The False Chevalier Part 8

"Well, I will enjoy it myself," he said, and with the utmost a.s.surance stepped into the stern; while d'Amoreau and Grancey chuckled and looked at each other and Germain. The latter smiled and rowed down the lake.

On the other side was a clearing in the grove, where a stone seat was placed near the bank. Here Lecour drew to sh.o.r.e, and handed out Cyrene.

The two Guardsmen were watching him closely. When Jude rose from the stem seat he felt a sudden strong turn given to the boat. He clutched the air, it did not save him; one black silk leg kicked up, and he disappeared under the water.

The face of Cyrene, who had seated herself on the stone bench, was for a moment one of alarm.

The depth was not, however, above the Abbe's waist, and when he rose his look of furious misery was too comical for any pity. The water streamed in a cataract from his wig over his elongated countenance and ruined clothes. He had screwed his face into the black slime of the bottom; it was now besides distorted with his efforts to breathe, and he unconsciously held up his blackened hands in the att.i.tude of blessing.

The whole party could not contain their laughter. D'Amoreau, Grancey, and the other Guardsmen sent up continuous roars on roars from their boats. The Prince smiled; de Bailleul's efforts to control himself were ineffectual; the ladies all t.i.ttered, except Madame, who stood on sh.o.r.e, and even the considerate Cyrene could restrain herself no longer, but turned her head from the moving appeal of the unfortunate figure before her, and gave way to a silvery chime of undiluted enjoyment.

"Hush, cousin," cried the Princess de Poix, stilted as ever; "such a sad accident."

"Repentigny, by Castor and Pollux," swore d'Amoreau at the first moment of their meeting in private, "here are not five louis, but twenty. You were made for a Marshal of France."

"Dominique," Germain called out, "spend this with your fellows" (by instinct he knew it was part of his _role_ to be lavish), "and tell them to drink to that meddlesome blackleg."

"In cold water," d'Amoreau added.

CHAPTER IX

A PHILOSOPHER BEHIND HORSE-PISTOLS

The procession of carriages containing the guests rolled back to the Palace through the forest.

The carriage of the Prince came last and in it sat the Prince and Princess, Cyrene and Jude, while Lecour rode alongside for some miles.

How more and more he dreaded the revelation of his humble birth. He said his adieux at length and turned back with the keenest misery in his breast he had ever felt--such misery indeed that after a little he could not resist retracing his route.

The Prince's coach meanwhile had lagged behind the others at a point where the road cut through a small gorge. His Excellency was giving the ladies an account and history of the Chevalier's wounds, when in the middle of it the horses stopped with a jerk. A commotion without any words appeared to be going on outside. The Prince put his head out and found himself looking into the barrels of a horse-pistol, while a masked man of heavy build summoned him to be quiet. He saw moreover nine or ten half-naked fellows also disguised in rude masks, posted about, with muskets and pistols pointed at the grooms and himself. The Princess fell in a faint. The Abbe threw himself under the seat. Such scenes were being enacted every day on the highroads in that lumbering old handmade century.

The head of the man who had charge of the Prince was, as it were, thatched with a torn hat and his black hair straggled past his mask in tufts down to his shoulders.

"Purses!" he growled harshly, putting his head in at the window.

"Cut-throat!" cried the Prince. "You shall swing for this as sure as there is a Lieutenant of Police in Paris."

The big man's answer was a ferocious "Enough!"

And as his black finger twitched threateningly upon the trigger, Cyrene laid her restraining hand on her cousin's arm. She took out her purse with her other hand and pa.s.sed it to the man. She promptly also pulled out that of the Princess. The Prince handed his own to her and it was pa.s.sed over with that of his wife.

"Watches!" was the next order.

With the same coolness she pa.s.sed these likewise.

He scowled next at the brooch Cyrene wore at her neck.

"Give me that," he commanded. She stopped and said firmly--

"Thou hast sufficient, thou."

"I must have that."

With a momentary impatience she tore it off.

"Consult thy best interests and go," she said in a stern voice.

He did not lack the necessary quickness of judgment, and signed to his mates who retreated into the woods, keeping the lackeys well covered with their firearms.

"My ladies and my Lord," said the big man, still holding his pistol aimed at the Prince. "We levy this tax in _the name of the King_." That is what you say when you steal from us, the people. "We commend you the consolation of your formula."

Having made this singular speech, to the infinite fury of the Prince, who would have drawn his sword and leaped out at him had it not been for Cyrene, he retired backward into the forest.

Germain came into sight at this juncture. The scene shocked and astonished him, he drove his spurs into the flanks of his horse, which, with bounds of pain, flew forward, and leaping off, he peered anxiously into the carriage. The situation was clear enough to him, for its like was then only too common, so, placing aside for the time being his rage at the villains, he lifted and straightened the insensible lady into a position on the seat-cushions, and sent a groom forward for help.

The grat.i.tude of the Prince was profuse. Cyrene spoke not a word. The shock to her had been intense, and burying her face in her handkerchief she burst into tears, which more than ever agitated Lecour.

In a few minutes d'Estaing and de Grancey drove up. They were astonished at the speed and audacity of the affair.

CHAPTER X

THE GALLEY-ON-LAND

At three o'clock a search party of friends and gendarmes from the Palace, at which the occurrence had aroused something of a flutter, came back to the place.

The Guardsmen offered to scour the woods in a body. Lecour soberly recommended a different plan, which they adopted, and placing his six friends and several royal gamekeepers in Indian file he started at their head. They followed him without speaking and watched him closely as, with an intentness quite un-French, he bent down to see farther through the trees, examined the branches for newly-broken twigs, the displaced stones, the crushed mosses, disturbed gra.s.s, and soft places of the ground, and the little indications read and looked for by trappers and Indians. As he entered the woods the traces of the first rush back of the robbers gave a ma.s.s of easy clues and an initial direction.

Following on they came to a marsh, where they found footmarks, and readily put together the number of the thieves and the physical character of each. In an open place the trail would be an unconcealed track across the gra.s.s; in dry woods perhaps it would be lost for many yards. Its discovery, of course, was not altogether so marvellous a matter as they thought. But it helped Germain's reputation afterwards.

At last they came into a tangled and difficult region called apremont, where the rocky ridges were broken into intractable ruins--the most savage portion of the forest. Strange cliffs of shale, eaten by weather and earthquake into the most picturesque columns and caves, confronted them. Here the signs became rare and the advance tedious, but the little column still breathlessly followed the woodsman. They were rewarded by finding a neighbourhood where the damp mosses showed many tracks converging, and as Grancey thought he distinguished a distant sound Germain listened and heard what he judged to be the faint refrain of a song. He now adopted greater caution, placing his gamekeepers in a body to remain ready at call, and at different points setting his friends in easy reach of each other.

Grancey and he crept along, guided by the uncertain sounds of the song, but found that they grew fainter. On this they retraced their path and were gratified to hear the sound increase again. They discovered a point where it would not grow any louder, and here Germain paused. "I have the secret!" he whispered, and placed his ear to the ground. The Baron imitated him. True enough the singing was _below_. They caught other voices now. Lecour pondered a few moments. He followed an irregular rent in the rock and disappeared to one side. Returning on tiptoe, excited for the first time, he beckoned Grancey to accompany him and led the way with the greatest precaution to a long crack in the side of a hill, scarcely discernible without the closest scrutiny, through which the accents came quite audibly, and they caught sight of the objects below in a grey light. They made out a narrow, oblique cavern, formed by the widening of what geologists call a "fault" in the shaly rock. Eight men, all in rags with one exception, were sitting and lying about. Stretched on the ground, drinking alternately from a bottle, were two, one of whom was singing s.n.a.t.c.hes of a rambling _vaudeville_.

Grancey touched Germain and pointed out that their firearms were in a heap at the entrance, and that a rope attached there and coiled loosely showed their means of exit down the face of the cliff.

The man who was not in rags was standing up, the centre of attraction.

He appeared to be a visitor.

"Stay with us the night," said the leader, a big man of ferocious brows and keen black eyes. "Our friend, his Majesty, has sent us some of his venison."

"The Big Hog?" said the stranger.

A round of laughter echoed through the cavern. The stoutness of the King had given rise to this nickname among the people.