Lord Montagu's Page Part 34

"Lay him on the bed,--flat on his back," said another voice. "Now, Brin, is not that easier for you?" And then followed several sentences in a language Edward did not understand at all.

"The two blacksmiths," said Edward to himself. "They have just brought in the wounded man."

For some half-hour various sounds succeeded, some distinct, others confused, to which the young prisoner did not pay much attention; and then there was a sort of lull,--not quite silence, but still much less bustle. Even slight sounds were easily distinguishable in the dungeon; for the roof was so far dilapidated that here and there the rays of light from above found their way through a c.h.i.n.k in the flooring and traced a yellow line upon the pavement. He could hear the wounded man groan and ask in a faint tone for drink.

"He is badly hurt, it seems," said Edward Langdale to himself: "if the horse had not shied away, it would have gone through his head and served the traitor right."

Edward wanted a little more softening to make him a real sentimental hero; but I can only paint him as I find him. He did not feel the slightest remorse for what he had done. He thought it but right,--but just; and he would have done it over again the next minute. It is true, the groans of the wounded man did somewhat annoy him. He felt no pleasure in his pain; but, as to the mere fact of having shot him because he had betrayed his lord, Edward was as hard as a stone.

It seemed, indeed, as if Monsieur de Bourbonne was inclined to try upon the young Englishman the treatment sometimes employed to tame wild beasts,--fasting and darkness. He had kept him without food all day; and now the light in the lantern went out, and all was obscure in the dungeon, except where those yellow streaks from above checkered the floor; and the youth's only entertainment was to listen while a good deal of walking to and fro and speaking took place overhead. He divined from all he heard that a surgeon had been sent for and was performing some operation upon the wounded man. At length the latter exclaimed, "Oh, you have got it now. There, there! that is comfortable. It feels as if you had pulled out a hot coal!"

Just at that time a soldier opened the dungeon-door and brought in a pitcher of cool water and some bread.

"Am I to be kept in darkness?" asked Edward.

"I don't know," answered the man, holding up his own lantern to look at him: "you have offended Monsieur le Comte mightily, it seems; but I do not suppose that he intends you should have no light."

"Well, tell him something for me," replied Edward. "Say that I am greatly obliged to him for all his kindness, but that I have friends in France who will repay him sevenfold, or I am much mistaken in them."

The man went away without reply, but returned in a minute or two with a fresh candle.

"Did you tell him?" asked Edward.

"Yes," answered the soldier, who seemed a good-natured sort of person; "I told him. But you had better not enrage him. It will do no good, young gentleman."

Edward ate heartily of his poor fare, and drank the cool water as if it had been nectar. He had hardly finished the temperate meal, when he heard a voice above which he recognised by a slight hesitation of speech as that of Monsieur de Bourbonne; and he certainly might be excused in his circ.u.mstances for listening with all his ears.

First the count made several inquiries as to the state of the wounded man; and then he added, "Well, my good friend, I have got the young tiger who scratched you safely caged in the worst dungeon of the castle.

I hope you will get well; but if you should die I will hang him from the _herse_."

"For G.o.d's sake, do not do that, monseigneur," cried the companion of the patient.

"If I die, hang him as high as you please," growled the voice of Maitre Brin: "the cardinal cannot do any thing to me after I am dead, and the young devil had better go with me."

"Ha!" said Monsieur de Bourbonne, apparently in a tone of some surprise: "he boasts of having some good friends in France, and speaks as if he personally knew his Eminence."

"And so he does," said Brin's more timid companion: "he is a great favorite of the cardinal; and Monsieur de Tronson warned us not to touch a hair of his head under any circ.u.mstances. He said that we should be held to answer for any evil that happened to him. We were only to follow him wherever he went from Nantes, and not lose sight of him till he joined the English lord."

"Then did you first see him at Nantes?" asked the count.

"Surely," replied the other: "we waited in the court-yard while he was in with the cardinal, that we might take good note of him as he came out."

There was a silence of some minutes, and then the voice of the sick man was heard saying, "After all, you had better not treat him badly, monseigneur. I do not think I am very much hurt; and if he is hardly used some of us will suffer, you may be sure."

"You should have told me this before," said Monsieur de Bourbonne, in a very sharp tone.

"Why, what time had we to tell you any thing, monseigneur?" asked the wounded man's brother.

"At all events, we tell you now," growled Brin; "and this talking is not likely to do me good. The lad is as fierce as a young wolf. He threatened to shoot me once before; but he is a pet of the cardinal,--one of his own people, for aught we know,--and, now that you are told he is so, you may use him as you think fit. It is no fault of ours: we have not hurt him."

It is probable that the interview was less satisfactory to the Count de Bourbonne than he had expected; for he brought it speedily to a conclusion, and Edward for full half an hour after heard the two men above talking together in the language he did not understand. At the end of that time the bolt of the door was undrawn, and the soldier who had previously brought him bread and water appeared again, with somewhat of a grin upon his face.

"Well, young gentleman," he said, "Monsieur le Comte begs you will send him up the safe-conduct you mentioned to him. After seeing that, perhaps they may treat you better."

"Tell him I will not!" said Edward, in a resolute tone: "he may come and take it from me by force,--or he may see it here in my presence; but I give it out of my own hands to no one,--especially not to one who has treated me unlike a soldier and a gentleman. Tell him what I say."

The soldier laughed. "'Pon my word, you are a bold one!" he said. "Do you not know you are quite in his power?"

"Not so much as you think," replied Edward: "I am not the least afraid of him. Tell him exactly what I say."

A full hour pa.s.sed; and probably it was spent in some degree of anxious and hesitating deliberation between Monsieur de Bourbonne and the Count de Boulogne, his father-in-law, for they remained the whole of that time shut up together in a small room on the second floor. One can easily conceive that it was a hard thing for a proud and irritable man to make any concession to a mere lad who set him at defiance in language somewhat tinged with contempt. But a bold face stoutly kept up has a great effect upon most men; and if Edward had known the count intimately he could not (though it was entirely accidental) have chosen his course better. De Bourbonne was brave, and even rash; but he had a terrible reverence for power, and, when he found the youth's account of himself confirmed even by the very man whose life he had nearly taken, fancy conjured up all sorts of ministerial indignation, and showed him the service he had rendered in the capture of Lord Montagu--on which he had based many gorgeous dreams--more than counterbalanced in the eyes of Richelieu by his treatment of one of the cardinal's favorites. Monsieur de Boulogne, too, an older and milder man, strongly counselled moderation and gentleness, somewhat censured what had been already done, and advised recourse to measures perhaps too directly and suddenly opposed.

Still, pride struggled hard with De Bourbonne. He vowed he did not and would not believe the tale which he had heard. What hold, he asked, could a mere fierce English lad have upon the cardinal? and for some time his father-in-law reminded him in vain that Richelieu, though a wonderfully great man, was somewhat capricious in his affections, suggested that, as he was not a little superst.i.tious, too, in regard to astrology and the occult sciences, he might find some imaginary connection between the youth's fate and his own, and pointed out that it was utterly improbable Edward should treat him with such daring disrespect if he was not certain of some very strong support.

In the mean time the poor prisoner remained in some doubt and anxiety.

Imprisonment, solitude, and low diet had gone some way to tame the wild bird, and the uncertainty of the last hour had been very heavy. He had fancied that the words he had heard spoken by the wounded man and his companion would produce an immediate change; but, as minute after minute pa.s.sed by and nothing indicated any better treatment, he began to despond. At length, however, he heard the tramp of feet and the jingle of spurs, and a man with a torch opened the door, admitting Monsieur de Boulogne and one or two attendants.

"Young gentleman," said the old n.o.bleman, with a reproving but fatherly air, "you have been acting very rashly and impetuously toward the count my son-in-law."

"And how has he been acting toward me, sir?" asked Edward, in a more respectful tone than he had used in speaking to the younger man.

"Somewhat harshly, I am afraid," said the other, looking round him: "he could not have known the state of this place, or he would not have put you here."

"What right had he to put me in a dungeon at all?" asked Edward.

"Why, you shot and nearly killed one of his attendants," was the reply.

"Not at all," answered Edward. "You are deceived, sir. I shot an attendant of Lord Montagu whom I caught in the act of betraying his master. Ask his lordship--ask the man himself or his brother--if they had not both taken service with my lord and received his money."

The old gentleman smiled. "That puts a new face upon the matter," he said. "But let us leave recriminations. I wish to smooth matters down between you and my fiery relative. You say you have a safe-conduct from his Eminence of Richelieu. Let me see it."

"On the sole condition, sir, that you restore it to me at once," said Edward, putting his hand into a pocket in the breast of his coat and taking out the pa.s.sport in its velvet case.

"Let me examine it," said Monsieur de Boulogne. "Do not fear. You shall have it again in a moment."

"I do not fear," replied the youth, giving him the case. "I am sure you are a man of honor, by your face."

"Here, man, hold the torch nearer," said the count; and, putting a pair of spectacles--or banicles, as they were then commonly called--upon his nose, he proceeded to examine the safe-conduct minutely. But all was in proper form and order, calling upon all royal officers, governors of cities, castles, or provinces, to let the Seigneur Edward Langdale and suite pa.s.s and repa.s.s, without limitation of time or place, throughout the land of France; and there was the seal of the council, and the undoubted signature of the prime minister.

The face of the count turned very grave as he read. "This is odd!" he said. "My son should have seen this. Here is your suite mentioned, young gentleman. Of whom consists your suite?"

"I might reply," said Edward, "that any one I choose to name is of my suite, for his Eminence put no restriction. But I wish not to quibble.

The suite of which he speaks is now at Nancy,--with the exception of one page," he added, half smiling, "who is in Venice."

"Well, this is all very strange," said the old man. "I cannot understand the cardinal's giving you such a wide safe-conduct at all,--an Englishman,--and a youth like you."

"I am neither bound nor inclined to explain the motives of his Eminence," replied Edward. "If you think fit to interrogate any one upon that subject, it must be himself."