An Enemy To The King

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An unexpected sight met our eyes. M. de Berquin stood with his back to a
rear door, his arms extended, as if to prevent the departure of the lady,
who stood facing him, in the attitude of shrinking back from him. She
still wore her mask. Beside her stood her maid, who darted looks of
indignation at the smiling De Berquin. These three were the only ones in
the kitchen.

"I do not know you, monsieur!" the lady was saying, in a low voice of
great beauty.

"Death of my life! But you shall know me, mademoiselle," replied De
Berquin, who had not noticed the entrance of myself and Blaise; "for I
intend to guard you from harm on the rest of your journey, whether you
will or not!"

Blaise shot at me a glance of interrogation. To keep up our assumed
characters, it was for him, not me, to interfere in behalf of this lady;
yet he dared not act without secret direction from me. But I forgot our
pretence and hastened forward, my hand on my sword-hilt.

"I fear monsieur is annoying mademoiselle," I said, gently, assuming that
De Berquin had been correct in addressing her as mademoiselle.

Startled at the voice of a newcomer, the three turned and looked at me in
surprise. Blaise, at a loss as to what he ought to do, remained in the
background.

"But," I added, "monsieur will not do so again for the present."

De Berquin took me in at a glance, and, deceived by my dress, said
carelessly, "Go to the devil!" Then, turning from me to Blaise, as one
turns from an inferior to an equal, he remarked:

"You have a most impudent servant, monsieur!"

Blaise, embarrassed by the situation, and conscious that the curious eyes
of the lady and the maid were upon him, could only shrug his shoulders in
reply. The maid, whom he had so much admired, turned to her mistress with
a look of astonishment at his seeming indifference. Seeing this, Blaise
became very red in the face.

It was I who answered De Berquin, and with the words:

"And your servant, if you have one, has a most impudent master."

De Berquin turned pale with rage at the insulting allusion to his
somewhat indigent appearance.

"Your master shall answer for your impertinence!" he cried, drawing his
sword and making for Blaise.

In an instant my own sword was out, and I was barring his way.

"Let _us_ argue the matter, monsieur!" said I.

"_Peste_!" he hissed. "I fight not lackeys!"

"You will fight _me_," I said, "or leave the presence of this lady at
once!"

Impelled by uncontrollable wrath, he thrust at me furiously. With a
timely twist, I sent his sword flying from his hand to the door. I
motioned him to follow it.

Completely astonished, he obeyed my gesture, went and picked up his
sword, opened the door, and then turned to Blaise and spoke these words,
in a voice that trembled with rage:

"Monsieur, since you let your menial handle your sword for you, I cannot
hope for satisfaction. But though I am no great prophet, I can predict
that both you and your cur shall yet feel the foot of _my_ lackey on your
necks. And, mademoiselle," he added, removing his look to the lady, "this
is not the end of it with you!"

With which parting threats, he strode out of the inn, closing the door
after him.

Blaise, deprived by his false position of the power of speech, stood
with frowning brow and puffed-out cheeks, nervously clutching at his
sword-hilt. The lady and her maid looked at him with curiosity, as if
a gentleman who would stand idly and speechlessly by, while his
servant resented an insult to a lady, was a strange being, to be
viewed with wonder.

"Mademoiselle," said I, laying my sword on a table, "heaven is kind to me
in having led me where I might have the joy of serving you."

The lady, whose musical voice had the sound of sadness in it, answered
with the graciousness warranted by the occasion:

"My good man, your sword lifts you above your degree, even," and here she
glanced at Blaise, and continued in a tone of irrepressible contempt, "as
the tameness of some gentlemen lowers them beneath theirs."

Blaise, from whose nature tameness was the attribute farthest removed,
looked first at the lady, in helpless bewilderment, then at me, with mute
reproach for having placed him in his ridiculous position, and lastly at
the maid, who regarded him with open derision. To be laughed at by this
piquant creature, to whose charms he had been so speedily susceptible,
was the crowning misery. His expression of woe was such that I could not
easily retain my own serious and respectful countenance.

Having to make some answer to the lady, I said:

"An opportunity to defend so fair a lady would elevate the most ignoble."

The lady, not being accustomed to exchanging compliments with a
man-servant, went to her maid and talked with her in whispers, the two
both gazing at Blaise with expressions of mirth.

Blaise strode to my side with an awkwardness quite new to him. His face
was in a violent perspiration.

"The devil!" he whispered. "How they laugh at me! Won't you explain?"

"Impossible!"

"I object to being taken for a calf," said Blaise, ready to burst with
anger. Then, suddenly reaching the limit of his endurance, he faced the
lady and blurted out:

"Mademoiselle, I would have run your pursuer through quickly enough, but
I dared not rob my master--"

I coughed a warning against his betraying us. He hesitated, then
despairingly added, in a voice of resignation:

"--my master, the King, of a single stroke of this sword, which I have
devoted entirely to his service."

"I do not doubt," said the lady, with cold irony, "that your sword is
active enough when drawn in the service of your King."

"My King," replied Blaise with dignity, "had the goodness to make a
somewhat similar remark when he took Cahors!"

"Cahors?" repeated the lady in a tone of perplexity. "But the King never
took Cahors!"

"The King of France,--no!" cried Blaise; "but the King of Navarre did!"

"Blaise!" I cried, in angry reproof at his imprudence.

The tone in which I spoke had so startled the lady that she dropped her
mask, and I saw the sweetest face that ever gladdened the eyes of a man.
It was the face of a girl naturally of a cheerful nature, but newly made
acquainted with sorrow. Grief had not rendered the nature, or the face,
unresponsive to transient impressions of a pleasant or mirthful kind.
Hers was one of those hearts in which grief does not exclude all
possibility of gaiety. Sorrow might lie at the bottom, never forgotten
and never entirely concealed, but merriment might ripple on the surface.
As for its outlines, the face, in every part, harmonized with the grace
and purity of the chin and mouth. Her eyes were blue and large, with an
eloquence displayed without intent or consciousness.

"What does it mean?" she said, in a charming bewilderment. "The servant
reproves the master. Ah! I see! The servant _is_ the master."

And she smiled with pleasure at her discovery.

"But still _your_ servant, mademoiselle," was all that I could say.

Blaise vented a great breath of relief. "I feel better now," he said,
heartily, and he turned with a beaming countenance to the maid, who
looked at his stalwart form and promptly revised her opinion of him. The
two were soon in conversation together, at the fireplace, and I was left
to complete explanations with the lady, who did not attempt the coquetry
of replacing her mask.

"Our secret is yours, mademoiselle, and our safety is in your hands."

"Your secret is safe, monsieur," she said, modestly averting her eyes
from my frankly admiring look. "And now I understand why it was you who
drew sword."

"A privilege too precious to be resigned," I answered in a low tone,
"even for the sake of my secret and my safety."

My words were spoken so tenderly that she sought relief from her
charming embarrassment by taking up my sword from the table, and saying,
with a smile:

"I have you in my power, monsieur, follower of the King of Navarre! What
if I were minded, on behalf of the governor of this province, to make you
a prisoner?"

"My faith!" I could only reply, "you need no sword to make
prisoners of men."

"You hope to purchase your freedom with a compliment," she said,
continuing the jest; "but you cannot close my eyes with flattery."

"It would be a crime beyond me to close eyes so beautiful!"

She gave a pretty little smile and shrug of helplessness, as if to
say, "I cannot help it, monsieur, if you will overwhelm me with
compliments which are not deserved, I am powerless to prevent you."
But the compliments were all the more deserved because she seemed to
think them not so.

Her modesty weakened my own audacity, and her innocent eyes put me into
a kind of confusion. So I changed the subject.

"It appears to me, mademoiselle," I said, "that I have had the honor of
ridding you of unpleasant company."

Her face quickly clouded, as if my words had brought to her mind a
greater trouble than the mere importunities of an insolent adventurer.

"De Berquin!" she said, and then heaved a deep sigh; "I had forgotten
about him."

"I would not commit his offence of thrusting unwelcome company on you," I
replied; "but I would gladly offer you for a few leagues the sword that
has already put him to flight."

She was for some time silent. Then she answered slowly in a low voice, "I
ride towards Clochonne, monsieur."

Taking this for an acceptance of my offer, I sheathed my sword, and
replied with an animation that betrayed my pleasure:

"And I towards the same place, mademoiselle. When you choose to set out,
I am ready."

"I am ready now, monsieur--," she said, lingering over the word
"monsieur," as if trying to recall whether or not I had told her my name.

It was no time at which to disclose the title under which I was known
throughout the province as one especially proscribed, and yet I was
unwilling to pass under a false name. Therefore, I said:

"I am M. de Launay, once of Anjou, but now of nowhere in particular. The
great have caused my chateau to be scattered over my lands, stone by
stone, and have otherwise encouraged my taste for travel and adventure."

At this moment, glancing towards Blaise, I saw on his face a look of
alarm and disapproval, as if he feared that the lady or her maid might be
aware that De Launay and La Tournoire were one man, but it was manifest
from their faces that he had no cause for such an apprehension.

The lady smiled at my description, and adjusting her gloves, replied:

"And I am Mlle. de Varion, daughter of a gentleman of Fleurier--"

"What!" I interrupted, "the Catholic gentleman who has been imprisoned
for sheltering a Huguenot?"

"Yes," she answered, sorrowfully, and then with a strange trepidation she
went on: "and it is to save myself from imprisonment that I have
determined to flee to the south, in the hope of finding refuge in one of
the provinces controlled by your King of Navarre."

"But," I interposed, "how can you be in danger of imprisonment? It was
not you, but your father, who violated the edict."

"Nevertheless," she answered, in a low and unsteady voice, averting her
glance to the floor, "M. de la Chatre, the governor of the province, has
threatened me with imprisonment if I remain in Berry."

"Doubtless," I said with indignation, "the governor does this in order to
escape the importunities you would make in your father's behalf. He would
save his tender heart from the pain of being touched by your pleadings."

"It may be so," she answered faintly.

I did not tell her that the idea of releasing her father had already
entered my head. In order to bring him safe out of the Chateau of
Fleurier, it would be necessary for me to return to Maury for my company.
The attempt would be a hazardous one, and I might fail, and I did not
wish to raise hopes in her for disappointment. She should not learn of my
intention until after its fulfillment. In the meantime, less because I
thought she would really undergo danger by remaining at Fleurier, than
because I was loth to lose the new-found happiness that her presence gave
me, I would conduct her to Maury, on the pretext of its being the best
place whence to make, at a convenient time, a safe flight to Guienne.

Having summoned the landlord and paid him, I waited for Mlle. de Varion
to precede me out of the door. There was a moment's delay while her maid
sought the riding whip which mademoiselle had laid down on one of the
tables. At this moment, there came to me the idea of a jest which would
furnish me with amusement on the road southward, and afford mademoiselle
an interesting surprise on her arrival at Maury.

"It occurs to me, mademoiselle," said I, "that you will be glad to have
some guidance across the border. Let me recommend to you one, whose
services I think I can assure you, and whom we may fall in with in the
vicinity of Clochonne,--the Sieur de la Tournoire."

Mademoiselle turned white, and stared at me with a look of terror
on her face.

"Decidedly," I thought, "as the mere mention of my name produces such an
effect on her, it is well that I am not going to introduce myself until
she shall have learned that I am not such a terrible cutthroat as the
Catholics in this province think me." And I said aloud:

"Fear not, mademoiselle. He is not as bad as his enemies represent him."

"I shall be glad to have his guidance," she said, still pale.

We left the inn and took horse, being joined, outside, by mademoiselle's
two serving-boys. Resuming his character of gentleman, Blaise rode ahead
with the lady, while I followed at the side of the maid, he casting many
an envious glance at the place I occupied, and I reciprocating his
feelings if not his looks. Nevertheless, I was sufficiently near
mademoiselle to be able to exchange speeches with her. The day was at its
best. The sun shone; a gentle breeze played with the red and yellow
leaves in the roadway, and I was happy.

Looking down a byway as we passed, I saw, at some distance, M. de Berquin
talking to Barbemouche, while the latter's three scurvy-looking
companions stood by, as if awaiting the outcome of the conversation
between the two.

"Oho, M. de Berquin!" I said to myself, with an inward laugh; "I do not
know whether you are bargaining for help to persecute Mlle. de Varion, or
to spy on the Sieur de la Tournoire; but it has come to pass that you can
do both at the same time."

CHAPTER IX.

THE FOUR RASCALS

We rode southward at an easy pace, that mademoiselle might not be made
to suffer from fatigue. Aside from the desirability of our reaching safe
territory, there was no reason for great haste. M. de Varion had not yet
been tried, and the attempt to deliver him from prison need not be made
immediately. Time would be required in which I might form a satisfactory
plan of action in this matter. It would be necessary to employ all my
men in it, and to bring them secretly from Maury by night marches, but I
must not take the first step until the whole design should be complete
in my mind.

I suggested to mademoiselle that we first go to her father's house, in
Fleurier, where she might get such of her belongings as she wished to
take with her. But she desired to take no more along than was already in
the portmanteaus that her boys, Hugo and Pierre, carried with them on
their horses. She had come directly from Bourges with this baggage,
having been visiting an unmarried aunt, in that city, when news of her
father's arrest reached her.

When I questioned her as to her conduct on the reception of that news,
her face clouded, and she showed embarrassment and a wish to avoid the
subject. Nevertheless, she gave me answers, and I finally learned that
her purpose on leaving Bourges had been to seek the governor of the
province, immediately, and petition for her father's release. It was by
accident that she had met M. de la Chatre at the inn, where she had
stopped that her horses might be baited. My persistent, though
deferential, inquiries elicited from her, in a wavering voice, that she
had not previously possessed the governor's acquaintance; that her
entreaties had evoked only the governor's wrathful orders to depart from
the province on pain of sharing her father's fate; and that La Chatre had
refused to allow her even to see her father in his dungeon in the Chateau
of Fleurier.

Her agitation as she disclosed these things to me became so great that I
presently desisted from pursuing the subject, and sought to restore
brightness to the face of one whose tenderness and youth made her
misfortune ineffably touching.

I found that, with a woman's intelligence, she had a child's
ingenuousness. I had no difficulty in leading her to talk about herself.
Artlessly she communicated to me the salient facts of her life. Her
father, the younger son of a noble family, had passed his days in study
on his little portion of land near Fleurier. Like myself, she had when
very young become motherless. As for her education, her unmarried aunt
had taught her those accomplishments which a woman can best impart, while
her father had instructed her concerning the ancients, the arts, and the
sciences. She had been to Paris but once, and knew nothing of the court.

Most of my conversation with mademoiselle was had while we traversed a
deserted stretch of road, where I could, with safety, ride by her side
and allow Blaise to take my place with the maid, Jeannotte. I could infer
how deeply the good fellow had been smitten with the petite damsel by the
means which he took to impress her in return. Far from showing himself as
the wounded, sighing lover, he swelled to large dimensions, assumed his
most martial frown, and carried himself as a most formidable personage.
He boasted sonorously of his achievements in battle.

"And the scar on your forehead," I heard her say, as she inspected his
visage with a coquettish side glance; "at what battle did you get that?"

His reply was uttered in a voice whose rancorous fierceness must have set
the maid trembling.

"In the battle of the Rue Etienne," he said, "which was fought between
myself and a hell-born Papist, on St. Bartholomew's night, in 1572. From
the next house-roof, I had seen Coligny's body thrown, bleeding, from his
own window into his courtyard, for I was one of those who were with him
when his murderers came, and whom he ordered to flee. I ran from roof to
roof, hoping to reach a house where a number of Huguenots were, that I
might lead them back to avenge the admiral's murder. I dropped to the
street and ran around a corner straight into the arms of one of the
butchers employed by the Duke of Guise that night to decorate the streets
of Paris with the best blood in France. Seeing that I did not wear the
white cross on my arm, he was good enough to give me this red mark on my
forehead. But in those days I was quick at repartee, and I gave him a
similar mark on a similar place. Then I was knocked down from behind, and
when I awoke it was the next day. The dogs had thought me dead. As for
the man who gave me this mark, I have not seen him since, but for
thirteen years I have prayed hard to the bountiful Father in Heaven to
bring us together again some day, and the good God in His infinite
kindness will surely do so!"

Now and then mademoiselle turned in her saddle to look behind. It was
when she did this for the ninth or tenth time that she gave a start, and
her lips parted with a half-uttered ejaculation of alarm. I followed her
look and saw five mounted figures far behind us, on the road. It was
most probable that these were De Berquin, Barbemouche, and the latter's
three ragged comrades. But in this sight I found no reason to be
disturbed. If mademoiselle was the object of De Berquin's quest, I felt
that our party was sufficiently strong to protect her. If he had
abandoned the intention of annoying her with further importunities, and
was merely proceeding to Clochonne in order to act as the governor's spy
against me, there could be no immediate danger in his presence, for he
did not suspect that I was the Sieur de la Tournoire.

"Be assured, mademoiselle," I said, "you have nothing whatever to fear
from M. de Berquin."

"I do not fear for myself," she replied, with a pathetic little smile.
"It cannot be possible that, having seen me only once, he should put
himself to so much trouble merely to inflict his attentions on me."

"Then you never saw him before the meeting at the inn to-day?" I asked,
in surprise.

"Never. When he addressed me and introduced himself, I was surprised that
he should already know my name."

I then recalled that the governor's secretary, Montignac, at one time,
during his talk with De Berquin outside our window, had pointed towards
the inn. Was it, then, of Mlle. de Varion that he had been talking?
Montignac, of course, having witnessed the interview between mademoiselle
and the governor, had learned her name. It must have been he who had
communicated it to De Berquin. Had the subtle secretary entrusted the
unscrupulous cavalier with some commission relative to mademoiselle, as
well as with the task of betraying me? It was in vain that I tried to
find satisfactory answers to these questions.

I asked mademoiselle whether she had ever known Montignac before this
day.

"Never," she answered, with a kind of shudder, which seemed to express
both abhorrence and fear. Again she grew reticent; again the shadow and
the look of confusion appeared on her face. I could make nothing of these
signs. To attempt a solution by interrogating her was only to cause her
pain, and rather than do that I preferred to remain mystified.

Once more mademoiselle cast an uneasy look at the riders in the
distance rearward.

"Ah!" said I, with a smile, "you have no fear for yourself, yet you
continue to look back with an expression that very nearly resembles that
of fright."

"I do not fear for myself," she said, quite artlessly; "it is for you
that I fear. M. de Berquin will surely try to revenge himself for the
humiliation you gave him."

A joyous thrill sent the blood to my cheeks. Without disguising my
feelings, I turned and looked at her. Doubtless the gladness that shone
in my eyes told her what was in my heart. Realizing that her frank and
gentle demonstration of solicitude was a confession to be received with
ineffable delight by the man to whom it was tendered, she dropped her
eyes and a deep blush overspread her face. For some time no word passed
between us; enough had been said. I knew that the look in my eyes had
told more, a thousand times, than all the extravagant compliments with
which I had, half banteringly, deluged her at the inn.

We might, by hard riding, have reached Maury on the night of that day,
but mademoiselle's comfort was to be considered, and, moreover, I desired
to throw De Berquin off our track before going to our hiding-place.
Therefore, when Clochonne was yet some leagues before us, we turned into
a by-way, and stopped at an obscure inn at the end of a small village.
This hostelry was a mere hut, consisting of a kitchen and one other
apartment, and was kept by an old couple as stupid and avaricious as any
of their class. The whole place, such as it was, was at our disposal. The
one private room was given over to mademoiselle and Jeannotte for the
night, it being decided that I and Blaise should share the kitchen with
the inn-keeper and his wife, while the two boys should sleep in an outer
shed with the horses.

Roused from sluggishness by the sight of a gold piece, which Blaise
displayed, the old couple succeeded in getting for us a passable supper,
which we had served to us on the end of an old wine-butt outside the inn,
as the kitchen was intolerably smoky.

"A poor place, mademoiselle," said I, ashamed of having conducted so
delicate a creature to this miserable hovel.

"What would you have?" she replied, with a pretty attempt to cover her
dejection by a show of cheerfulness. "One cannot flee, for one's liberty,
through the forest, and live in a chateau at the same time."

As for the others, hunger and fatigue made any fare and shelter welcome.
Blaise, in particular, found the wine acceptable. Conscious of the
glances of Jeannotte, now flashing, now demure, he strove to outdo
himself in one of his happiest accomplishments, that of drinking. The two
boys, Hugo and Pierre, emulated his achievements, and only the presence
of mademoiselle deterred our party from becoming a noisy one.

Blaise became more and more exuberant as he made the wine flow the more
generously. Seeing a way of diverting mademoiselle from her sad thoughts,
I set him to telling of the things he had done in battle when controlled
by the sanguinary spirit of his father. He had a manner of narrating
these deeds of slaughter, which took all the horror out of them, and made
them rather comical than of any other description. He soon had
mademoiselle smiling, the maid laughing, and the two boys looking on him
with open-eyed admiration. Finding Jeannotte and the boys so well
entertained, mademoiselle allowed them to remain with Blaise when she
retired to her room.

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