"Good," said the marquis, apparently labouring under tremendous excitement. "You ask me to give you, or sell you, or loan you my secret for military balloons. My answer is, "No!""
The Emperor"s face did not change as he said, "I ask it for your country, not for myself, monsieur."
"And I will give it to my country, not to you!" said the marquis, violently.
Jack looked at the Emperor. He noticed his unkempt hair brushed forward, his short thumbs pinching the table-cloth, his closed eyes.
The Marquis de Nesville took a step towards him.
"Does your majesty remember the night that Morny lay dying in the shadows? And that horrible croak from the darkness when he raised himself on one elbow and gasped, "Sire, prenez garde a la Prusse!" Then he died. That was all--a warning, a groan, the death-rattle in the shadows by the bed. Then he died."
The Emperor never moved.
""Look out for Prussia!" That was Morny"s last gasp. And now?
Prussia is there, you are here! And you need aid, and you send for me, and I tell you that my secrets are for my country, not for you! No, not for you--you who said, "It is easy to govern the French, they only need a war every four years!" Now--here is your war! Govern!"
The Emperor"s slow eyes rested a moment on the man before him.
But the man, trembling, pallid with pa.s.sion, clenched his hands and hurled an insult at the Emperor through his set teeth: "Napoleon the Little! Listen! When you have gone down in the crash of a rotten throne and a blood-bought palace, then, when the country has shaken this--this thing--from her bent back, then I will give to my country all I have! But never to you, to save your name and your race and your throne--never!"
He fairly frothed at the lips as he spoke; his eyes blazed.
"Your coup-d"etat made me childless! I had a son, fairer than yours, who lies asleep in there--brave, gentle, loving--a son of mine, a De Nesville! Your bribed troops killed him--shot him to death on the boulevards--him among the others--so that you could sit safely in the Tuileries! I saw them--those piled corpses! I saw little children stabbed to death with bayonets, I saw the heaped slain lying before Tortoni"s, where the whole street was flooded crimson and the gutters rippled blood! And you? I saw you ride with your lancers into the Rue Saint-Honore, and when you met the barricade you turned pale and rode back again! I saw you; I was sitting with my dead boy on my knees--I saw you--"
With a furious cry the marquis tore a revolver from his pocket and sprang on the Emperor, and at the same instant Jack seized the crazy man by the shoulders and hurled him violently to the floor.
Stunned, limp as a rag, the marquis lay at the Emperor"s feet, his clenched hands slowly relaxing.
The Emperor had not moved.
Scarcely knowing what he did, Jack stooped, drew the revolver from the extended fingers, and laid it on the table. Then, with a fearful glance at the Emperor, he dragged the marquis to the door, opened it with a shove of his foot, and half closed it again.
The aide-de-camp stood there, staring at the prostrate man.
"Here, help me with him to his carriage; he is ill," panted Jack--"lift him!"
Together they carried him out to the terrace, and down the steps to a coupe that stood waiting.
"The marquis is ill," said Jack again; "put him to bed at once.
Drive fast."
Before the sound of the wheels died away Jack hastened back to the dining-room. Through the half-opened door he peered, hesitated, turned away, and mounted the stairs slowly to his own chamber.
In the dining-room the lamp still burned dimly. Beside it sat the Emperor, head bent, picking absently at the table-cloth with short, shrunken thumbs.
XV
THE INVASION OF LORRAINE
It was not yet dawn. Jack, sleeping with his head on his elbow, shivered in his sleep, gasped, woke, and sat up in bed. There was a quiet footfall by his bed, the sc.r.a.pe of a spur, then silence.
"Is that you, Mr. Grahame?" he asked.
"Yes; I didn"t mean to wake you. I"m off. I was going to leave a letter to thank you and Madame de Morteyn--"
"Are you dressed? What time is it?"
"Four o"clock--twenty minutes after. It"s a shame to rouse you, my dear fellow."
"Oh, that"s all right," said Jack. "Will you strike a light--there are candles on my dresser. Ah, that"s better."
He sat blinking at Grahame, who, booted and spurred and b.u.t.toned to the chin, looked at him quizzically.
"You were not going off without your coffee, were you?" asked Jack. "Nonsense!--wait." He pulled a bell-rope dangling over his head. "Now that means coffee and hot rolls in twenty minutes."
When Jack had bathed and shaved, operations he executed with great rapidity, the coffee was brought, and he and Grahame fell to by candle-light.
"I thought you were afoot?" said Jack, glancing at the older man"s spurs.
"I"m going to hunt up a horse; I"m tired of this eternal tramping," replied Grahame. "h.e.l.lo, is this package for me?"
"Yes, there"s a cold chicken and some things, and a flask to keep you until you find your Hohenzollern Regiment again."
Grahame rose and held out his hand. "Good-by. You"ve been very kind, Marche. Will you say, for me, all that should be said to Madame de Morteyn? Good-by once more, my dear fellow. Don"t forget me--I shall never forget you!"
"Wait," said Jack; "you are going off without a safe-conduct."
"Don"t need it; there"s not a French soldier in Morteyn."
"Gone?" stammered Jack--"the Emperor, General Frossard, the army--"
"Every mother"s son of them, and I must hurry--"
Their hands met again in a cordial grasp, then Grahame slipped noiselessly into the hallway, and Jack turned to finish dressing by the light of his cl.u.s.tered candles.
As he stood before the quaintly wrought mirror, fussing with studs and b.u.t.tons, he thought with a shudder of the scene of the night before, the marquis and his murderous frenzy, the impa.s.sive Emperor, the frantic man hurled to the polished floor, stunned, white-cheeked, with hands slowly relaxing and fingers uncurling from the glittering revolver.
Lorraine"s father! And he had laid hands on him and had flung him senseless at the feet of the Man of December! He could scarcely b.u.t.ton his collar, his fingers trembled so. Perhaps he had killed the Marquis de Nesville. Sick at heart, he finished dressing, b.u.t.toned his coat, flung a cap on his head, and stole out into the darkness.
On the terrace below he saw a groom carrying a lantern, and he went out hastily.
"Saddle Faust at once," he said. "Have the troops all gone?"
"All, monsieur; the last of the cavalry pa.s.sed three hours ago; the Emperor drove away half an hour later with Lulu--"
"Eh?"