"Where you appear to have made free with the duke"s cellar, eh?"
"It is not so, monsieur," burst in the girl; "neither he nor we have done that. The wine you have drunk was a gift from madame the d.u.c.h.ess."
There was truth in every line of her features, in the fierce little gesture with which she turned upon me in defence of her lover. I was sorry to let my tongue bite so hard, and said so, and went on with my inquiries.
"And from Anet you came here?"
"It is but a stone-throw," Nicholas answered, "and I had a business in hand. After which we were going away."
Whilst he was speaking Marie lit a lantern, and I saw that my ex-sergeant was evidently in the lowest water. He had been a smart soldier, but was now unkempt and dirty, and his eye had the shifty look of a hunted animal. He wore a rusty corselet and a rustier chain cap on his head, drawn over a bandage that covered his ears. As my eye fell on the bandage I called to mind the mutilation that had been inflicted on him, a brand that had cast him out of the pale of all honest men. Nicholas watched my glance, and ground his teeth with rage.
"I will kill him," he hissed, "kill him like the dog he is. Monsieur, that was my business!"
"Then de Gomeron----"
"Is but an hour"s ride away, monsieur--at Anet."
"At Anet! What does he do there?"
"Monsieur," he answered hoa.r.s.ely, taking me by the sleeve of my doublet, "I know not; but a fortnight ago he came here with a score of lances at his back and the King"s commission in his pocket, and he lords it as if he were the duke himself. Yesterday a great n.o.ble came up from the Blaisois, and another whose name I know not has come from Paris; and they hatch treason against the King. Monsieur, I can prove this. You saved my life once, and, beast as I am now, I am still grateful. Come with me. I will settle my score with him; and to-morrow you can bear news to the court that will make you a great man."
It was one of those moments that require instant decision. I was certainly not going to a.s.sist Nicholas in committing a murder. Any such plan of his could be easily stopped, but if what the man said was true, then he had given me information that might be of the greatest value to me. If it was false--well then, I should have a fool"s errand for my pains, but be otherwise none the worse off. There was no time to question him in detail; for a second I was silent, and Marie looked from one to another of us with wide-open eyes.
"You have a horse?" I asked.
"Yes, monsieur. It is hidden in the forest not three hundred toises from here."
"We are ready. Monsieur le Chevalier," and Jacques" voice broke in upon us, Jacques himself standing in the doorway. My mind was made up that instant, and I decided to take the chance.
"Jacques," I said, "I have business here to-night, which must be done alone. Ride on therefore yourself to Rouvres and await me at the _Grand Cerf_. If anyone tries to hinder you, say that you ride for your master in the King"s name. If I am not at Rouvres by morning, make your way to Septeuil. If I do not arrive in two days, go home and do the best you can for yourself. You follow?
"Monsieur."
"Adieu, then; and Marie, here is something as a wedding portion for you," and I thrust a handful of gold pieces into her palm, and, being moved by many things, added: "When this is over, you and Nicholas go to Auriac. I will arrange for you there."
The girl stared blankly at me for a moment, then suddenly caught my hand and kissed it, and then with a rapid movement flung herself into her lover"s arms.
"No," she said, "no; take back your gift, monsieur. He will not go."
"Nonsense, Marie," and Nicholas gently released her arms. "I have come back to you to mend my ways, and must begin by paying my debts. Come, monsieur."
CHAPTER VI
"GREEN AS A JADE CUP"
We pa.s.sed the lacework of trees that bordered the skirts of the forest, Nicholas and I. On our left we could hear the drumming of a horse"s hoofs growing fainter and more faint, as Jacques rode through the night to Rouvres. Marie"s wailing came to us from behind, and Nicholas, who was walking doggedly along by the neck of my horse, stopped short suddenly and looked back. Turning in my saddle I looked back too, and there she was, in shadowy outline, at the ruined gates of the inn, and again her sobbing cry came to us.
"_Morbleu!_" I muttered to myself as I saw Nicholas" face twitch in the moonlight; "I must end this at once," and then sharply to my companion, "What stays you? Pick your heart up, man! One would think you go into the bottomless pit, you walk with so tender a foot!"
"I don"t know what is in the bottomless pit, monsieur, and, like other fools, would probably go there on the run; but I do know the mercy of M. de Gomeron, and--I am not wont to be so, but my heart is as heavy as lead."
"Very well; then let us go back. It is like to be a fool"s errand with such a guide."
My words, and the tone they were uttered in, touched him on the raw, and he swung round.
"I will go, monsieur; this way--to the right."
We turned sharply behind the silently waving arms of a hedge of hornbeam, and it was a relief to find that this cut away all further chance of seeing the pitiful figure at the gates of the inn. Nicholas drew the folds of his frayed cloak over his head, as if to shut out all sound, and hurried onwards--a tall figure, lank and dark, that flitted before me within the shadow of the hedgerow. My horse"s knees were hidden by the undergrowth on either side of the winding track, that twined and twisted like a snake under the tangle of gra.s.s and weed. This waste over which we pa.s.sed, grey-green in the moonlight, and swaying in the wind, rolled like a heaving, sighing sea to where it was brought up abruptly by the dark ma.s.s of the forest, standing up solidly against the sky as though it were a high coast line. As we forced our way onwards, the swish of the gra.s.s was as the churning of water at the bows of a boat, and one could well imagine that the long, shaking plashes of white, mottling the moving surface before us, was caused by the breaking of uneasy water into foam. Of a truth these white plashes were but marguerites.
From the warm, dark depths at our feet myriads of gra.s.shoppers shrilled to each other to be of good cheer, and ever and again we heard the sudden plunge and bustle of a startled hare, as it scuttered away in a mad fear at nothing.
"You count your toises long here, Nicholas," I remarked, for something to say, as we spattered in and out of a shallow pool; and the gnats, asleep on its surface, rose in a brown cloud, and hummed their anger about our ears.
"They are as we reckon them, monsieur. But a few steps further and we will get my horse; and after that there is no difficulty, for I know each track and byepath of these woods."
"And I wager that many a fat buck has dropped here to your arquebus on moonlight nights such as this."
"One does not learn the forest for nothing, M. le Chevalier; but the bucks fell lawfully enough. My grandfather came here as huntsman to Madame Diane; my father succeeded him, and I had followed my father; but for the war----"
"And a smart soldier you made. I remember that when I cut you down from a nasty position I had not time then to hear how you came in such plight. How was it? Tell me the truth."
"I have almost forgotten how to do so. I will try, however, and make it short. When M. le Marquis bore you off after the duel and the escape of the prisoners, the Captain de Gomeron turned on me, and, d.a.m.ning me from head to toe, swore he would flay me to ribbons.
Feeling sure he would do so, and careless of the consequences, I answered back--with the result you know. Marked as I was, it was useless to seek employment anywhere, and then I became what I am, and will end on the wheel."
"I don"t think so," I said; but he interrupted,
"At any rate not before I have paid my debt, and the bill presses."
I had purposely worked up to this.
"See here, sergeant," I said, "no nonsense. Brush off that bee you have on your head. You are here to-day to attend to my business, not your own. You say you are sick of your present life. Well, I have means to give you another chance, and I will do so; but I repeat again "no nonsense." You understand?"
He stood silently for a moment, looking this way and that. We were within a yard or so of the forest, and its shadow covered him, all but his face, which was turned to me, drawn and white. He was struggling against old habits of absolute obedience, and they won.
"I understand, M. le Chevalier."
"Very well, then, go on, and remember what I have said."
He turned and stepped forwards; "This way, and mind the branches overhead," and we entered the forest, my horse leaping a shallow ditch that separated it from the gra.s.s land. We took a soft turf-covered path, overhung by branches, and went on for about fifty paces before coming to a halt, which we did in a small irregular patch of trees that lay in the full flood of the moonlight. In the darkness beyond I heard the gentle murmur of a small spring, and then the distinct movement of a heavy body and the clink of iron. My hand reached to my holster in a flash, but Nicholas saw the gesture, and said, "It is the horse. A moment, monsieur," and lifting up the curtain of leaves beside him, from which, as he did so, the dew fell in a soft shower, he dived into the thicket, to reappear again leading the long black length of his horse. It struck me at once that the beast was of uncommon size, and this, and the white star on its forehead, brought to my mind the recollection of de Rone"s great English charger, Couronne.
"_Harnibleu!_" I burst out; "you seem to be in the lowest water, and here you have a horse worth a hundred pistoles at the least!"
"Did you see her by daylight, monsieur, you would know that twice a hundred pistoles would not purchase her. Do you not know her, M. le Chevalier? This is Couronne, M. de Rone"s charger!"
"Couronne! I thought so. And how the devil do you come by her?"