Captain Dieppe Part 16

"Who can tell? I saw him last on the road across the river--it leads to Sasellano, I believe." Dieppe kept his eye on his vanquished opponent, but Guillaume threatened no movement. The Captain dropped the revolver into his pocket, stooped to pull up a tuft of gra.s.s with moist earth adhering to it, and, with the help of his handkerchief, made a primitive plaster to stanch the bleeding of his ear. As he was so engaged, the sound of wheels slowly climbing the hill became audible from the direction of the village.

"You see," he went on, "you can't return to the village--you are on too good terms with the police. Let me advise you to go to Sasellano; the flood will be falling by now, and I should n't wonder if we could find you a means of conveyance." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the road behind him.

"I can't go back to the village?" demanded Guillaume, sullenly.

"In my turn I must beg you to remember that I now carry a revolver.

Come, M. Guillaume, we 've played a close hand, but the odd trick 's mine. Go back and tell your employers not to waste their time on me.

No, nor their money. They have won the big stake; let them be content.

And again let me remind you that Paul de Roustache has your twenty thousand francs. I don't think you 'll get them from him, but you might. From me you 'll get nothing; and if you try the law--oh, think, my friend, how very silly you and your Government will look!"

As he spoke he went up to Guillaume and took him by the arm, exerting a friendly and persuasive pressure, under which Guillaume presently found himself mounting the eminence. The wheels sounded nearer now, and Dieppe's ears were awake to their movements. The pair began to walk down the other side of the slope towards the Cross, and the carriage came into their view. It was easy of identification: its broken-down, lopsided top marked it beyond mistake.

An instant later Dieppe recognised the burly figure of the driver, who was walking by his horses' heads.

"Wonderfully convenient!" he exclaimed. "This fellow will carry you to Sasellano without delay."

Guillaume did not--indeed could not--refuse to obey the prompting of the Captain's arm, but he grumbled as he went.

"I made sure of getting your papers," he said.

"Unlooked-for difficulties will arise, my dear M. Guillaume."

"I thought the reward was as good as in my pocket."

"The reward?" The Captain stopped and looked in his companion's face with some amus.e.m.e.nt and a decided air of gratification. "There was a reward? Oh, I am important, it seems!"

"Five thousand francs," said Guillaume, sullenly.

"They rate me rather cheap," exclaimed the Captain, his face falling.

"I should have hoped for five-and-twenty."

"Would you? If it had been that, I should have brought three men with me."

"Hum!" said the Captain. "And you gave me a stiff job by yourself, eh?" He turned and signalled to the driver, who had now reached the Cross:

"Wait a moment there, my friend." Then he turned back again to Guillaume. "Get into the carriage--go to Sasellano; catch Paul if you can, but leave me in peace," he said, and, diving into his pocket, he produced the five notes of a thousand francs which Paul de Roustache, in some strange impulse of repentance, or grat.i.tude, had handed to him.

"What you tell your employers," he added, "I don't care. This is a gift from me to you. The deuce, I reward effort as well as success--I am more liberal than your Government." The gesture with which he held out the notes was magnificent.

Guillaume stared at him in amazement, but his hand went out towards the notes.

"I am free to do what I can at Sasellano?"

"Yes, free to do anything except bother me. But I think your bird will have flown."

Guillaume took the notes and hid them in his pocket; then he walked straight up to the driver, crying, "How much to take me with you to Sasellano?"

The driver looked at him, at Dieppe, and then down towards the river.

"Come, the flood will be less by now; the river will be falling," said Dieppe.

"Fifty francs," said the driver, and Guillaume got in.

"Good!" said the Captain to himself. "A pretty device! And that scoundrel's money did n't lie comfortably in the pocket of a gentleman." He waved his hand to Guillaume and was about to turn away, when the driver came up to him and spoke in a cautious whisper, first looking over his shoulder to see whether his new fare were listening; but Guillaume was sucking at a flask.

"I have a message for you," he said.

"From the lady you carried--?"

"To the Count of Fieramondi's."

"Ah, you took her there?" The Captain frowned heavily.

"Yes, and left her there. But it's not from her; it's from another lady whom I had n't seen before. She met me just as I was returning from the Count's, and bade me look out for you by the Cross--"

"Yes, yes?" cried Dieppe, eagerly. "Give me the message." For his thoughts flew back to the Countess at the first summons.

The driver produced a sc.r.a.p of paper, carelessly folded, and gave it to him.

Dieppe ran to the carriage and read the message by the light of its dim and smoky lamp:

"I think I am in time. Come; I wait for you. Whatever you see, keep Andrea in the dark. If you are discreet, all will be well, and I--I shall be very grateful."

The driver mounted the box, the carriage rolled off down the hill, Dieppe was left by the Cross, with the message in his hand. He did not understand the situation.

CHAPTER X

THE JOURNEY TO ROME

It was about ten o'clock--or, it may be, nearer half-past ten--the same night when two inhabitants of the village received very genuine, yet far from unpleasant, shocks of surprise.

The first was the parish priest. He was returning from a visit to the bedside of a sick peasant and making his way along the straggling street towards his own modest dwelling, which stood near the inn, when he met a tall stranger of most dilapidated appearance, whose clothes were creased and dirty, and whose head was encircled by a stained and grimy handkerchief. He wore no hat; his face was disfigured with blotches of an ugly colour and, maybe, an uglier significance; his trousers were most atrociously rent and tattered; he walked with a limp, and shivered in the cold night air. This unpromising-looking person approached the priest and addressed him with an elaborate courtesy oddly out of keeping with his scarecrow-like appearance, but with words appropriate enough to the figure that he cut.

"Reverend father," said he, "pardon the liberty I take, but may I beg of your Reverence's great kindness--"

"It 's no use begging of me," interrupted the priest hurriedly, for he was rather alarmed. "In the first place, I have nothing; in the second, mendicancy is forbidden by the regulations of the commune."

The wayfarer stared at the priest, looked down at his own apparel, and then burst into a laugh.

"Begging forbidden, eh?" he exclaimed. "Then the poor must need voluntary aid!" He thrust his hand into his pocket and brought out two French five-franc pieces. "For the poor, father," he said, pressing them into the priest's hand. "For myself, I was merely about to ask you the time of night." And before the astonished priest could make any movement the stranger pa.s.sed on his way, humming a soft, and sentimental tune.

"He was certainly mad, but he undoubtedly gave me ten francs," said the priest to his friend the innkeeper, the next day.

"I wish," growled the innkeeper, "that somebody would give me some money to pay for what those two runaway rogues who lodged here had of me, their baggage is worth no more than half what they 've cost me, and I 'll lay odds I never clap eyes on them again."

And in this suspicion the innkeeper proved, in the issue, to be absolutely right, about the value of the luggage there is, however, more room for doubt.