The Helmet of Navarre Part 47

"When I see him, I will surely mention it," M. etienne promised him.

"Continue to be vigilant to-night, my friend. There is another man to come."

Followed by the little bourgeois's thanks and adieus, we walked out into the sweet open air. As soon as his door was shut again, we took to our heels, nor stopped running till we had put half a dozen streets between us and the mouth of the tunnel. Then we walked along in breathless silence.

Presently M. etienne cried out:

"Death of my life! Had I fought there in the burrow, I should have changed the history of France!"

XXI

_A chance encounter._

The street before us was as orderly as the aisle of Notre Dame. Few way-farers pa.s.sed us; those there were talked together as placidly as if love-trysts and melees existed not, and tunnels and countersigns were but the smoke of a dream. It was a street of shops, all shuttered, while, above, the burghers' families went respectably to bed.

"This is the Rue de la Ferronnerie," my master said, pausing a moment to take his bearings. "See, under the lantern, the sign of the Pierced Heart. The little shop is in the Rue de la Soierie. We are close by the Halles--we must have come half a mile underground. Well, we'll swing about in a circle to get home. For this night I've had enough of the Hotel de Lorraine."

And I. But I held my tongue about it, as became me.

"They were wider awake than I thought--those Lorrainers. Pardieu! Feix, you and I came closer quarters with death than is entirely amusing."

"If that door had not opened-" I shuddered.

"A new saint in the calendar--la Sainte Ferou! But what a madcap of a saint, then! My faith, she must have led them a dance when Francis I was king!

"Natheless it galls me," he went on, half to himself, "to know that I was lost by my own folly, saved by pure chance. I underrated the enemy--worst mistake in the book of strategy. I came near flinging away two lives and making a most unsightly mess under a lady's window."

"Monsieur made somewhat of a mess as it was."

"Aye. I would I knew whether I killed Brie. We'll go round in the morning and find out."

"I am thankful that monsieur does not mean to go to-night."

"Not to-night, Felix; I've had enough. No; we'll get home without pa.s.sing near the Hotel de Lorraine, if we go outside the walls to do it.

To-night I draw my sword no more."

To this day I have no quite clear idea of how we went. A strange city at night--Paris of all cities--is a labyrinth. I know that after a time we came out in some meadows along the river-bank, traversed them, and plunged once more into narrow, high-walled streets. It was very late, and lights were few. We had started in clear starlight, but now a rack of clouds hid even their pale shine.

"The snake-hole over again," said M. etienne. "But we are almost at our own gates."

But, as in the snake-hole, came light. Turning a sharp corner, we ran straight into a gentleman and his porte-flambeau, swinging along at as smart a pace as we.

"A thousand pardons," M. etienne cried to his encounterer, the possessor of years and gravity but of no great size, whom he had almost knocked down. "I heard you, but knew not you were so close. We were speeding to get home."

The personage was also of a portliness, and the collision had knocked the wind out of him. He leaned panting against the wall. As he scanned M. etienne's open countenance and princely dress his alarm vanished.

"It is unseemly to go about on a night like this without a lantern," he said with asperity. "The munic.i.p.ality should forbid it. I shall certainly bring the matter up at the next sitting."

"Monsieur is a member of the Parliament?" M. etienne asked with immense respect.

"I have that honour, monsieur," the little man replied, delighted to impress us, as he himself was impressed, by the sense of his importance.

"Oh," said M. etienne, with increasing solemnity, "perhaps monsieur had a hand in a certain decree of the 28th June?"

The little man began to look uneasy.

"There was, as monsieur says, a measure pa.s.sed that day," he stammered.

"A rebellious and contumacious decree," M. etienne rejoined, "most offensive to the general-duke." Whereupon he fingered his sword.

"Monsieur," the little deputy cried, "we meant no offence to his Grace, or to any true Frenchman. We but desire peace after all these years of blood. We were informed that his Grace was angry; yet we believed that even he will come to see the matter in a different light--"

"You have acted in a manner insulting to his Grace of Mayenne," M.

etienne repeated inexorably, and he glanced up the street and down the street to make sure the coast was clear. The wretched little deputy's teeth chattered.

The linkman had retreated to the other side of the way, where he seemed on the point of fleeing, leaving his master to his fate. I thought it would be a shame if the badgered deputy had to stumble home in the dark, so I growled out to the fellow:

"Stir one step at your peril!"

I was afraid he would drop the flambeau and run, but he did not; he only sank back against the wall, eyeing my sword with exceeding deference. He knew not that there was but a foot of blade in the scabbard.

The burgher looked up the street and down the street, after M. etienne's example, but there was no help to be seen or heard. He turned to his tormentor with the valour of a mouse at bay.

"Monsieur, beware what you do. I am Pierre Marceau!"

"Oh, you are Pierre Marceau? And can M. Pierre Marceau explain how he happened to be faring forth from his dwelling at this unholy hour?"

"I am not faring forth; I am faring home. I--we had a little con--that is, not to say a conference, but merely a little discussion on matters of no importance--"

"I have the pleasure," interrupted M. etienne, sternly, "of knowing where M. Marceau lives. M. Marceau's errand in this direction is not accounted for."

"But I was going home--on my sacred honour I was! Ask Jacques, else. But as we went down the Rue de l'eveque we saw two men in front of us. As they reached the wall by M. de Mirabeau's garden a gang of footpads fell on them. The two drew blades and defended themselves, but the ruffians were a dozen--a score. We ran for our lives."

M. etienne wheeled round to me.

"Felix, here is work for us. As I was saying, M. Marceau, your decree is most offensive to the general-duke, and therefore, since he is my particular enemy, most pleasing to me. A beautiful night, is it not, sir? I wish you a delightful walk home."

He seized me by the hand, and we dashed up the street.

At the corner the noise of a fray came faintly but plainly to our ears.

M. le Comte without hesitation plunged down a lane in the direction of the sound.

"I said I wanted no more fighting to-night, but two against a mob! We know how it feels."

The clash of steel on steel grew ever louder, and as we wheeled around a jutting garden wall we came full upon the combatants.