Misset started up from his chair and leaned forward, his hands upon the arms.
"The King," said O"Toole; "to be sure, that makes a difference."
Gaydon asked quietly, "And what is the prize?"
"The Princess Clementina," said Wogan. "We are to rescue her from her prison in Innspruck."
Even Gaydon was startled.
"We four!" he exclaimed.
"We four!" repeated Misset, staring at Wogan. His mouth was open; his eyes started from his head; he stammered in his speech. "We four against a nation, against half Europe!"
O"Toole simply crossed to a corner of the room, picked up his sword and buckled it to his waist.
"I am ready," said he.
Wogan turned round in his chair and smiled.
"I know that," said he. "So are we all-all ready; is not that so, my friends? We four are ready." And he looked to Misset and to Gaydon. "Here"s an exploit, if we but carry it through, which even antiquity will be at pains to match! It"s more than an exploit, for it has the sanct.i.ty of a crusade. On the one side there"s tyranny, oppression, injustice, the one woman who most deserves a crown robbed of it. And on the other-"
"There"s the King," said Gaydon; and the three brief words seemed somehow to quench and sober Wogan.
"Yes," said he; "there"s the King, and we four to serve him in his need. We are few, but in that lies our one hope. They will never look for four men, but for many. Four men travelling to the shrine of Loretto with the Pope"s pa.s.sport may well stay at Innspruck and escape a close attention."
"I am ready," O"Toole repeated.
"But we shall not start to-night. There"s the pa.s.sport to be got, a plan to be arranged."
"Oh, there"s a plan," said O"Toole. "To be sure, there"s always a plan." And he sat down again heavily, as though he put no faith in plans.
Misset and Gaydon drew their chairs closer to Wogan"s and instinctively lowered their voices to the tone of a whisper.
"Is her Highness warned of the attempt?" asked Gaydon.
"As soon as I obtained the King"s permission," replied Wogan, "I hurried to Innspruck. There I saw Chateaudoux, the chamberlain of the Princess"s mother. Here is a letter he dropped in the cathedral for me to pick up."
He drew the letter from his fob and handed it to Gaydon. Gaydon read it and handed it to Misset. Misset nodded and handed it to O"Toole, who read it four times and handed it back to Gaydon with a flourish of the hand as though the matter was now quite plain to him.
"Chateaudoux has a sweetheart," said he, sententiously. "Very good; I do not think the worse of him."
Gaydon glanced a second time through the letter.
"The Princess says that you must have the Prince Sobieski"s written consent."
"I went from Innspruck to Ohlau," said Wogan. "I had some trouble, and the reason of my coming leaked out. The Countess de Berg suspected it from the first. She had a friend, an Englishwoman, Lady Featherstone, who was at Ohlau to outwit me."
"Lady Featherstone!" said Misset. "Who can she be?"
Wogan told them of his first meeting with Lady Featherstone on the Florence road, but he knew no more about her, and not one of the three knew anything at all.
"So the secret"s out," said Gaydon. "But you outstripped it."
"Barely," said Wogan. "Forty miles away I had last night to fight for my life."
"But you have the Prince"s written consent?" said Misset.
"I had last night, but I made a spill of it to light my pipe. There were six men against me. Had that been found on my dead body, why, there was proof positive of our attempt, and the attempt foiled by sure safeguards. As it is, if we lie still a little while, their fears will cease and the rumour become discredited."
Misset leaned across Gaydon"s arm and scanned the letter.
"But her Highness writes most clearly she will not move without that sure token of her father"s consent."
Wogan drew from his breast pocket a snuff-box made from a single turquoise.
"Here"s a token no less sure. It was Prince Sobieski"s New Year"s gift to me,-a jewel unique and in an unique setting. This must persuade her. His father, great King John of Poland, took it from the Grand Vizier"s tent when the Turks were routed at Vienna."
O"Toole reached out his hand and engulfed the jewel.
"Sure," said he, "it is a pretty sort of toy. It would persuade any woman to anything so long as she was promised it to hang about her neck. You must promise it to the Princess, but not give it to her-no, lest when she has got it she should be content to remain in Innspruck. I know. You must promise it."
Wogan bowed to O"Toole"s wisdom and took back the snuff-box. "I will not forget to promise it," said he.
"But here"s another point," said Gaydon. "Her Highness, the Princess"s mother, insists that a woman shall attend upon her daughter, and where shall we find a woman with the courage and the strength?"
"I have thought of that," said Wogan. "Misset has a wife. By the luckiest stroke in the world Misset took a wife this last spring."
There was at once a complete silence. Gaydon stared into the fire, O"Toole looked with intense interest at the ceiling, Misset buried his face in his hands. Wogan was filled with consternation. Was Misset"s wife dead? he asked himself. He had spoken lightly, laughingly, and he went hot and cold as he recollected the raillery of his words. He sat in his chair shocked at the pain which he had caused his friend. Moreover, he had counted surely upon Mrs. Misset.
Then Misset raised his head from his hands and in a trembling voice he said slowly, "My boy would only live to serve his King. Why should he not serve his King before he lives? My wife will say the like."
There was a depth of quiet feeling in his words which Wogan would never have expected from Misset; and the words themselves were words which he felt no man, no king, however much beloved, however generous to his servants, had any right to expect. They took Wogan"s breath away, and not Wogan"s only, but Gaydon"s and O"Toole"s, too. A longer silence than before followed upon them. The very simplicity with which they had been uttered was startling, and made those three men doubt at the first whether they had heard aright.
O"Toole was the first to break the silence.
"It is a strange thing that there never was a father since Adam who was not absolutely sure in his heart that his first-born must be a boy. When you come to think philosophically about it, you"ll see that if fathers had their way the world would be peopled with sons with never a bit of a la.s.s in any corner to marry them."
O"Toole"s reflection, if not a reason for laughter, made a pretext for it, at which all-even Misset, who was a trifle ashamed of his display of feeling-eagerly caught. Wogan held his hand out and clasped Misset"s.
"That was a great saying," said he, "but so much sacrifice is not to be accepted."
Misset, however, was firm. His wife, he said, though naturally timid, could show a fine spirit on occasion, and would never forgive one of them if she was left behind. He argued until a compromise was reached. Misset should lay the matter openly before his wife, and the four crusaders, to use Wogan"s term, would be bound by her decision.
"So you may take it that matter"s settled," said Misset. "There will be five of us."
"Six," said Wogan.
"There"s another man to join us, then," said Gaydon. "I have it. Your servant, Marnier."