"He was just awaking, your excellency."
"Well, sire," I said, smiling, "this accounts, I think, for your dream of the house that fell, and the beam that lay on your chest."
It would have been difficult to say whether at this the King looked more foolish or more relieved. Whichever the sentiment he entertained, however, it was quickly cut short by a lamentable cry that drove the blood from our cheeks. La Trape was in another paroxysm. "Oh, the poor man!" Henry cried.
"I suppose that the cat came in unseen," I said; "with him last night, and then stayed in the room?"
"Doubtless."
"And was seized with a paroxysm here?"
"Such as he has now!" Henry answered; for La Trape had fallen to the floor. "Such as he has now!" he repeated, his eyes flaming, his face pale. "Oh, my friend, this is too much. Those who do these things are devils, not men. Where is Du Laurens? Where is the doctor? He will perish before our eyes."
"Patience, sire," I said. "He will come."
"But in the meantime the man dies."
"No, no," I said, going to La Trape, and touching his hand. "Yet, he is very cold." And turning, I sent the page to hasten the doctor. Then I begged the King to allow me to have the man conveyed into another room.
"His sufferings distress you, sire, and you do him no good," I said.
"No, he shall not go!" he answered. "Ventre Saint Gris! man, he is dying for me! He is dying in my place. He shall die here."
Still ill satisfied, I was about to press him farther, when La Trape raised his voice, and feebly asked for me. A page who had taken the other"s place was supporting his head, and two or three of my gentlemen, who had come in unbidden, were looking on with scared faces.
I went to the poor fellow"s side, and asked what I could do for him.
"I am dying!" he muttered, turning up his eyes. "The doctor! the doctor!"
I feared that he was pa.s.sing, but I bade him have courage. "In a moment he will be here," I said; while the King in distraction sent messenger on messenger.
"He will come too late," the sinking man answered. "Excellency?"
"Yes, my good fellow," I said, stooping that I might hear him the better.
"I took ten pistoles yesterday from a man to get him a scullion"s place; and there is none vacant."
"It is forgiven," I said, to soothe him.
"And your excellency"s favourite hound, Diane," he gasped. "She had three puppies, not two. I sold the other."
"Well, it is forgiven, my friend. It is forgiven. Be easy," I said kindly.
"Ah, I have been a villain," he groaned. "I have lived loosely. Only last night I kissed the butler"s wench, and--"
"Be easy, be easy," I said. "Here is the doctor. He will save you yet."
And I made way for M. Du Laurens, who, having saluted the King, knelt down by the sick man, and felt his pulse; while we all stood round, looking down on the two with grave faces. It seemed to me that the man"s eyes were growing dim, and I had little hope. The King was the first to break the silence. "You have hope?" he said. "You can save him?"
"Pardon, sire, a moment," the physician answered, rising from his knees. "Where is the cat?"
Someone brought it, and M. Du Laurens, after looking at it, said curtly, "It has been poisoned."
La Trape uttered a groan of despair. "At what hour did it take the milk?" the physician asked.
"A little before ten last evening," I said, seeing that La Trape was too far gone for speech.
"Ah! And the man?"
"An hour later."
Du Laurens shook his head, and was preparing to lay down the cat, which he had taken in his hands, when some appearance led him to examine it again and more closely. "Why what is this?" he exclaimed, in a tone of surprise, as he took the body to the window. "There is a large swelling under its chin."
No one answered.
"Give me a pair of scissors," he continued; and then, after a minute, when they had been handed to him and he had removed the fur, "Ha!" he said gravely, "this is not so simple as I thought. The cat has been poisoned, but by a p.r.i.c.k with some sharp instrument."
The King uttered an exclamation of incredulity. "But it drank the milk," he said. "Some milk that--"
"Pardon, sire," Du Laurens answered positively. "A draught of milk, however drugged, does not produce an external swelling with a small blue puncture in the middle."
"What does?" the King asked, with something like a sneer.
"Ah, that is the question," the physician answered. "A ring, perhaps, with a poison-chamber and hollow dart."
"But there is no question of that here," I said. "Let us be clear. Do you say that the cat did not die of the milk?"
"I see no proof that it did," he answered. "And many things to show that it died of poison administered by puncture."
"But then," I answered, in no little confusion of thought, "what of La Trape?"
He turned, and with him all eyes, to the unfortunate equerry, who still lay seemingly moribund, with his head propped on some cushions. M. Du Laurens advanced to him and again felt his pulse, an operation which appeared to bring a slight tinge of colour to the fading cheeks. "How much milk did he drink?" the physician asked after a pause.
"More than half a pint," I answered.
"And what besides?"
"A quant.i.ty of the King"s posset, and a little lemonade."
"And for supper? What did you have?" the leech continued, addressing himself to his patient.
"I had some wine," he answered feebly. "And a little Frontignac with the butler; and some honey-mead that the gipsy-wench gave me.
"The gipsy-wench?"
"The butler"s girl, of whom I spoke."
M. Du Laurens rose slowly to his feet, and, to my amazement, dealt the prostrate man a hearty kick; bidding him at the same time to rise.
"Get up, fool! Get up," he continued harshly, yet with a ring of triumph in his voice, "all you have got is the colic, and it is no more than you deserve. Get up, I say, and beg his Majesty"s pardon!"
"But," the King remonstrated in a tone of anger, "the man is dying!"