The Helmet of Navarre Part 4

"No harm, messieurs," I made haste to protest, ruing my stupidity with that dagger. "I climbed in at a window for sport. I thought the house was deserted."

He clutched my shoulder till I could have screamed for pain.

"The truth, now. If you value your life you will tell the truth."

"Monsieur, it is the truth. I came in idle mischief; that was the whole of it. I had no notion of breaking in upon you or any one. They said the house was haunted."

"Who said that?"

"Maitre Jacques, at the Amour de Dieu."

He stared at me in surprise.

"What had you been asking about this house?"

Yeux-gris, lounging against the table, struck in:

"I can tell you that myself. He told Jacques he saw us in the window last night. Did you not?"

"Aye, monsieur. The thunder woke me, and when I looked out I saw you plain as day. But Maitre Jacques said it was a vision."

"I flattered myself I saw you first and got that shutter closed very neatly," said Yeux-gris. "Dame! I am not so clever as I thought. So old Jacques called us ghosts, did he?"

"Yes, monsieur. He told me this house belonged to M. de Bethune, who was a Huguenot and killed in the ma.s.sacre."

Yeux-gris burst into joyous laughter.

"He said my house belonged to the Bethunes! Well played, Jacques! You owe that gallant lie to me, Gervais, and the pains I took to make him think us Navarre's men. He is heart and soul for Henri Quatre. Did he say, perchance, that in this very courtyard Coligny fell?"

"No," said I, seeing that I had been fooled and had had all my terrors for naught, and feeling much chagrined thereat. "How was I to know it was a lie? I know naught about Paris. I came up but yesterday from St.

Quentin."

"St. Quentin!" came a cry from the henchman. With a fierce "Be quiet, fool!" Gervais turned to me and demanded my name.

"Felix Broux."

"Who sent you here?"

"Monsieur, no one."

"You lie."

Again he gripped me by the shoulder, gripped till the tears stood in my eyes.

"No one, monsieur; I swear it."

"You will not speak! I'll make you, by Heaven."

He seized my thumb and wrist to bend one back on the other, torture with strength such as his. Yeux-gris sprang off the table.

"Let alone, Gervais! The boy's honest."

"He is a spy."

"He is a fool of a country boy. A spy in hobnailed shoes, forsooth! No spy ever behaved as he has. I said when you first seized him he was no spy. I say it again, now I have heard his story. He saw us by chance, and Maitre Jacques's bogy story spurred him on instead of keeping him off. You are a fool, my cousin."

"Pardieu! it is you who are the fool," growled Gervais. "You will bring us to the rope with your cursed easy ways. If he is a spy it means the whole crew are down upon us."

"What of that?"

"Pardieu! is it nothing?"

Yeux-gris returned with a touch of haughtiness:

"It is nothing. A gentleman may live in his own house."

Gervais looked as if he remembered something. He said much less boisterously:

"And do you want Monsieur here?"

Yeux-gris flushed red.

"No," he cried. "But you may be easy. He will not trouble himself to come."

Gervais regarded him silently an instant, as if he thought of several things he did not say. What he did say was: "You are a pair of fools, you and the boy. Whatever he came for, he has spied on us now. He shall not live to carry the tale of us."

"Then you have me to kill as well!"

Gervais turned on him snarling. Yeux-gris laid a hand on his sword-hilt.

"I will not have an innocent lad hurt. I was not bred a ruffian," he cried hotly. They glared at each other. Then Yeux-gris, with a sudden exclamation, "Ah, bah, Gervais!" broke into laughter.

Now, this merriment was a heart-warming thing to hear. For Gervais was taking the situation with a seriousness that was as terrifying as it was stupid. When I looked into his dogged eyes I could not but think the end of me might be near. But Yeux-gris's laugh said the very notion was ridiculous; I was innocent of all harmful intent, and they were gentlemen, not cutthroats.

"Messieurs," I said, "I swear by the blessed saints I am what I told you. I am no spy, and no one sent me here. Who you are, or what you do, I know no more than a babe unborn. I belong to no party and am no man's man. As for why you choose to live in this empty house, it is not my concern and I care no whit about it. Let me go, messieurs, and I will swear to keep silence about what I have seen."

"I am for letting him go," said Yeux-gris.

Gervais looked doubtful, the most encouraging att.i.tude toward me he had yet a.s.sumed. He answered:

"If he had not said the name--"

"Stuff!" interrupted Yeux-gris. "It is a coincidence, no more. If he were what you think, it is the very last name he would have said."

This was Greek to me; I had mentioned no names but Maitre Jacques's and my own. And he was their friend.

"Messieurs," I said, "if it is my name that does not please you, why, I can say for it that if it is not very high-sounding, at least it is an honest one and has ever been held so down where we live."

"And that is at St. Quentin," said Yeux-gris.