Part 7

At the first word I wheeled around. In the court entrance stood Yeux-gris, smiling and debonair. He had laid aside his sword, and held on his left arm a basket containing a loaf of bread, a roast capon, and some bottles, for all the world like an honest prentice doing his master's errand.

"Yes, I am back!" I shouted. "Back to kill you, parricide!"

He had a knife in his belt; the fight was even. I was upon him, my dagger raised to strike. He made no motion to draw, and I remembered in a flash he could not: his right arm was powerless. He sprang back, flinging up his burdened left as a shield, and my blade buried itself in the side of the basket.

As I stabbed I heard feet thundering down the stairs within. I jerked my knife from the wicker and turned to face this new enemy. "Grammont," I thought, and that my end had come.

The door flew open and, shoulder to shoulder like brothers, out rushed Grammont and--Lucas!

My fear was drowned in amaze. I forgot to run and stood staring in sheer, blank bewilderment. Crying "Damned traitor!" Gervais, with drawn sword, charged at me.

I had only the little dagger. I owe my life to Yeux-gris's quick wits and no less quick fingers. Dropping the basket, he snatched a bottle from it and hurled it at Gervais.

"Ware, Grammont!" shouted Lucas, springing forward. But the missile flew too quickly. It struck Grammont square on the forehead, and he went down like a slaughtered ox.

We looked, not at him, but at Lucas--Lucas, the duke's deferential servant, the coward and skulker, Grammont's hatred, standing here by Grammont's side, glaring at us over his naked sword.

I saw in one glance that Yeux-gris was no less astounded than I, and from that instant, though the inwardness of the matter was still a riddle to me, my heart acquitted him of all dishonesty, of all complicity. His was not the face of a parricide.

"Lucas!" he cried, in a dearth of words. "_Lucas!_"

I was staring at Lucas in thick bewilderment. The man was transformed from the one I knew. At M. le Duc's he had been pale, nervous, and shaken--senselessly and contemptibly scared, as I thought, since he was warned of the danger and need not face it. But now he was another man. I can think only of those lanterns I have seen, set with coloured glass. They look dull enough all day, but when the taper within is lighted shine like jewels. So Lucas now. His face, so keen and handsome of feature, was brilliant, his eyes sparkling, his figure instinct with defiance. A smile crossed his face.

"Aye," he answered evenly, "it is Lucas."

M. le Comte appeared to be in a state of stupor. He could not for a space find his tongue to demand:

"How, in the name of Heaven, come you here?"

"To fight Grammont," Lucas answered at once.

"A lie!" I shouted. "You're Grammont's friend. You came here to warn him off. It's your plot!"

"Félix! The plot?" Yeux-gris cried.

"The plot's to murder Monsieur. Martin let it out. I thought it was you and Grammont. But it's Lucas and Grammont!"

Lucas hesitated. Even now he debated whether he could not lie out of it. Then he burst into laughter.

"It seems the cat's out of the bag. Aye, M. le Comte de Mar, I came to warn Grammont off. The duke will be here straightway. How will you like to swing for parricide?"

Yeux-gris stared at him, neither in fear nor in fury, but in utter stupefaction.

"But Gervais? He plotted with you? But he hates you!"

We gaped at Lucas like yokels at a conjurer. He made us no answer but looked from one to the other of us with the alertness of an angry viper. We were two, but without swords. I knew he was thinking how easiest to end us both.

M. le Comte cried: "You! You come from Navarre's camp, from M. de Rosny!"

"Aye. I have outwitted more than one man."

"Mordieu! I was right to hate you!"

Lucas laughed. Yeux-gris blazed out:

"Traitor and thief! You stole the money. I said that from the first. You drove us from the house. How you and Grammont--"

"Came together? Very simple," Lucas answered with easy insolence. "Grammont did not love Monsieur, your honoured father. It was child's play to make an assignation with him and to lament the part forced on me by Monsieur. Grammont was ready enough to scent a scheme of M. le Duc's to ruin him. He had said as much to Monsieur, as you may deign to remember."

"Aye," said M. le Comte, still like a puzzled child, "he was angry with my father. But afterward he changed his mind. He knew it was you, and only you."

Lucas broke again into derisive laughter.

"M. de Grammont is as dull a dolt as ever I met, yet clever enough to gull you. He thought you must suspect. I dreaded it--needlessly. You wise St. Quentins! You cannot see what goes on under your very nose."

M. le Comte sprang forward, scarlet. Lucas flourished the sword.

"The boy there caught at a glance what you had not found out in a fortnight. He gets to the duke and blocks my game--for to-day. But if they sent him ahead to hold us till their men came up, they were fools, too. I'll have the duke yet, and I'll have you now."

He rushed at the unarmed Yeux-gris. The latter darted at Grammont's fallen sword, seized it, was on guard, all in the second before Lucas reached him. He might have been in a fortnight's trance, but he was awake at last.

I trembled for him, then took heart again, as he parried thrust after thrust and pressed Lucas hard. I had never seen a man fight with his left arm before; I had not realized it could be done, being myself helpless with that hand. But as I watched this combat I speedily perceived how dangerous is a left-handed adversary. In later years I was to understand better, when M. le Comte had become known the length of the land by the title "Le Gaucher." But at this time he was in the habit, like the rest of the world, of fencing with his right hand; his dexterity with the other he rated only as a pretty accomplishment to surprise the crowd. He used his left hand scarcely as well as Lucas the right; yet, the thrust sinister being in itself a strength, they were not badly matched. I stood watching with all my eyes, when of a sudden I felt a grasp on my ankle and the next instant was thrown heavily to the pavement.

Grammont had come to life and taken prompt part in the fray.

I fell close to him, and instantly he let go my leg and wound his arms around me. I tried to rise and could not, and we rolled about together in the wine and blood and broken glass. All the while I heard the sword-blades clashing. Yeux-gris, God be thanked! seemed to be holding his own.

Fighting Gervais was like fighting two men. Slowly but steadily he pressed me down and held me. I struggled for dear life--and could not push him back an inch.

I still held my knife but my arms were pinned down. Gervais raised himself a little to get a better clutch, and his fingers closed on my throat. One grip, and life seemed flowing from me. My arm was free now if I could but lift it. If I could not, nevermore should I lift it on this sunny earth. I did lift it, and drove the dagger deep into him.

I could not take aim; I could not tell where the knife struck. A gasp showed he was hit; then he clinched my throat once more. Sight went from me, and hearing. "It is no use," I thought, and then thought went, too.

But once again the saints were kind to me. The blackness passed, and I wondered what had happened that I was spared. Then I saw Grammont clutching with both hands at the dagger-hilt. After all, the blow had gone home. I had struck him in the left side under the arm. Three good inches of steel were in him.

He had turned over on his side, half off me. I scrambled out from under him. To my surprise, Yeux-gris and Lucas were still engaged. I had thought it hours since Grammont pulled me down.

As I rose, Yeux-gris turned his head toward me. Only for a second, but in that second Lucas pinked his shoulder. I dashed between them; they lowered their points.

"First blood for me!" cried Lucas. "That serves for to-day, M. le Comte. I regret that I cannot wait to kill you, but that will come. It is necessary that I go before M. le Duc arrives. Clear the way."

M. le Comte stood his ground, barring the alley. They glared at each other motionless.

Grammont had raised himself to his knees and was trying painfully to get on his feet.

"A hand, Lucas," he gasped.

Lucas gave him a startled glance but neither went nor spoke to him.

"I am not much hurt," said Grammont, huskily. Holding by the wall, he clambered up on his feet. He swayed, reeled forward, and clutched Lucas's arm.

"Lucas, Lucas, help me! Draw out the knife. I cannot. I shall be myself when the knife is out. Lucas, for God's sake!"

"You will die when the knife is out," said Lucas, wrenching himself free. He turned again to M. le Comte, and his eyes gleamed as he saw the blood trickling down his sleeve and the sword tremble in his hand.

"Come on, then," he cried to Yeux-gris.

But I sprang forward and seized the sword from M. le Comte's hand.

"On guard!" I shouted, and we went to work.

I could handle a sword as well as the next one. M. le Duc had taught me in his idle days at St. Quentin. It served me well now, and him, too.

The light was fading in the narrow court. Our blades shone white in the twilight as the weapons clashed in and out. I saw, without looking, Grammont leaning against the wall, his gory face ashen, and Yeux-gris watching me with all his soul, now and then shouting a word of advice.

I had had good training, and I fought for all there was in me. Yet I was a boy not come to my full strength, and Lucas was more than my match. He drove me back farther and farther toward the house-wall. Of a sudden I slipped in a smear of blood ('tis no lying excuse, I did slip) and lost my guard. He ran his blade into my shoulder, as he had done with Yeux-gris.

He would likely have finished me had not a cry from Grammont shaken him.

"The duke!"

In truth, a deepening noise of hoofs and shouts came down the alley from the street.

Lucas looked at me, who had regained my guard and stood, little hurt, between him and M. le Comte. He could not push past me into the house and so through to the other street. He made for the alley, crying out:

"Au revoir, messieurs! We shall meet again."

Grammont seized him.

"Help me, Lucas, for the love of Christ! Don't leave me, Lucas!"

Lucas beat him off with the sword.

"Every man for himself!" he cried, and sprang down the alley.

"It is not the duke," I said to Yeux-gris. "It is most likely the watch." I paled at the thought, for the watch was the League's, and Lucas by all signs the League's tool. It might go hard with us if captured. "Go through the house, M. le Comte," I cried. "Quick, if you love your life! I'll keep them at the alley's mouth as long as I can."

Not waiting for his answer, I rushed down the passage. At the end of it I ran against Lucas, who, in his turn, had bowled into Vigo.

XI

_Vigo._

I knew of old that it was easier to catch a weasel asleep than Vigo absent where he was needed; yet I did not expect to meet him in the alley. Monsieur, then, had changed his mind.

"Well caught!" cried Vigo, winding his arms round Lucas, who was struggling furiously for liberty. "Here, Maurice, Jules, I have number one. Ah, you young sinner! with your crew again? I thought as much. Tie the knots hard, boys. Better be quiet, you snake; you can't get away."

Lucas seemed to make up his mind to this, for he quieted down directly.

"So the game is up," he said pleasantly. "I had hoped to be gone before you arrived, dear Vigo."

We had both been deprived promptly of our swords and Lucas's wrists were roped together, but my only bond was Vigo's hand on my arm.

"Where are the others?" he demanded. "No tricks, now."

"Here," I said, and led the way down the passage. Maurice and Jules, with their prisoner, pressed after us, and half a dozen of the duke's guard after them. The rest stayed without to mind the horses and keep off the gathering crowd.

One of the men had a torch which lighted the red pavement. Vigo saw this first.

"Morbleu! is it a shambles?"

"That is wine," I said.

"They spilled wine for effect, they spilled so little blood!" Thus Lucas, speaking with as cool devilry as if he still commanded the situation. Vigo could not know what he meant but he asked no questions; instead, bade Lucas hold his tongue.

"I am dumb," Lucas rejoined, with a mock meekness more insolent than insolence. But we paid it no heed for M. le Comte came forward out of the shadows. He held his head well up but his face was white above his crimsoned doublet.

"M. Étienne! Are you hurt?" shouted Vigo.

"No, but he is." M. le Comte stepped aside to show us Grammont leaning against the wall.

"Ah!" cried Vigo, triumphantly. He and two of the men rushed at Gervais.

"You would not take me so easily but for a cursed knife in my back," Grammont muttered thickly. "For the love of Heaven, Vigo, draw it out."

With amazement Vigo perceived the knife.

"Who did it?"

"I."

"You, Félix? In the back?" Vigo looked at me as if to demand again which side I was on.

"He lay on me, throttling me," I explained. "I stabbed any way I could."

"I trow you are a dead man," Vigo told Grammont. "Natheless, here comes the knife."

It came, with a great cry from the victim. He fell back against Vigo's man, clapping his hand to his side.

"I am done for," he gasped faintly.

"That is well," said Vigo, carefully wiping off the knife.

"Yon is the scoundrel," Grammont gasped, pointing to Lucas.

"He will die a worse death than you," said Vigo.

Grammont looked from the one to the other of us, the sullen rage in his face fading to a puzzled helplessness. He said fretfully:

"Which--which is Étienne?"

He could no longer see us plain. M. le Comte came forward silently. Grammont struggled for breath in a way pitiable to see. I put my arm about him and helped the guardsman to hold him straighter. He reached out his hand and caught at M. le Comte's sleeve.

"Étienne--Étienne--pardon. It was wrong toward you--but I never had the pistoles. He called me thief--the duke. I beseech--your--pardon."

M. le Comte was silent.

"It was all Lucas--Lucas did it," Grammont muttered with stiffening lips. "I am sorry for--it. I am dying--I cannot die--without a chance. Say you--for--give--"

Still M. le Comte held back, silent. Treachery was no less treachery though Grammont was dying. All the more that they were cousins, bedfellows, was the injury great to forgive. M. le Comte said nothing.

How Grammont found the strength only God knows, who haply in his goodness gave him a last chance of mercy. Suddenly he straightened his sinking body, started from our hold, and tottered toward his cousin, both hands outstretched in appeal.

M. le Comte's face was set like a flint. The dying man faltered forward. Then M. Étienne, never changing his countenance, slowly, half reluctantly, like a man in a dream, held out his hand.

But the old comrades, estranged by traitory, were never to clasp again. As he reached M. le Comte, Grammont fell at his feet.

"He was a strong man," said Vigo. He turned Grammont's face up and added the word, "Dead." Vigo adored the Duke of St. Quentin. Otherwise he had no emotions.

But I was not case-hardened. And I--I myself--had slain this man, who had died slowly and in great pain. Vigo's voice sounded to me far off as he said bluntly:

"M. le Comte, I make you my prisoner."

"No, by Heaven!" cried M. Étienne, in a vibrating voice that brought me back to reality; "no, Vigo! I am no murderer. Things may look black against me but I am innocent. You have one villain at your feet and one a prisoner, but I am not a third! I am a St. Quentin; I do not plot against my father. I was to aid Grammont to set on Lucas, who would not answer a challenge. I have been tricked. Gervais asked my forgiveness--you heard him. Their dupe, yes--accomplice I was not. Never have I lifted my hand against my father, nor would I, whatever came. That I swear. Never have I laid eyes on Lucas since I left Monsieur's presence, till now when he came out of that door side by side with Grammont. Whatever the plot, I knew naught of it. I am a St. Quentin--no parricide!"

The ringing voice ceased and M. le Comte stood silent, with haggard eyes on Vigo. Had he been prisoner at the bar of judgment he could not have waited in greater anxiety. For Vigo, the yeoman and servant, never minced words to any man nor swerved from the stark truth.

I burned to seize Vigo's arm, to spur him on to speech. Of course he believed M. Étienne; how dared he make his master wait for the assurance? On his knees he should be, imploring M. le Comte's pardon.

But no thought of humbling himself troubled Vigo. Nor did he pronounce judgment, but merely said:

"M. le Comte will go home with me now. To-morrow he can tell his story to my master."

"I will tell it before this hour is out!"

"No. M. le Duc has left Paris. But it matters not, M. Étienne. Monsieur suspects nothing against you. Félix kept your name from him. And by the time I had screwed it out of Martin, Monsieur was gone."

"Gone out of Paris?" M. Étienne echoed blankly. To his eagerness it was as if M. le Duc were out of France.

"Aye. He meant to go to-night--Monsieur, Lucas, and I. But when Monsieur learned of this plot, he swore he'd go in open day. 'If the League must kill me,' says he, 'they can do it in daylight, with all Paris watching.' That's Monsieur!"

At this I understood how Vigo came to be in the Rue Coupejarrets. Monsieur, in his distress and anxiety to be gone from that unhappy house, had forgotten the spy. Left to his own devices, the equery, struck with suspicion at Lucas's absence, laid instant hands on Martin the clerk, with whom Lucas, disliked in the household, had had some intimacy. It had not occurred to Vigo that M. le Comte, if guilty, should be spared. At once he had sounded boots and saddles.

"I will return with you, Vigo," M. le Comte said. "Does the meanest lackey in my father's house call me parricide, I must meet the charge. My father and I have differed but if we are no longer friends we are still noblemen. I could never plot his murder, nor could he for one moment believe it of me."

I, guilty wretch, quailed. To take a flogging were easier than to confess to him the truth. But I conceived I must.

"Monsieur," I said, "I told M. le Duc you were guilty. I went back a second time and told him."

"And he?" cried M. Étienne.

"Yes, monsieur, he did believe it."

"Morbleu! that cannot be true," Vigo cried, "for when I saw him he gave no sign."

"It is true. But he would not have M. le Comte touched. He said he could not move in the matter; he could not punish his own kin."

M. le Comte's face blazed as he cried out:

"Vastly magnanimous! I thank him not. I'll none of his mercy. I expected his faith."

"You had no claim to it, M. le Comte."

"Vigo!" cried the young noble, "you are insolent, sirrah!"

"I cry monsieur's pardon."

He was quite respectful and quite unabashed. He had meant no insolence. But M. Étienne had dared criticise the duke and that Vigo did not allow.

M. Étienne glared at him in speechless wrath. It would have liked him well to bring this contumelious varlet to his knees. But how? It was a byword that Vigo minded no man's ire but the duke's. The King of France could not dash him.

Vigo went on:

"It seems I have exceeded my duty, monsieur, in coming here. Yet it turns out for the best, since Lucas is caught and M. de Grammont dead and you cleared of suspicion."

"What!" Yeux-gris cried. "What! you call me cleared!"

Vigo looked at him in surprise.

"You said you were innocent, M. le Comte."

M. le Comte stared, without a word to answer. The equery, all unaware of having said anything unexpected, turned to the guardsman Maurice:

"Well, is Lucas trussed? Have you searched him?"

Maurice displayed a poniard and a handful of small coins for sole booty, but Jules made haste to announce: "He has something else, though--a paper sewed up in his doublet. Shall I rip it out, M. Vigo?"

With Lucas's own knife the grinning Jules slashed his doublet from throat to thigh, to extract a folded paper the size of your palm. Vigo pondered the superscription slowly, not much at home with the work of a quill, save those that winged arrows. M. Étienne, coming forward, with a sharp exclamation snatched the packet.

"How came you by my letter?" he demanded of Lucas.

"M. le Comte was pleased to consign it for delivery to Martin."

"What purpose had you with it?"

"Rest assured, dear monsieur, I had a purpose."

The questions were stormily vehement, the answers so gentle as to be fairly caressing. It was waste of time and dignity to parley with the scoundrel till one could back one's queries with the boot. But M. Étienne's passion knew no waiting. Thrusting the letter into his breast ere I, who had edged up to him, could catch a glimpse of its address, he cried upon Lucas:

"Speak! You were ready enough to jeer at me for a dupe. Tell me what you would do with your dupe. You dared not open the plot to me--you did me the honour to know I would not kill my father. Then why use me blindfold? An awkward game, Lucas."

Lucas disagreed as politely as if exchanging pleasantries in a salon.

"A dexterous game, M. le Comte. Your best friends deemed you guilty. What would your enemies have said?"

"Ah-h," breathed M. Étienne.

"It dawns on you, monsieur? You are marvellous thick-witted, yet surely you must perceive. We had a dozen fellows ready to swear that your hand killed Monsieur."