Chapter XXI: A chance encounter

The street before us was as orderly as the aisle of Notre Dame. Few way-farers passed us; those there were talked together as placidly as if love-trysts and mêlées existed not, and tunnels and countersigns were but the smoke of a dream. It was a street of shops, all shuttered, while, above, the burghers' families went respectably to bed.

"This is the Rue de la Ferronnerie," my master said, pausing a moment to take his bearings. "See, under the lantern, the sign of the Pierced Heart. The little shop is in the Rue de la Soierie. We are close by the Halles--we must have come half a mile underground. Well, we'll swing about in a circle to get home. For this night I've had enough of the Hôtel de Lorraine."

And I. But I held my tongue about it, as became me.

"They were wider awake than I thought--those Lorrainers. Pardieu! Féix, you and I came closer quarters with death than is entirely amusing."

"If that door had not opened-" I shuddered.

"A new saint in the calendar--la Sainte Ferou! But what a madcap of a saint, then! My faith, she must have led them a dance when Francis I was king!

"Natheless it galls me," he went on, half to himself, "to know that I was lost by my own folly, saved by pure chance. I underrated the enemy--worst mistake in the book of strategy. I came near flinging away two lives and making a most unsightly mess under a lady's window."

"Monsieur made somewhat of a mess as it was."

"Aye. I would I knew whether I killed Brie. We'll go round in the morning and find out."

"I am thankful that monsieur does not mean to go to-night."

"Not to-night, Félix; I've had enough. No; we'll get home without passing near the Hôtel de Lorraine, if we go outside the walls to do it. To-night I draw my sword no more."

To this day I have no quite clear idea of how we went. A strange city at night--Paris of all cities--is a labyrinth. I know that after a time we came out in some meadows along the river-bank, traversed them, and plunged once more into narrow, high-walled streets. It was very late, and lights were few. We had started in clear starlight, but now a rack of clouds hid even their pale shine.

"The snake-hole over again," said M. Étienne. "But we are almost at our own gates."

But, as in the snake-hole, came light. Turning a sharp corner, we ran straight into a gentleman and his porte-flambeau, swinging along at as smart a pace as we.

"A thousand pardons," M. Étienne cried to his encounterer, the possessor of years and gravity but of no great size, whom he had almost knocked down. "I heard you, but knew not you were so close. We were speeding to get home."

The personage was also of a portliness, and the collision had knocked the wind out of him. He leaned panting against the wall. As he scanned M. Étienne's open countenance and princely dress his alarm vanished.

"It is unseemly to go about on a night like this without a lantern," he said with asperity. "The municipality should forbid it. I shall certainly bring the matter up at the next sitting."

"Monsieur is a member of the Parliament?" M. Étienne asked with immense respect.

"I have that honour, monsieur," the little man replied, delighted to impress us, as he himself was impressed, by the sense of his importance.

"Oh," said M. Étienne, with increasing solemnity, "perhaps monsieur had a hand in a certain decree of the 28th June?"

The little man began to look uneasy.

"There was, as monsieur says, a measure passed that day," he stammered.

"A rebellious and contumacious decree," M. Étienne rejoined, "most offensive to the general-duke." Whereupon he fingered his sword.

"Monsieur," the little deputy cried, "we meant no offence to his Grace, or to any true Frenchman. We but desire peace after all these years of blood. We were informed that his Grace was angry; yet we believed that even he will come to see the matter in a different light--"

"You have acted in a manner insulting to his Grace of Mayenne," M. Étienne repeated inexorably, and he glanced up the street and down the street to make sure the coast was clear. The wretched little deputy's teeth chattered.

The linkman had retreated to the other side of the way, where he seemed on the point of fleeing, leaving his master to his fate. I thought it would be a shame if the badgered deputy had to stumble home in the dark, so I growled out to the fellow:

"Stir one step at your peril!"

I was afraid he would drop the flambeau and run, but he did not; he only sank back against the wall, eyeing my sword with exceeding deference. He knew not that there was but a foot of blade in the scabbard.

The burgher looked up the street and down the street, after M. Étienne's example, but there was no help to be seen or heard. He turned to his tormentor with the valour of a mouse at bay.

"Monsieur, beware what you do. I am Pierre Marceau!"

"Oh, you are Pierre Marceau? And can M. Pierre Marceau explain how he happened to be faring forth from his dwelling at this unholy hour?"

"I am not faring forth; I am faring home. I--we had a little con--that is, not to say a conference, but merely a little discussion on matters of no importance--"

"I have the pleasure," interrupted M. Étienne, sternly, "of knowing where M. Marceau lives. M. Marceau's errand in this direction is not accounted for."

"But I was going home--on my sacred honour I was! Ask Jacques, else. But as we went down the Rue de l'Évêque we saw two men in front of us. As they reached the wall by M. de Mirabeau's garden a gang of footpads fell on them. The two drew blades and defended themselves, but the ruffians were a dozen--a score. We ran for our lives."

M. Étienne wheeled round to me.

"Félix, here is work for us. As I was saying, M. Marceau, your decree is most offensive to the general-duke, and therefore, since he is my particular enemy, most pleasing to me. A beautiful night, is it not, sir? I wish you a delightful walk home."

He seized me by the hand, and we dashed up the street.

At the corner the noise of a fray came faintly but plainly to our ears. M. le Comte without hesitation plunged down a lane in the direction of the sound.

"I said I wanted no more fighting to-night, but two against a mob! We know how it feels."

The clash of steel on steel grew ever louder, and as we wheeled around a jutting garden wall we came full upon the combatants.

"A rescue, a rescue!" cried M. Étienne. "Shout, Félix! Montjoie St. Denis! A rescue, a rescue!"

We charged down the street, drawing our swords and shouting at the top of our lungs.

It was too dark to see much save a mass of struggling figures, with every now and then, as the steel hit, a point of light flashing out, to fade and appear again like a brilliant glow-worm. We could scarce tell which were the attackers, which the two comrades we had come to save.

But if we could not make them out, neither could they us. We shouted as boldly as if we had been a company, and in the clatter of their heels on the stones they could not count our feet. They knew not how many followers the darkness held. The group parted. Two men remained in hot combat close under the left wall. Across the way one sturdy fighter held off two, while a sixth man, crying on his mates to follow, fled down the lane.

M. Étienne knew now what he was about, and at once took sides with the solitary fencer. The combat being made equal, I started in pursuit of the flying figure. I had run but a few yards, however, when I tripped and fell prostrate over the body of a man. I was up in a moment, feeling him to find out if he were dead; my hands over his heart dipped into a pool of something wet and warm like new milk. I wiped them on his sleeve as best I could, and hastily groped about for his sword. He did not need it now, and I did.

When I rose with it my quarry was swallowed up in the shadows. M. Étienne, whose light clothing made a distinguishable spot in the gloom, had driven his opponent, or his opponent had driven him, some rods up the lane the way we had come. I stood perplexed, not knowing where to busy myself. M. Étienne's side I could not reach past the two duels; and of the four men near me, I could by no means tell, as they circled about and about, which were my chosen allies. They were all sombrely clad, their faces blurred in the darkness. When one made a clever pass, I knew not whether to rejoice or despair. But at length I picked out one who fenced, though valiantly enough, yet with greater effort than the rest; and I deemed that this had been the hardest pressed of all and must certainly be one of the attacked and the one most deserving of succour. He was plainly losing ground. I darted to his side just as his foe ran him through the arm.

The assailant pulled his blade free and darted back against the wall to face the two of us. But the sword of the wounded man fell from his loose fingers.

"I'm out of it," he cried to me; "I go for aid." And as his late combatant sprang forward to engage me, I heard him running off, stumbling where I had.

There had been little light toward the last in the court of the house in the Rue Coupejarrets, and less under the windows of the Hôtel de Lorraine; but here was none at all, I had to use my sword solely by the feel of his against it, and I underwent chilling qualms lest presently, without in the least knowing how it got there, I should find his point sticking out of my back. I could hardly believe he was not hitting me; I began to prickle in half a dozen places, and knew not whether the stings were real or imaginary. But one was not imaginary; my shoulder which Lucas had pinked and the doctor bandaged was throbbing painfully. I fancied that in my earlier combat the wound had opened again and that I was bleeding to death; and the fear shook me. I lunged wildly, and I had been sent to my account in short order had not at this moment one of the other pair near us, as it afterward appeared, driven his weapon square through his vis-à-vis's breast.

"I am done for. Run who can!" he cried as he fell. The sword snapped in two against the paving-stones; he rolled over and lay still, his face in the dirt.

My encounterer, with a shout to his single remaining comrade, made off down the lane. On my part, I was very willing to let him depart in peace.

The clash of swords up the lane had ceased at the stricken man's cry, and out of the gloom came the sound of footfalls fainter and fainter. I deemed that the battle was over.

The champion came toward me, three white patches visible for his face and hands; the rest of him but darkness moving in darkness. He held a sword rifled from the enemy, and advanced on me hesitatingly, not sure whether friend or foe remained to him. I felt that an explanation was due from me, but in my ignorance as to who he was and who his foes were, and why they had been fighting him and why we had been fighting them, I stood for a moment confused. It is hard to open conversation with a shadow.

He spoke first, in a voice husky from his exertion:

"Who are you?"

"A friend," I said. "My master and I saw two men fighting four--we came to help the weaker side. Your friend was hurt, but he got away safe to fetch aid."

The unknown made a rapid step toward me, crying, "What--"

But at the word M. Étienne emerged from the shadows.

"Who lives?" he called out. "You, Félix?"

"Not hurt, monsieur. And you?"

"Not a scratch. Nor did I scratch my man. Permit me to congratulate you, monsieur l'inconnu, on our coming up when we did."

The unknown said one word:

"Étienne!"

I sprang forward with the impulse to throw my arms about him, in the pure rapture of recognizing his voice. This struggler, whom we had rushed in, blindfold, to save, was Monsieur! If we had been content to mind our own business, had sheered away like the deputy--it turned me faint to think how long we had delayed with old Marceau, we were so nearly too late. I wanted to seize Monsieur, to convince myself that he was all safe, to feel him quick and warm.

I made one pace and stopped; for I remembered what ghastly shape stood between me and Monsieur--that horrible lying story.

"Dieu!" gasped M. Étienne, "Monsieur!"

For a moment we all kept silence, motionless; then Monsieur flung his sword over the wall.

"Do your will, Étienne."

His son darted forward with a cry.

"Monsieur, Monsieur, I am not your assassin! I came to your aid not dreaming who you were; but, had I known, I would have fought a hundred times the harder. I never plotted against you. On the honour of a St. Quentin I swear it."

Monsieur said naught, and we could not see his face; could not know whether he believed or rejected, softened or condemned.

M. Étienne, catching at his breath, went on:

"Monsieur, I know it is hard to credit. I have been a bad son to you, unloving, rebellious, insolent. We quarrelled; I spoke bitter words. But I am no ruffian. I am a St. Quentin. Had you had me whipped from the house, still would I never have raised hand against you. I knew nothing of the plot. Félix told you I was in it--small blame to him. But he was wrong. I knew naught of it."

Had he been content to rest his case here, I think Monsieur could not but have believed his innocence on his bare word. The stones in the pavement must have known that he was uttering truth. But he in his eagerness paused for no answer, but went on to stun Monsieur with statements new and amazing to his ear.

"My cousin Grammont--who is dead--was in the plot, and his lackey Pontou, and Martin the clerk; but the contriver was Lucas."

"Lucas?"

"Lucas," continued M. Étienne. "Or, to give him his true title, Paul de Lorraine, son of Henri de Guise."

"But that is impossible" Monsieur cried, stupefied.

"It is impossible, but it is true. He is a Lorraine--Mayenne's nephew, and for years Mayenne's spy. He came to you to kill you--for that object pure and simple. Last spring, before he came to you, he was here in Paris with Mayenne, making terms for your murder. He is no Huguenot, no Kingsman. He is Mayenne's henchman, son to Guise himself."

"And how long have you known this?" asked Monsieur.

"Since this morning." Then, as the import of the question struck him, he fell back with a groan. "Ah, Monsieur, if you can ask that, I have no more to say. It is useless." He turned away into the darkness.

That they should part thus was too miserable to be endured. I was sure Monsieur's question was no accusation, but the groping of bewilderment.

"M. Étienne, stop!" I commanded. "Monsieur, it is the truth. Indeed it is the truth. He is innocent, and Lucas _is_ a Guise. Monsieur, you must listen to me. M. Étienne, you must wait. I stirred up the whole trouble with my story to you, Monsieur, and I take it back. I believed I was telling the truth. I was wrong. When I left you, I went straight back to the Rue Coupejarrets to kill your son--your murderer, I thought. And there I found Grammont and Lucas side by side. We thought them sworn foes: they were hand in glove. They came at me to end me because I had told, and M. Étienne saved me. Lucas mocked him to his face because he had been tricked; Lucas bragged that it was his own scheme--that M. Étienne was his dupe. Vigo will tell you. Vigo heard him. His scheme was to saddle M. Étienne with your murder. He was tricked. He believed what he told me--that the thing was a duel between Lucas and Grammont. You must believe it, Monsieur!"

M. Étienne, who had actually obeyed me,--me, his lackey,--turned to his father once again.

"Monsieur, if you cannot believe me, believe Félix. You believed him when he took away my good name. Believe him now when he restores it."

"Nay," Monsieur cried; "I believe thee, Étienne."

And he took his son in his arms.