The man and myself were alone together to maintain the fight which, having once entered, and being roused to the mood of contest, I had no thought of discontinuing now that Mlle. d"Arency was out of immediate danger. It had reached a place at which it could be terminated only by the disarming, the death, or the disabling of one of us.
I gradually acquired the power of knowing all my opponent"s movements, despite the darkness. I supposed that he was equipped with dagger as well as with sword, but as he made no move to draw the shorter weapon, I did not have recourse to mine. Though I would not take an advantage over him, even in the circ.u.mstances, yet I was not willing to be at a disadvantage.
Therefore, as he was not enc.u.mbered with cloak or mantle, I employed a breathing moment to tear off my own cloak and throw it aside, not choosing to use it on my left arm as a shield unless he had been similarly guarded.
So we lunged and parried in the darkness, making no sound but by our heavy breathing and an occasional e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n and the tramping of our feet, the knocking of our bodies against unseen pieces of furniture, and the clashing of our blades when they met. Each of us fenced cautiously at times, and at times took chances recklessly.
Finally, in falling back, he came to a sudden stop against a table, and the collision disturbed for an instant his control over his body. In that instant I felt a soft resistance encounter my sword and yield to it. At once, with a feeling of revulsion, I drew my sword out of the casing that his flesh had provided, and stood back. Something wet and warm sprinkled my face. The man gave a low moan and staggered sideways over towards the window. Then he plunged forward on his face. I stooped beside him and turned him over on his back, wetting my gloves with the blood that gushed from his wound and soaked his doublet. At that moment a splash of moonlight appeared on the floor, taking the shape of the window. His head and shoulders lay in this illumined s.p.a.ce. I sprang back in horror, crying out his name:
"De Noyard! My G.o.d, it is you!"
"Yes, monsieur," he gasped, "it is De Noyard. I have been trapped. I ought to have suspected."
"But I do not understand, monsieur. Surely you could not have attacked Mlle. d"Arency?"
"Attacked her! I came here by her appointment!"
"But her cry for help?"
"It took me by complete surprise. There was a knock on the door--"
"Yes,--mine. I, too, came by her appointment!"
"Mademoiselle instantly put out the light and began to scream. I thought that the knock frightened her; then that she was mad. I followed to calm her. You entered; you know the rest."
"But what does it mean?"
"Can you not see?" he said, with growing faintness. "We have been tricked,--I, by her pretense of love and by this appointment, to my death; you, by a similar appointment and her screams, to make yourself my slayer. I ought to have known! she belongs to Catherine, to the Queen-mother. Alas, monsieur! easily fooled is he who loves a woman!"
Then I remembered what De Rilly had told me,--that De Noyard"s counsels to the Duke of Guise were an obstacle to Catherine"s design of conciliating that powerful leader, who aspired to the throne on which her son was seated.
"No, no, monsieur!" I cried, unwilling to admit Mlle. d"Arency capable of such a trick, or myself capable of being so duped. "It cannot be that; if they had desired your death, they would have hired a.s.sa.s.sins to waylay you."
Yet I knew that he was right. The strange request that Mlle. d"Arency had made of me in the church was now explained.
A kind of smile appeared, for a moment, on De Noyard"s face, struggling with his expression of weakness and pain.
"Who would go to the expense of hiring a.s.sa.s.sins," he said, "when honest gentlemen can be tricked into doing the work for nothing? Moreover, when you hire a.s.sa.s.sins, you take the risk of their selling your secret to the enemy. They are apt to leave traces, too, and the secret instigator of a deed may defeat its object by being found out."
"Then I have to thank G.o.d that you are not dead. You will recover, monsieur."
"I fear not, my son. I do not know how much blood I lose at every word I speak. _Parbleu_! you have the art of making a mighty hole with that toy of yours, monsieur!"
This man, so grave and severe in the usual affairs of life, could take on a tone of pleasantry while enduring pain and facing death.
"Monsieur," I cried, in great distress, "you must not die. I will save you. I shall go for a surgeon. Oh, my G.o.d, monsieur, tell me what to do to save your life!"
"You will find my lackeys, two of them, at the cabaret at the next corner. It is closed, but knock hard and call for Jacques. Send him to me, and the other for a surgeon."
De Noyard was manifestly growing weaker, and he spoke with great difficulty. Not daring to trust to any knowledge of my own as to immediate or temporary treatment of his wound, I made the greatest haste to follow his directions. I ran out of the chamber, down the stairs, and out to the street, finding the doors neither locked nor barred, and meeting no human being. Mlle. d"Arency and her companion had silently disappeared.
I went, in my excitement, first to the wrong corner. Then, discovering my blunder, I retraced my steps, and at last secured admittance to the place where De Noyard"s valets tarried.
To the man who opened the door, I said, "Are you Jacques, the serving-man of Monsieur de Noyard?"
"I am n.o.body"s serving man," was the reply, in a tone of indignation; but a second man who had come to the door spoke up, "I am Jacques."
"Hallo, Monsieur de la Tournoire," came a voice from a group of men seated at a table. "Come and join us, and show my friends how you fellows of the French Guards can drink!"
It was De Rilly, very merry with wine.
"I cannot, De Rilly," I replied, stepping into the place. "I have very important business elsewhere." Then I turned to Jacques and said, quietly, "Go, at once, to your master, and send your comrade for a surgeon to follow you there. Do you know the house in which he is?"
The servant made no answer, but turned pale. "Come!" he said to another servant, who had joined him from an obscure corner of the place. The two immediately lighted torches and left, from which fact I inferred that Jacques knew where to find his master.
"What is all this mystery?" cried De Rilly, jovially, rising and coming over to me, while the man who had opened the door, and who was evidently the host, closed it and moved away. "Come, warm yourself with a bottle!
Why, my friend, you are as white as a ghost, and you look as if you had been perspiring blood!"
"I must go, at once, De Rilly. It is a serious matter."
"Then hang me if I don"t come, too!" he said, suddenly sobered, and he grasped his cloak and sword. "That is, unless I should be _de trop_."
"Come. I thank you," I said; and we left the place together.
"Whose blood is it?" asked De Rilly, as we hurried along the narrow street, back to the house.
"That of M. de Noyard."
"What? A duel?"
"A kind of duel,--a strange mistake!
"The devil! Won"t the Queen-mother give thanks! And won"t the Duke of Guise be angry!"
"M. de Noyard is not dead yet. His wound may not be fatal."
I led the way into the house and up the steps to the apartment. It was now lighted up by the torch which Jacques had brought. De Noyard was still lying in the position in which he had been when I left him. The servant stood beside him, looking down at his face, and holding the torch so as to light up the features.
"How do you feel now, monsieur?" I asked, hastening forward.
There was no answer. The servant raised his eyes to me, and said, in a tone of unnatural calmness, "Do you not see that he is dead, M. de la Tournoire?"
Horror-stricken, I knelt beside the body. The heart no longer beat; the face was still,--the eyes stared between unquivering lids, in the light of the torch.
"Oh, my G.o.d! I have killed him!" I murmured.
"Come away. You can do nothing here," said De Rilly, quietly. He caught me by the shoulder, and led me out of the room.
"Let us leave this neighborhood as soon as possible," he said, as we descended the stairs. "It is most unfortunate that the valet knows your name. He heard me speak it at the tavern, and he will certainly recall also that I hailed you as one of the French Guards."