the endof me might be near. But Yeux-gris's laugh said the very notion wasridiculous; I was innocent of all harmful intent, and they weregentlemen, not cutthroats.
"Messieurs," I said, "I swear by the blessed saints I am what I toldyou. I am no spy, and no one sent me here. Who you are, or what you do,I know no more than a babe unborn. I belong to no party and am no man'sman. As for why you choose to live in this empty house, it is not myconcern and I care no whit about it. Let me go, messieurs, and I willswear to keep silence about what I have seen."
"I am for letting him go," said Yeux-gris.
Gervais looked doubtful, the most encouraging attitude toward me he hadyet assumed. He answered:
"If he had not said the n
ame--"
"Stuff!" interrupted Yeux-gris. "It is a coincidence, no more. If hewere what you think, it is the very last name he would have said."
This was Greek to me; I had mentioned no names but Maitre Jacques's andmy own. And he was their friend.
"Messieurs," I said, "if it is my name that does not please you, why, Ican say for it that if it is not very high-sounding, at least it is anhonest one and has ever been held so down where we live."
"And that is at St. Quentin," said Yeux-gris.
"Yes, monsieur. My father, Anton Broux, is Master of the Forest to theDuke of St. Quentin."
He started, and Gervais cried out:
"Voila! who is the fool now?"
My nerves, which had grown tranquil since Yeux-gris came to my rescue,quivered anew. The common man started at the very word St. Quentin, andthe masters started when I named the duke. Was it he whom they hadspoken of as Monsieur? Who and what were they? There was more in thisthan I had thought at first. It was no longer a mere question of myliberty. I was all eyes and ears for whatever information I couldgather.
Yeux-gris spoke to me, for the first time gravely:
"This is not a time when folks take pleasure-trips to Paris. Whatbrought you?"
"I used to be Monsieur's page down at St. Quentin," I answered, deemingthe straight truth best. "When we learned that he was in Paris, myfather sent me up to him. I reached the city last night, and lay at theAmour de Dieu. This morning I went to the duke's hotel, but the guardwould not let me in. Then, when Monsieur drove out I tried to get speechwith him, but he would have none of me."
The bitterness I felt over my rebuff must have been in my voice andface, for Gervais spoke abruptly:
"And do you hate him for that?"
"Nay," said I, churlishly enough. "It is his to do as he chooses. But Ihate the Comte de Mar for striking me a foul blow."
"The Comte de Mar!" exclaimed Yeux-gris.
"His son."
"He has no son."
"But he has, monsieur. The Comte de--"
"He is dead," said Yeux-gris.
"Why, we knew naught--" I was beginning, when Gervais broke in:
"You say the fellow's honest, when he tells such tales as this! He sawthe Comte de Mar--!"
"I thought it must be he," I protested. "A young man who sat byMonsieur's side, elegant and proud-looking, with an aquiline face--"
"That is Lucas, that is his secretary," declared Yeux-gris, as whoshould say, "That is his scullion."
Gervais looked at him oddly a moment, then shrugged his shoulders anddemanded of me:
"What next?"
"I came away angry."
"And walked all the way here to risk your life in a haunted house?Pardieu! too plain a lie."
"Oh, I would have done the like; we none of us fear ghosts in thedaytime," said Yeux-gris.
"You may believe him; I am no such fool. He has been caught in two lies;first the Bethunes, then the Comte de Mar. He is a clumsy spy; theymight have found a better one. Not but what that touch aboutill-treatment at Monsieur's hand was well thought of. That wasMonsieur's suggestion, I warrant, for the boy has talked like a doltelse."
"I am no liar," I cried hotly. "Ask Jacques whether he did not tell meabout the Bethunes. It is his lie, not mine. I did not know the Comte deMar was dead, and this Lucas of yours is handsome enough for a count. Icame here, as I told you, in curiosity concerning Maitre Jacques'sstory. I had no idea of seeing you or any living man. It is the truth,monsieur."
"I believe you," Yeux-gris answered. "You have an honest face. You cameinto my house uninvited. Well, I forgive it, and invite you to stay. Youshall be my valet."
"He shall be nobody's valet," Gervais cried.
The gray eyes flashed, but their owner rejoined lightly:
"You have a man; surely I should have one, too. And I understand theservices of M. Felix are not engaged."
"Mille tonnerres! you would take this spy--this sneak--"
"As I would take M. de Paris, if I chose," responded Yeux-gris, with acold hauteur that smacked more of a court than of this shabby room. Headded lightly again:
"You think him a spy, I do not. But in any case, he must not blab of us.Therefore he stays here and brushes my clothes. Marry, they need it."
Easily, with grace, he had disposed of the matter. But I said:
"Monsieur, I shall do nothing of the kind."
"What!" he cried, as if the clothes-brush itself had risen in rebellion,"what! you will not."
"No," said I.
"And why not?" he demanded, plainly thinking me demented.
"Because I know you are against the Duke of St. Quentin."
Whatever they had thought me, neither expected that speech.
"I am no spy or sneak," said I. "It is true I came here by chance; it istrue Monsieur turned me off this morning. But I was born on his land andI am no traitor. I will not be valet or henchman for either of you, if Idie for it."
I was like to die for it. For Gervais whipped out his sword and sprangfor me. I thought I saw Yeux-gris's out, too, when Gervais struck meover the head with his sword-hilt. The rest was darkness.
The Helmet of Navarre Page 5