The Long Night Part 23

"In the box?"

"None."

He sprang to his feet. He shook his fist at her in low ign.o.ble rage.

"You lie!" he cried. "You have not looked. You have played with me. You have gone into the room and come out again, but you have not looked, you have not dared to look."

"I have looked," she answered quietly. "In the box that is chained to the wall. There are no papers in it. There is nothing in it except a small phial."

"A phial?"

"Of some golden liquid."

"That is all?"

"All!"

Louis Gentilis stared at her, open-mouthed. Had the Syndic deceived him?

Or had some one deceived the Syndic?

CHAPTER XII.

THE CUP AND THE LIP.

Blondel could not hide the agitation he felt as he listened to his unexpected visitors, and saw whither their errand tended. Fabri, who was leader of the deputation of three who had come upon him without warning, discerned this; much more Baudichon and Pet.i.tot, whose eyes were on the watch for the least sign of weakness. And Blondel was conscious that they saw it, and on that account strove the more to mask his feelings under a show of decision. "I have little doubt that I shall have news within the hour," he said. "Before night, I must have news." And nodding with the air of a man who knew much which he could not impart, he leant back in the old abbot's chair.

But Fabri had not come for that, nor was he to be satisfied with that; and, after a pause, "Yes," he replied, "I know. That may be so. But you see, Messer Blondel, this affair is not quite where it was yesterday, or we should not have come to you to-day. The King of France--I am sure we are much indebted to him--does not write on light occasions, and his warning is explicit. From Paris, then, we get the same story as from Turin. And this being so, and the King's tale agreeing with our agent's----"

"He does not mention Basterga!" Blondel objected. He repented the moment he had said it.

"By name, no. But he says----"

"Enough for any one with eyes!" Pet.i.tot exclaimed.

"He says," Fabri repeated, requesting the other by a gesture to be silent, "that the Grand Duke's emissary is a Paduan expelled from Venice or from Genoa. That is near enough. And I confess, were I in your place, Messer Blondel----"

"With your responsibilities," Pet.i.tot muttered through closed teeth.

"I should want to know--more about him." This from Baudichon.

Fabri nodded a.s.sent. "I think so," he said. "I really think so. In fact, I may go farther and say that were I in your place, Messer Blondel, I should seize him to-day."

"Ay, within the hour!"

"This minute!" said Baudichon, last of the three. And all three, their ultimatum delivered, looked at Blondel, a challenge in their eyes. If he stood out longer, if he still declined to take the step which prudence demanded, the step on which they were all agreed, they would know that there was something behind, something of which he had not told them.

Blondel read the look, and it perturbed him. But not to the point of sapping the resolution which he had formed at the Council Table, and to which, once formed, he clung with the obstinacy of an obstinate man. The _remedium_ first; afterwards what they would, but the _remedium_ first.

He was not going to risk life, warm life, the vista of sunny unending to-morrows, of springs and summers and the melting of snows, for a craze, a scare, an imaginary danger! Why at that very minute the lad whom he had commissioned to seize the thing might be on the way with it.

At any minute a step might sound on the threshold, and herald the promise of life. And then--then they might deal with Basterga as they pleased. Then they might hang the Paduan high as Haman, if they pleased.

But until then--his mind was made up.

"I do not agree with you," he said, his underlip thrust out, his head trembling a little.

"You will not arrest him?"

"No, I shall not arrest him," he replied, hardening himself to meet their protestant and indignant eyes. "Nor would you," he continued with bravado, "in my place. If you knew as much as I do."

"But if you know," Baudichon said, "I would like to know also."

"The responsibility is mine." Blondel swayed himself from side to side in his chair as he said it. "The responsibility is mine, and I am willing to bear it. It is the old difference of policy between us," he continued, addressing Pet.i.tot. "You are willing to grasp at every petty advantage, I am willing----"

"To risk much to gain much," Pet.i.tot exclaimed.

"To take some risk to gain a real advantage," Blondel retorted, correcting him with an eye to Fabri; whom alone, as the one impartial hearer, he feared. "For to what does the course which you are so eager to take amount? You seize Basterga: later, you will release him at the Grand Duke's request. What are we the better? What is gained?"

"Safety."

"No, on the other hand, danger. Danger! For, warned that we have detected their plot, they will hatch another plot, and instead of working as at present under our eyes, they will work below the surface with augmented care and secrecy: and will, perhaps, deceive us. No, my friends"--throwing himself back in his chair with an air of patronage, almost of contempt--for by dint of repeating his argument he had come to believe it, and to plume himself upon it--"I look farther ahead than you do, and for the sake of future gain am willing to take--present responsibility."

They were silent awhile: his old mastery was beginning to a.s.sert itself.

Then Pet.i.tot spoke. "You take a heavy responsibility," he said, "a heavy charge, Messer Blondel. What if harm come of it?"

Blondel shrugged his shoulders.

"You have no wife, Messer Blondel."

The Fourth Syndic stared. What did the man mean?

"You have no daughters," Pet.i.tot continued, a slight quaver in his tone.

"You have no little children, you sleep well of nights, the fall of wood-ash does not rouse you, you do not listen when you awake. You do not----" he paused, the last barrier of reserve broken down, the tears standing openly in his eyes--"it is foolish perhaps--you do not yearn, Messer Blondel, to take all you love in your arms, and shelter them and cover them from the horrors that threaten us, the horrors that may fall on us--any night! You do not"--he looked at Baudichon and the stout man's face grew pale, he averted his eyes--"you do not dream of these things, Messer Blondel, nor awake to fancy them, but we do. We do!" he repeated in accents which went to the hearts of all, "day and night, rising and lying down, waking and sleeping. And we--dare run no risks."

In the silence which followed Blondel's fingers tapped restlessly on the table. He cleared his throat and voice.

"But there, I tell you there are no risks," he said. He was moved nevertheless.

Pet.i.tot bowed, humbly for him. "Very good," he said. "I do not say that you are not right. But----"

"And moment by moment I expect news. It might come at this minute, it might come at any minute," the Syndic continued. With a glance at the window he moved his chair, as if to shake off the spell that Pet.i.tot had cast over him. "Besides--you do not expect the town to be taken in an hour from now?"

"No."

"In broad daylight?"

Pet.i.tot shook his head, "G.o.d knows what I expect!" he murmured despondently.

"When the information we have points to a night attack?"