CHAPTER CVII.

THE SCARABEE DOES ITS DEADLY WORK.

Months went by, for a little time the wheels of the Revolution revolved with a slow but steady force. The influence of Mirabeau had made itself felt; his powerful genius held the populace in check. Chosen president of the Assembly, he had inspired that body with some of his own conservative ideas. The queen began to trust him fully. The king saw in him a safe counsellor. For a time the fearful storm that afterward swept France like a simoon, seemed to have passed away. The nation took time to breathe. Mirabeau had triumphed over all his enemies but one, that one found him at the zenith of his power.

On the twenty-seventh of March, 1791, Mirabeau spoke three times in the Assembly. Never had he been more impressive, never had his genius exhibited itself with greater effect. With words of living eloquence on his lips he stepped down from the tribune, passed between double ranks of admiring friends and defeated enemies, and was seen by the people of France no more.

The next day it was known at the clubs, and heralded in the streets, that the great statesman of France was ill.

All Paris sympathized with the sufferings of this strong and most gifted man. His house in the Chaussée d’Antin was besieged by people, who blocked up the street that no carriage might disturb the rest of their idol. The Jacobin club sent its President at the head of a deputation, to express the profound sympathy of that body. Robespierre, who allowed himself to drift with the current, was found in the sick-room. The king sent every day to inquire after Mirabeau’s health.

The great man was ill, but fully conscious of all the homage that surrounded him. He yet believed himself invincible, and gloried in all these evidences of popularity. He was accused of giving stage effect to his sick bed. It may be that he did, for no man knew better how to appeal to the senses of an audience—and he did not believe himself to be dying.

One day, when the street was choked up with anxious inquirers, a swarthy dwarf was seen among the crowd, striving to escape observation, but making constant progress toward the door of Mirabeau’s dwelling. He reached it at last, and finding a servant on the threshold patiently answering the anxious questions put to him regarding the state of his master, waited quietly till the man should recognize him.

“Is it possible to see Mirabeau?”

“What, you?”

“Is he ill—very ill? I come from one who wishes to know the truth.”

“I know; your mistress is his friend. There can be no harm in saying to her that he is ill, but not so hopeless as his worshippers think. Their terrors but increase his popularity. She will understand.”

The dwarf did understand that his enemy was in no immediate danger, and probably would recover. This only made him the more resolute to gain access to the great man.

“I have a message,” he said; “not from the lady you think of; but from one so high that I dare not speak her name.”

“A message? But so many messages come, that I cannot even listen to them. Such adulation would drive a man mad, though he were in sound health. I can take no message.”

Zamara motioned to the man to stoop, and whispered,

“Not if it were from her majesty, the queen?”

The man looked cautiously around. There was danger in the queen’s name, which he could appreciate.

“Step in, step in! I will speak to you when the crowd grows less. Sit down and wait. From the Tuileries—did you say that? Speak low, there is danger in it.”

The dwarf nodded his head, put a finger to his lip, and sat down in the entrance-hall, close by the bronze statue, which he remembered so well. The man had seen Zamara frequently at the house before, and had no hesitation in speaking freely to him.

“The truth is,” he said, confidentially, “our count has overworked himself. Spoke five times in one day. Think of it! And this is a good time to learn how warmly the people regard him. Do not expect him to get well all at once—he is not fool enough for that; but, after a little, his enemies will find him thundering at them from his place again. We do not intend to die just yet; his friends comprehend it all. As for the rest, why, of course, for them he _is_ dying.”

“Then he is well enough to be told that I have a message for him directly from the queen—I have brought such things before.”

“I will take the message.”

“No, I must give it into his own hands. Such were my orders. Ask if he will admit a messenger from her majesty—that is all I desire.”

“I will go; but listen how they are swarming against the door again. Was ever a man so beloved?”

Zamara saw the servant depart with a quiet countenance; but the moment he was gone, an evil expression broke into his eyes, and a smile crept across his lips.

“So he would make fresh popularity for himself out of this. Well, he shall. This illness, which is half feigned, shall make him immortal.”

The servant came back, and motioned Zamara to follow him. They mounted a broad stair-case, up which heavy balustrades of carved oak wound to the roof, and, opening a door at the first landing, led the way through an ante-room, in which several persons were waiting, into a state-chamber, hung with crimson silk, with a thick Persian carpet on the center of a polished oak floor. On this carpet a great, high-posted bedstead stood, curtained with red, like the windows, on which Mirabeau lay, as it were, bathed in the twilight of a warm sunset.

A pile of snow-white pillows was under the sick man’s head, lifting him to a half-sitting posture. The linen that covered his bosom fell apart at the neck, leaving his throat free, and lending a picturesque effect to his chest and shoulders.

Some loose papers lay upon the counterpane near his hand, as if he had been reading, and just laid them down.

“What, is it manikin?” said the sick man, with a good-natured smile. “I thought wise people had done trusting you long ago. What is it—about the person who sent you? There must be some mistake, I think. Come close to the bed, and speak low.”

The dwarf came up smiling, and with a strange glimmer in his eyes.

“The queen, through the young person you know of, sent for me this morning, gave me this ring from her own finger, bade me bring it to you, and say that, for her sake, she insisted that you would wear it, and for the sake of France you must hasten to be well.”

“Are these her very words?” demanded Mirabeau.

“Her very words,” answered the dwarf, enjoying malicious pleasure in the sick man’s excitement.

“And nothing more?”

“She said you would recognize the ring!”

“Give it me! Give it me!”

That dusky hand trembled a little as it reached forth the ring. Mirabeau took it eagerly and examined the design.

“Yes; my lips touched it once. I recognize it,” he said, with the exaltation of a man whose brain is already surcharged.

“The design was emblematical, she said,” answered Zamara. “A serpent, strong and wise, enfolding this emblem of royalty, the green beetle, was buried with some monarch thousands of years ago.”

Mirabeau laid the ring on the bed and closed his eyes. The excitement had been too much for him.

Zamara drew back and waited. Until that ring was upon Mirabeau’s hand his errand was but half done.

After an interval of some minutes, Mirabeau turned a little on his pillows and opened his eyes.

“Ah, I remember!” he said. “You brought me a ring, and were telling me something about it. I am a little weary now, but in time her words will all come back, like old wine, and give me strength. Tell her this, and say that I only crave life that it may be devoted to her and hers. Ha! I have been wandering—this is no message to send. You have but to give her highness my thanks—understand that, Mirabeau’s thanks, and nothing more.”

“Her majesty bade me bring her word that I had seen the ring on your finger, Count Mirabeau. Shall I say that you were too weak and had no strength to put it on?”

“What, I so far gone that I cannot thrust a ring on my finger. Where is the serpent? Oh, here!”

Even the little finger of that large, white hand, was too large for the ring, and it was forced over the joint with violence. The keen eyes of the dwarf were upon it. He saw the head crest itself, a single flash of the ruby tongue, and then the ring was twisted to its place: but just above the joint was a scarcely perceptible speck of blue.

“It is small and pains me a little,” said Mirabeau; “take it off! To-morrow, I will try it on the other hand. Take it off, I say!”

The dwarf took the hand in his, grasped the beetle by its sides, and drew away the ring with a slow, cautious movement. His hand did not tremble, but the locked firmness of his features betrayed the force he put upon his nerves.

“Lay it in that casket on the console,” said Mirabeau faintly, “and call my doctor from the next room.”

As he spoke, the sick man’s head fell back upon the pillow, his arms settled down, all feeling fled from his limbs, and his breathing became heavy and quick, as if the heart were struggling in mortal agony.

A cry of real terror broke from the dwarf. Half a dozen persons, who waited in the ante-room, rushed into the chamber, but it was only to see a dead man lying under those crimson shadows.

The woorara leaves no signs, Zamara knew that, and remained quiet, while the physician stood horror-stricken over all that remained of his patient. When the tumult subsided a little, he stole out with the ring grasped cautiously in his hand.

“How did you find Mirabeau?” questioned a woman standing by the door, in a low voice, as Zamara went out. “The man told me you had been admitted. Is he better? Will he live?”

The woman’s face was pale and locked; her voice shook with fear as she asked these questions. A flash of dusky red shot athwart the Indian’s face, her anguish was sweet to his ear. He opened his hand and displayed the ring.

“He sent you this, and bade you wear it for his sake. Mirabeau is dead!”

That wretched woman snatched at the ring, thrust it on her finger, and covered it with passionate kisses.

“Woe to France! Woe to France!” she cried out in wild anguish, “Mirabeau is dead! Mirabeau is dead!”

He waited to see her fall; but the poison had exhausted itself on one life, or she had failed to touch the spring.

“Fool that I was,” he muttered, gliding out of the crowd, while the sad cry rose from lip to lip,

“Mirabeau is dead!”