"Will you come and drink?" asked the scholar.
This proposition calmed the captain.
"I"m willing, but I have no money."
"But I have!"
"Bah! let"s see it!"
Jehan spread out the purse before the captain"s eyes, with dignity and simplicity. Meanwhile, the archdeacon, who had abandoned the dumbfounded Charmolue where he stood, had approached them and halted a few paces distant, watching them without their noticing him, so deeply were they absorbed in contemplation of the purse.
Phoebus exclaimed: "A purse in your pocket, Jehan! "tis the moon in a bucket of water, one sees it there but "tis not there. There is nothing but its shadow. Pardieu! let us wager that these are pebbles!"
Jehan replied coldly: "Here are the pebbles wherewith I pave my fob!"
And without adding another word, he emptied the purse on a neighboring post, with the air of a Roman saving his country.
"True G.o.d!" muttered Phoebus, "targes, big-blanks, little blanks, mailles,* every two worth one of Tournay, farthings of Paris, real eagle liards! "Tis dazzling!"
* An ancient copper coin, the forty-fourth part of a sou or the twelfth part of a farthing.
Jehan remained dignified and immovable. Several liards had rolled into the mud; the captain in his enthusiasm stooped to pick them up. Jehan restrained him.
"Fye, Captain Phoebus de Chateaupers!"
Phoebus counted the coins, and turning towards Jehan with solemnity, "Do you know, Jehan, that there are three and twenty sous parisis! whom have you plundered to-night, in the Street Cut-Weazand?"
Jehan flung back his blonde and curly head, and said, half-closing his eyes disdainfully,--
"We have a brother who is an archdeacon and a fool."
"_Corne de Dieu_!" exclaimed Phoebus, "the worthy man!"
"Let us go and drink," said Jehan.
"Where shall we go?" said Phoebus; ""To Eve"s Apple.""
"No, captain, to "Ancient Science." An old woman sawing a basket handle*; "tis a rebus, and I like that."
* _Une vielle qui scie une anse_.
"A plague on rebuses, Jehan! the wine is better at "Eve"s Apple"; and then, beside the door there is a vine in the sun which cheers me while I am drinking."
"Well! here goes for Eve and her apple," said the student, and taking Phoebus"s arm. "By the way, my dear captain, you just mentioned the Rue Coupe-Gueule* That is a very bad form of speech; people are no longer so barbarous. They say, Coupe-Gorge**."
* Cut-Weazand Street.
** Cut-Throat Street.
The two friends set out towards "Eve"s Apple." It is unnecessary to mention that they had first gathered up the money, and that the archdeacon followed them.
The archdeacon followed them, gloomy and haggard. Was this the Phoebus whose accursed name had been mingled with all his thoughts ever since his interview with Gringoire? He did not know it, but it was at least a Phoebus, and that magic name sufficed to make the archdeacon follow the two heedless comrades with the stealthy tread of a wolf, listening to their words and observing their slightest gestures with anxious attention. Moreover, nothing was easier than to hear everything they said, as they talked loudly, not in the least concerned that the pa.s.sers-by were taken into their confidence. They talked of duels, wenches, wine pots, and folly.
At the turning of a street, the sound of a tambourine reached them from a neighboring square. Dom Claude heard the officer say to the scholar,--
"Thunder! Let us hasten our steps!"
"Why, Phoebus?"
"I"m afraid lest the Bohemian should see me."
"What Bohemian?"
"The little girl with the goat."
"La Smeralda?"
"That"s it, Jehan. I always forget her devil of a name. Let us make haste, she will recognize me. I don"t want to have that girl accost me in the street."
"Do you know her, Phoebus?"
Here the archdeacon saw Phoebus sneer, bend down to Jehan"s ear, and say a few words to him in a low voice; then Phoebus burst into a laugh, and shook his head with a triumphant air.
"Truly?" said Jehan.
"Upon my soul!" said Phoebus.
"This evening?"
"This evening."
"Are you sure that she will come?"
"Are you a fool, Jehan? Does one doubt such things?"
"Captain Phoebus, you are a happy gendarme!"
The archdeacon heard the whole of this conversation. His teeth chattered; a visible shiver ran through his whole body. He halted for a moment, leaned against a post like a drunken man, then followed the two merry knaves.
At the moment when he overtook them once more, they had changed their conversation. He heard them singing at the top of their lungs the ancient refrain,--