Neither; and I gripped my fellow"s arm, as he came abreast of me, and stopped him sharply. Below us in the middle of a steep hollow, a pit in the hill-side, a light shone out through some aperture and quivered on the mist, like the pale lamp of a moorland hobgoblin. It made itself visible, displaying nothing else; a wisp of light in the bottom of a black bowl. Yet my spirits rose with a great bound at sight of it; for I knew that I had stumbled on the place I sought.
In the common run of things I should have weighed my next step carefully, and gone about it slowly. But here was no place for thought, nor room for delay; and I slid down the side of the hollow on the instant, and the moment my feet touched the bottom sprang to the door of the little hut, whence the light issued. A stone turned under my feet in my rush, and I fell on my knees on the threshold; but the fall only brought my face to a level with the face of the man who lay inside on a bed of fern. He had been reading. Startled by the sound I made, he dropped his book, and in a flash stretched out his hand for a weapon.
But the muzzle of my pistol covered him, he was not in a posture from which he could spring, and at a sharp word from me he dropped his hand; the tigerish glare which flickered for an instant in his eyes gave place to a languid smile, and he shrugged his shoulders.
"EH BIEN!," he said with marvellous composure. "Taken at last! Well, I was tired of it."
"You are my prisoner, M. de Cocheforet," I answered. "Move a hand and I kill you. But you have still a choice."
"Truly?" he said, raising his eyebrows.
"Yes. My orders are to take you to Paris alive or dead. Give me your parole that you will make no attempt to escape, and you shall go thither at your ease and as a gentleman. Refuse, and I shall disarm and bind you, and you go as a prisoner."
"What force have you?" he asked curtly. He still lay on his elbow, his cloak covering him, the little Marot in which he had been reading close to his hand. But his quick black eyes, which looked the keener for the pallor and thinness of his face, roved ceaselessly over me, probed the darkness behind me, took note of everything.
"Enough to compel you, Monsieur," I replied sternly; "but that is not all. There are thirty dragoons coming up the hill to secure you, and they will make you no such offer. Surrender to me before they come, and give me your parole, and I will do all I can for your comfort. Delay, and you must fall into their hands. There can be no escape."
"You will take my word?" he said slowly.
"Give it, and you may keep your pistols, M. de Cocheforet."
"Tell me at least that you are not alone."
"I am not alone."
"Then I give it," he said with a sigh. "And for Heaven"s sake get me something to eat and a bed. I am tired of this pig-sty. MON DIEU! it is a fortnight since I slept between sheets."
"You shall sleep to-night in your own house, if you please," I answered hurriedly. "But here they come. Be good enough to stay where you are for a moment, and I will meet them."
I stepped out into the darkness, just as the Lieutenant, after posting his men round the hollow, slid down with a couple of sergeants to make the arrest. The place round the open door was pitch-dark. He had not espied my man, who had lodged himself in the deepest shadow of the hut, and when he saw me come out across the light he took me for Cocheforet. In a twinkling he thrust a pistol into my face, and cried triumphantly,--"You are my prisoner!" while one of the sergeants raised a lanthorn and threw its light into my eyes.
"What folly is this?" I said savagely.
The Lieutenant"s jaw fell, and he stood for a moment paralysed with astonishment. Less than an hour before he had left me at the Chateau.
Thence he had come hither with the briefest delay; yet he found me here before him. He swore fearfully, his face black, his moustachios stiff with rage.
"What is this? What is it?" he cried. "Where is the man?"
"What man?" I said.
"This Cocheforet!" he roared, carried away by his pa.s.sion. "Don"t lie to me! He is here, and I will have him!"
"You are too late," I said, watching him heedfully. "M. de Cocheforet is here, but he has already surrendered to me, and is my prisoner."
"Your prisoner?"
"Certainly!" I answered, facing the man with all the harshness I could muster. "I have arrested him by virtue of the Cardinal"s commission granted to me. And by virtue of the same I shall keep him."
"You will keep him?"
"I shall!"
He stared at me for a moment, utterly aghast; the picture of defeat.
Then on a sudden I saw his face lighten with, a new idea.
"It is a d--d ruse!" he shouted, brandishing his pistol like a madman.
"It is a cheat and a fraud! By G.o.d! you have no commission! I see through it! I see through it all! You have come here, and you have hocussed us! You are of their side, and this is your last shift to save him!"
"What folly is this?" I said contemptuously.
"No folly at all," he answered, perfect conviction in his tone. "You have played upon us. You have fooled us. But I see through it now. An hour ago I exposed you to that fine Madame at the house there, and I thought it a marvel that she did not believe me. I thought it a marvel that she did not see through you, when you stood there before her, confounded, tongue-tied, a rogue convicted. But I understand now. She knew you. She was in the plot, and you were in the plot, and I, who thought that I was opening her eyes, was the only one fooled. But it is my turn now. You have played a bold part and a clever one," he continued, a sinister light in his little eyes," and I congratulate you.
But it is at an end now, Monsieur. You took us in finely with your talk of Monseigneur, and his commission and your commission, and the rest.
But I am not to be blinded any longer--or bullied. You have arrested him, have you? You have arrested him. Well, by G--, I shall arrest him, and I shall arrest you too."
"You are mad!" I said staggered as much by this new view of the matter as by his perfect certainty. "Mad, Lieutenant."
"I was," he snarled. "But I am sane now. I was mad when you imposed upon us, when you persuaded me to think that you were fooling the women to get the secret out of them, while all the time you were sheltering them, protecting them, aiding them, and hiding him--then I was mad. But not now. However, I ask your pardon. I thought you the cleverest sneak and the dirtiest hound Heaven ever made. I find you are cleverer than I thought, and an honest traitor. Your pardon."
One of the men, who stood about the rim of the bowl above us, laughed. I looked at the Lieutenant and could willingly have killed him.
"MON DIEU!" I said--and I was so furious in my turn that I could scarcely speak. "Do you say that I am an impostor--that I do not hold the Cardinal"s commission?"
"I do say that," he answered coolly.
"And that I belong to the rebel party?"
"I do," he replied in the same tone. "In fact," with a grin, "I say that you are an honest man on the wrong side, M. de Berault. And you say that you are a scoundrel on the right. The advantage, however, is with me, and I shall back my opinion by arresting you."
A ripple of coa.r.s.e laughter ran round the hollow. The sergeant who held the lanthorn grinned, and a trooper at a distance called out of the darkness "A BON CHAT BON RAT!" This brought a fresh burst of laughter, while I stood speechless, confounded by the stubbornness, the cra.s.sness, the insolence of the man. "You fool!" I cried at last, "you fool!" And then M. de Cocheforet, who had come out of the hut and taken his stand at my elbow, interrupted me.
"Pardon me one moment," he said, airily, looking at the Lieutenant with raised eyebrows and pointing to me with his thumb, "but I am puzzled between you. This gentleman"s name? Is it de Berault or de Barthe?"
"I am M. de Berault," I said, brusquely, answering for myself.
"Of Paris?"
"Yes, Monsieur, of Paris."
"You are not, then, the gentleman who has been honouring my poor house with his presence?"
"Oh, yes!" the Lieutenant struck in, grinning. "He is that gentleman, too."
"But I thought--I understood that that was M. de Barthe!"
"I am M. de Barthe, also," I retorted impatiently. "What of that, Monsieur? It was my mother"s name. I took it when I came down here."
"To--er--to arrest me, may I ask?"
"Yes," I said, doggedly; "to arrest you. What of that?"