The Rose of Old St. Louis Part 40

I looked steadily into her eyes.

"Mademoiselle, may I put you on her back?"

She bowed her head, and I lifted her to her seat, put her foot in the stirrup and the bridle in her hand. Then I threw my arm over Fatima's neck.

"Good-by, Sweetheart," I whispered, "take good care of your mistress,"

and kissed her on the white star on her forehead. Still with my arm over her neck I reached up my hand to mademoiselle.

She put her hand in mine, and I kissed it as I had kissed it when she chose me her king; then I lifted my eyes and looked straight into hers.

"Good-by, Mademoiselle, and au revoir," I said, and dropped her hand.

She could not answer for the same piteous quivering of the chin, but her lips formed "Au revoir"; and then she turned Fatima and rode slowly under the leafy arch that led through a long tunnel of foliage, due east.

"Monsieur," said the prince, and I started; for a moment I had forgotten his existence.

He had withdrawn courteously while I was making my adieus with mademoiselle, busying himself with little preparations for departure.

Now he had mounted and drawn his horse to my side.

"Monsieur, you have taught me to honor and admire all American gentlemen. If there is any service I can ever do you, I hope you will give me the opportunity of showing you how much I appreciate the great service you have done us this night."

"Monsieur le Prince," I answered quickly, too eager with my own thoughts to thank him for his kind words, "there is one kindness you can show me that will more than repay me for anything I have ever done or ever could do. Write me of mademoiselle's safe arrival when you reach Baden. I will give you my address," and I tore a leaf from my memorandum-book, wrote my address upon it, and thrust it into his hand.

"It is a small commission, Monsieur," he answered, "but I will be most happy to execute it."

He grasped my hand, said "Au revoir," and cantered quickly away after mademoiselle.

I watched them riding side by side under the leafy dome until their figures were lost in the darkness, mademoiselle still with bent head, and he with his face turned courteously away as if not to seem to see should she be softly crying. And if there was for a moment in my heart a jealous envy that he should ride by mademoiselle's side and I be left behind, I put it quickly away, for I knew him to be a n.o.ble and courteous gentleman, and one to whose honor I could trust the dearest thing in life.

CHAPTER XXVIII

EXIT LE CHEVALIER

"The King of France with forty thousand men, Went up a hill, and so came down agen."

Clothilde, Caesar, and I had ridden late into the night before we had reached the little village on the Seine where my boatman, Gustave, was to tie up. But it was moonlight and we rode through a beautiful country dotted with royal chateaus,--the birthplaces of ill.u.s.trious kings,--and I had my thoughts, and Clotilde and Caesar had each other: for Caesar was the first of her kind Clotilde had seen since coming to France, and much as she might enjoy the attentions of footmen in gorgeous liveries, after all they were only "white trash," and she loved best her own color. Clotilde was rapidly becoming consoled; and though she only spoke creole French, and Caesar only English, save for the few words he had picked up since coming to Paris, they seemed to make themselves very well understood.

So the ride had not been so tedious as it might have been. And when we had found Gustave's boat tied to the bank and had routed up him and his wife, and delivered Clotilde into their care (and their admiration and awe of the black lady was wonderful to see), and Caesar and I had hunted up a fairly comfortable inn and had two or three hours of sleep, we were all quite ready to start on again.

Feeling that Clotilde was a sacred trust, I was anxious both for her safety and for her welfare, and thus it was that the early morning found me following the windings of the Seine by a little bridle-path on its banks, hardly twenty feet from Gustave's boat dropping down with the tide. Gustave's wife was in the forward part of the boat, preparing breakfast for the three, and the savory odor of her bacon and coffee was borne by the breeze straight to my nostrils on the high bank above her. Gustave himself was in the stern of the boat, lazily managing the steering-oar and waiting for his breakfast, and incidentally grinning from ear to ear at Caesar, riding a pace behind me and casting longing glances at the thatched roof of the little boat's cabin, whence issued in rich negro tones the creole love-song Yorke had sung to Clotilde on the Ohio boat:

"Every springtime All the lovers Change their sweethearts; Let change who will, I keep mine."

I had straitly charged Clotilde that she must keep herself closely concealed within the cabin, but I had said nothing to her about also keeping quiet. Now I was idly thinking that perhaps I had better give her instructions upon that point also, when down the stony road some three feet higher than the bridle-path, and separated from it by a bank of turf, came the thunder of hoofs. I glanced up quickly. A little party of hors.e.m.e.n, five or six in number, were dashing down the road toward us, and in the lead was the Chevalier Le Moyne! At sight of us they drew rein, and the chevalier, looking down on me (for the first time in his life), brought his hat to his saddle-bow with a flourish.

"Good morning, Monsieur. I hear you are off for America."

"Good morning," I answered coolly, merely touching my own hat. "You have heard correctly"; and I wished with all my heart that I had had time to tell Clotilde to keep still, for up from the boat below, louder and clearer than ever, it seemed to me, came the refrain of her foolish song:

"Tous les printemps, Tous les amants Changent de maitresses; Qu'ils changent qui voudront, Pour moi, je garde la mienne."

The chevalier was listening pointedly.

"An old song, Monsieur, that I have often heard in St. Louis. And the voice, too, I think is familiar. It is the black maid of the Comtesse de Baloit, is it not? Perhaps her mistress is with her; if so, our quest is at an end."

"What do you mean, Monsieur le Chevalier!" I exclaimed, affecting virtuous indignation, and feeling a little of it, too, for I liked not the chevalier's manner.

"You have heard, I suppose," he answered, with a light sneer, "that the comtesse has disappeared from Paris. At almost the same moment it was announced that monsieur had started for America, and some of the comtesse's friends thought it not impossible that they had gone together. From the warbling of that nightingale yonder I judge they were not far wrong."

Not until this moment had it occurred to me that any one would connect the flight of the comtesse with my departure, and I hardly knew whether I was more ragingly angry at the thought or secretly glad.

There was no question as to my state of mind toward the chevalier.

That he should speak in such a light and sneering tone of any lady, but most of all that he should so speak of the loveliest lady on earth, was not to be borne. Yet I was glad, for some reasons, that such a mistaken surmise had arisen: it would throw pursuit off the track until Pelagie was well on her way to the German frontier, and the truth would come out later and my lady not suffer in her reputation (which indeed I could not have endured).

So instead of giving free vent to the anger that raged in my heart, as I longed to do, I thought it wise to dally with the chevalier and keep him as long as possible on the wrong scent, for every moment of delay to the chevalier was setting mademoiselle farther on her way.

"Your news, Monsieur," I said, "is most astonishing, but your insinuations also most insulting to a lady whose honor and reputation shall ever be my dearest care."

Now the chevalier was five to one (for I could not count upon Caesar for fighting, as I might have counted upon Yorke). I do not say that that fact made the chevalier more bold or less careful in his manner, but I certainly think that had we been man to man he would not have answered as he did.

"Your virtuous indignation is pretty to see, Monsieur," he answered; "but I have the warrant of the republic to search whatever domains I may suspect of harboring the comtesse, and I think I will use my rights on yonder boat, where I see the face of her maid at the window."

I glanced quickly at the boat. Sure enough, in the little square of gla.s.s that formed the window of the cabin was framed Clotilde's black face. And her nose (already broad enough) being flattened against the gla.s.s, and her eyes rolling wildly with curiosity and fear as she gazed at the party of armed hors.e.m.e.n on the bank, she made a ludicrous picture indeed. I would have liked to laugh heartily but that it was my role to display chagrin and anxiety rather than a careless levity.

"Monsieur," I said seriously, "you are quite right: that is Clotilde, the maid of Mademoiselle la Comtesse. I was requested last evening to take her back to America and return her to her friends in St. Louis.

It will always be my greatest pleasure to render the comtesse any service within my power, and I did not stop to question why she wished to get rid of her maid."

"Your explanation is most plausible, Monsieur,"--the chevalier's tone was intentionally insulting, and, but that I had mademoiselle's interests more at heart than my own sensitive self-esteem, would have been hard to brook,--"but since I hold a warrant of search, if Monsieur permits, I will do myself the honor of visiting his boat."

Now I cared not at all whether the chevalier visited the boat or not, knowing well he would not find the comtesse there. My only anxiety was to temporize as long as possible and keep him still suspicious of my complicity with mademoiselle's flight, that she might profit by his delay in discovering the true scent. So I answered sternly:

"Monsieur, that boat is for the time being United States territory.

You step upon its planks without my consent at your peril. I will at once report the matter to our minister at Paris, Mr. Livingston, and if a war between the United States and France is the result, you will have to give an account to the First Consul of your acts which caused that war."

I was not enough of a diplomat to know whether I was speaking within my rights or not, but I trusted to the chevalier being no better informed than I, and at the best I was but speaking against time. The effect of my speech was all that I could have desired. The chevalier looked immediately crestfallen, and turned to consult with his comrades. For full five minutes (I could have wished it ten times five) they carried on a conference that at times appeared to be heated, though always low-toned. Then the chevalier turned to me again, and his manner was no longer insulting, but of such respect as is due one gentleman from another.

"Monsieur," he said, "perhaps I have no right to _demand_ that I be allowed to search a boat belonging to an American gentleman, but if Monsieur will permit me to do so he will oblige me greatly, and it will be the means of clearing him at once of suspicions that may have unjustly accrued to him."

There was no wisdom in delaying longer.

"Since Monsieur puts it in that way," I said, "I can have no object in refusing his request. I shall have to ask you, however, that you wait a few minutes until I step aboard and warn Gustave and his wife of the purpose of your visit, lest they be unnecessarily alarmed."

The chevalier showed that he liked not the last part of my speech. He no doubt thought that my purpose in going aboard first was to find a secure hiding-place for the comtesse. However, he had no alternative but to acquiesce. My real purpose was to warn Gustave and his wife that on no account were they to betray at what hour or where Clotilde had come aboard. She was to have come aboard at Paris at four o'clock the day before; and they, having no inkling of the true state of the case, but suspecting, I believe, some intrigue between the "dark lady"

and her lovers, sympathetically promised implicit obedience. With Clotilde I was even more strenuous. Her story must agree with Gustave's: she had boarded the boat in Paris at four of the afternoon; but especially was she to know nothing of her mistress's plans--why or where she had gone. With her I appealed to her love for her mistress, and warned her that the comtesse's liberty, possibly her life, might depend upon her discretion. With the others a promise of liberal rewards if they proved true, and dire threats should they betray me, I believed secured their fidelity.