Historical Romances: Under the Red Robe, Count Hannibal, A Gentleman of France Part 61

But La Tribe's mind was so full of one matter, he could think only of that. "How did you hear of the letters?" he asked.

"The letters?"

"Yes."

"I do not know what you mean."

La Tribe stared. "Then why are you following him?" he asked.

"Why?" Tignonville echoed, a look of hate darkening his face. "Do you ask why we follow----" But on the name he seemed to choke and was silent.

By this time his men had come up, and one answered for him. "Why are we following Hannibal de Tavannes?" he said sternly. "To do to him as he has done to us! To rob him as he has robbed us--of more than gold!

To kill him as he has killed ours, foully and by surprise! In his bed if we can! In the arms of his wife if G.o.d wills it!"

The speaker's face was haggard from brooding and lack of sleep, but his eyes glowed and burned, as his fellows growled a.s.sent.

"'Tis simple why we follow," a second put in. "Is there a man of our faith who will not, when he hears the tale, rise up and stab the nearest of this black brood--though it be his brother? If so, G.o.d's curse on him!"

"Amen! Amen!"

"So, and so only," cried the first, "shall there be faith in our land!

And our children, our little maids, shall lie safe in their beds!"

"Amen! Amen!"

The speaker's chin sank on his breast, and with his last word the light died out of his eyes. La Tribe looked at him curiously, then at the others. Last of all at Tignonville, on whose face he fancied that he surprised a faint smile. Yet Tignonville's tone when he spoke was grave enough. "You have heard," he said. "Do you blame us?"

"I cannot," the minister answered, shivering. "I can not." He had been for a while beyond the range of these feelings; and in the greenwood, under G.o.d's heaven, with the sunshine about him, they jarred on him.

Yet he could not blame men who had suffered as these had suffered; who were maddened, as these were maddened, by the gravest wrongs which it is possible for one man to inflict on another. "I dare not," he continued sorrowfully. "But in G.o.d's name I offer you a higher and a n.o.bler errand."

"We need none," Tignonville muttered impatiently.

"Yet may others need you," La Tribe answered in a tone of rebuke. "You are not aware that the man you follow bears a packet from the King for the hands of the magistrates of Angers?"

"Ha! Does he?"

"Bidding them do at Angers as his Majesty has done in Paris?"

The men broke into cries of execration. "But he shall not see Angers!"

they swore. "The blood that he has shed shall choke him by the way!

And as he would do to others it shall be done to him."

La Tribe shuddered as he listened, as he looked. Try as he would, the thirst of these men for vengeance appalled him. "How?" he said. "He has a score and more with him: and you are only six."

"Seven now," Tignonville answered with a smile.

"True, but----"

"And he lies to-night at La Fleche? That is so!"

"It was his intention this morning."

"At the old King's Inn at the meeting of the great roads?"

"It was mentioned," La Tribe admitted, with a reluctance he did not comprehend. "But if the night be fair he is as like as not to lie in the fields."

One of the men pointed to the sky. A dark bank of cloud fresh risen from the ocean, and big with tempest, hung low in the west. "See! G.o.d will deliver him into our hands!" he cried.

Tignonville nodded. "If he lie there," he said, "He will." And then to one of his followers, as he dismounted, "Do you ride on," he said, "and stand guard that we be not surprised. And do you, Perrot, tell monsieur. Perrot here, as G.o.d wills it," he added with a faint smile which did not escape the minister's eye, "married his wife from the great inn at La Fleche, and he knows the place."

"None better," the man growled. He was a sullen, brooding knave, whose eyes when he looked up surprised by their savage fire.

La Tribe shook his head. "I know it, too," he said. "'Tis strong as a fortress, with a walled court, and all the windows look inwards. The gates are closed an hour after sunset, no matter who is without. If you think, M. de Tignonville, to take him there----"

"Patience, monsieur, you have not heard me," Perrot interposed. "I know it after another fashion. Do you remember a rill of water which runs through the great yard and the stables?"

La Tribe nodded.

"Grated with iron at either end, and no pa.s.sage for so much as a dog?

You do? Well, monsieur, I have hunted rats there, and where the water pa.s.ses under the wall is a culvert, a man's height in length. In it is a stone, one of those which frame the grating at the entrance, which a strong man can remove--and the man is in!"

"Ay, in! But where!" La Tribe asked, his eyebrows drawn together.

"Well said, monsieur, where?" Perrot rejoined in a tone of triumph.

"There lies the point. In the stables, where will be sleeping men, and a snorer on every truss? No, but in a fairway between two stables where the water at its entrance runs clear in a stone channel; a channel deepened in one place that they may draw for the chambers above with a rope and a bucket. The rooms above are the best in the house, four in one row, opening all on the gallery; which was uncovered, in the common fashion, until Queen-Mother Jezebel, pa.s.sing that way to Nantes, two years back, found the chambers draughty; and that end of the gallery was closed in against her return. Now, monsieur, he and his madame will lie there; and he will feel safe, for there is but one way to those four rooms---through the door which shuts off the covered gallery from the open part. But----" he glanced up an instant and La Tribe caught the smouldering fire in his eyes--"we shall not go in by the door."

"The bucket rises through a trap?"

"In the gallery? To be sure, monsieur. In the corner beyond the fourth door. There shall he fall into the pit which he dug for others, and the evil that he planned rebound on his own head!"

La Tribe was silent. "What think you of it?" Tignonville asked.

"That it is cleverly planned," the minister answered.

"No more than that!"

"No more until I have eaten."

"Get him something!" Tignonville replied in a surly tone. "And we may as well eat, ourselves. Lead the horses into the wood. And do you, Perrot, call Tuez-les-Moines, who is forward. Two hours' riding should bring us to La Fleche. We need not leave here, therefore, until the sun is low. To dinner! To dinner!"

Probably he did not feel the indifference he affected, for his face as he ate grew darker, and from time to time he shot a glance, barbed with suspicion, at the minister. La Tribe on his side remained silent, although the men ate apart. He was in doubt, indeed, as to his own feelings. His instinct and his reason were at odds. Through all, however, a single purpose, the rescue of Angers, held good, and gradually other things fell into their places. When the meal was at an end, and Tignonville challenged him, he was ready.

"Your enthusiasm seems to have waned," the younger man said with a sneer, "since we met, monsieur! May I ask now if you find any fault with the plan?"

"With the plan, none."

"If it was Providence brought us together, was it not Providence furnished me with Perrot who knows La Fleche? If it was Providence brought the danger of the faithful in Angers to your knowledge, was it not Providence set us on the road--without whom you had been powerless?"

"I believe it!"