The Mysteries Of Paris Volume Iv Part 11

"Take care of yourself! You are trying to pick a quarrel, and you will find a bone to pick that will be too tough for you."

"A bone for me to pick?"

"Yes; and I'll thrash you more soundly than I did last time."

"What! Nicholas," said Calabash, with a sardonic grin, "did Martial thrash you? Did you hear that, mother? I'm not astonished that Nicholas is so afraid of him."

"He walloped me, because, like a coward, he took me off my guard,"

exclaimed Nicholas, turning pale with rage.

"You lie! You attacked me unexpectedly; I knocked you flat, and then showed you mercy. But if you talk of my mistress,--I say, mind you, of my mistress,--this time I look it over,--you shall carry my marks for many a long day."

"And suppose I choose to talk of La Louve?" inquired Calabash.

"Why, I'll pull your ears to put you on your guard; and if you begin again, why, so will I."

"And suppose I speak of her?" said the widow, slowly.

"You?"

"Yes,--I!"

"You?" said Martial, making a violent effort over himself; "you?"

"You'll beat me, too, I suppose,--won't you?"

"No; but, if you speak to me unkindly of La Louve, I'll give Nicholas a hiding he shall long remember. So now, mind! It is his affair as well as yours."

"You?" exclaimed the ruffian, rising, and drawing his dangerous Spanish knife; "you give me a hiding?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Brigand dashed at his brother._ Original Etching by Adrian Marcel.]

"Nicholas, no steel!" cried the widow, quickly, leaving her seat, and trying to seize her son's arm; but he, drunk with wine and pa.s.sion, repulsed his mother savagely, and rushed at his brother.

Martial receded rapidly, laid hold of the thick, knotted stick which he had put down by the dresser, as he entered, and betook himself to the defensive.

"Nicholas, no steel!" repeated the widow.

"Let him alone!" cried Calabash, taking up the ravageur's hatchet.

Nicholas, still brandishing his formidable knife, watched for a moment when he could spring on his brother.

"I tell you," he exclaimed, "you and your trollop, La Louve, that I'll slash your eyes out; and here goes to begin! Help, mother! Help, Calabash! Let's make cold meat of the scamp; he's been in our way too long already!" And, believing the moment favourable for his attack, the brigand dashed at his brother with his uplifted knife.

Martial, who was a dexterous cudgeller, retreated a pace rapidly, raising his stick, which, as quick as lightning, cut a figure of eight, and fell so heavily on the right forearm of Nicholas that he, seized with a sudden and overpowering pain, dropped his trenchant weapon.

"Villain, you have broken my arm!" he shouted, grasping with his left hand the right arm, which hung useless by his side.

"No; for I felt my stick rebound!" replied Martial, kicking, as he spoke, the knife underneath the dresser.

Then, taking advantage of the pain which Nicholas was suffering, he seized him by the collar, and thrust him violently backwards, until he had reached the door of the little cellar we have alluded to, which he opened with one hand, whilst, with the other, he thrust his brother into it, and locked him in, all stupefied as he was with this sudden attack.

Then, turning round upon the two women, he seized Calabash by the shoulders, and, in spite of her resistance, her shrieks, and a blow from the hatchet, which cut his head slightly, he shut her up in the lower room of the cabaret, which communicated with the kitchen.

Then addressing the widow, who was still stupefied with this manoeuvre, as skilful as it was sudden, Martial said to her, calmly, "Now, mother, you and I are alone."

"Yes, we are alone," replied the widow, and her usually immobile features became excited, her sallow skin grew red, a gloomy fire lighted up her dull eye, whilst anger and hate gave to her countenance a terrible expression. "Yes, we two are alone now!" she repeated, in a menacing voice. "I have waited for this moment; and at length you shall know all that I have on my mind."

"And I will tell you all I have on my mind."

"If you live to be a hundred years old, I tell you you shall remember this night."

"I shall remember it, unquestionably. My brother and sister have tried to murder me, and you have done nothing to prevent them. But come, let me hear what you have against me?"

"What have I?"

"Yes."

"Since your father's death you have acted nothing but a coward's part."

"I?"

"Yes, a coward's! Instead of remaining with us to support us, you went off to Rambouillet, to poach in the woods with that man who sells game whom you knew at Bercy."

"If I had remained here, I should have been at the galleys like Ambroise, or on the point of going there like Nicholas. I would not be a robber like the rest, and that is the cause of your hatred."

"And what track are you following now? You steal game, you steal fish,--thefts without danger,--a coward's thefts!"

"Fish, like game, is no man's property. To-day belongs to one, to-morrow to another. It is his who can take it. I don't steal. As to being a coward--"

"Why, you fight--and for money--men who are weaker than yourself."

"Because they have beaten men weaker than themselves."

"A coward's trade,--a coward's trade!"

"Why, there are more honest pursuits, it is true. But it is not for you to tell me this!"

"Then why did you not take up with those honest trades, instead of coming here skulking and feeding out of my saucepans?"

"I give you the fish I catch, and what money I have. It isn't much, but it's enough; and I don't cost you anything. I have tried to be a locksmith to earn more; but when one has from one's infancy led a vagabond life on the river and in the woods, it is impossible to confine oneself to one spot. It is a settled thing, and one's life is decided.

And then," added Martial, with a gloomy air, "I have always preferred living alone on the water or in the forest. There no one questions me; whilst elsewhere men twit me about my father, who was (can I deny it?) guillotined,--of my brother, a galley-slave,--of my sister, a thief!"

"And what do you say of your mother?"

"I say--"

"What?"