CHAPTER VIII
The little town of Schlestadt went to bed betimes. By ten o'clock itsburghers were in their night-caps. A belated visitor going home at thathour found his footsteps ring upon the pavement with surprising echoes,and traversed dark street after dark street, seeing in each window,perhaps, a mimic moon, but no other light unless his path chanced to liethrough Herzogstrasse. In that street a couple of windows on the firstfloor showed bright and unabashed, and the curious passer-by coulddetect upon the blind the shadows of men growing to monstrous giants anddwindling to pigmies according as they approached or retired from thelamp in the room.
There were three men in that room booted as for a journey. Their dressmight have misled one into the belief that they were merchants, buttheir manner of wearing it proclaimed them soldiers. Of the three, one,a short, spare man, sat at the table with his head bent over a slip ofpaper. His peruke was pushed back from his forehead and showed that thehair about his temples was grey. He had a square face of some strength,and thoughtful eyes.
The second of the three stood by the window. He was, perhaps, a fewyears younger, thirty-six an observer might have guessed to the other'sforty, and his face revealed a character quite different. His featureswere sharp, his eyes quick; if prudence was the predominating quality ofthe first, resource took its place in the second. While the first mansat patiently at the table, this one stood impatiently at the window.Now he lifted the blind, now he dropped it again.
The third sat in front of the fire with his face upturned to theceiling. He was a tall, big man with mighty legs which sprawled one oneach side of the hearth. He was the youngest of the three by five years,but his forehead at this moment was so creased, his mouth so pursed up,his cheeks so wrinkled, he had the look of sixty years. He puffed andbreathed very heavily; once or twice he sighed, and at each sigh hischair creaked under him. Major O'Toole of Dillon's regiment wasthinking.
"Gaydon," said he, suddenly.
The man at the table looked up quickly.
"Misset."
The man at the window turned impatiently.
"I have an idea."
Misset shrugged his shoulders.
Gaydon said, "Let us hear it."
O'Toole drew himself up; his chair no longer creaked, it groaned andcracked.
"It is a lottery," said he, "and we have made our fortunes. We three arethe winners, and so our names are not crossed out."
"But I have put no money in a lottery," objected Gaydon.
"Nor I," said Misset.
"And where should I find money either?" said O'Toole. "But Charles Woganhas borrowed it for us and paid it in, and so we're all rich men.What'll I buy with it?"
Misset paced the room.
"The paper came four days ago?" he said.
"Yes, in the morning."
"Five days, then," and he stood listening. Then he ran to the window andopened it. Gaydon followed him and drew up the blind. Both men listenedand were puzzled.
"That's the sound of horseshoes," said Gaydon.
"But there's another sound keeping pace with the horseshoes," saidMisset.
O'Toole leaned on their shoulders, crushing them both down upon the sillof the window.
"It is very like the sound a gentleman makes when he reels home from atavern."
Gaydon and Misset raised themselves with a common effort springing froma common thought and shot O'Toole back into the room.
"What if it is?" began Misset.
"He was never drunk in his life," said Gaydon.
"It's possible that he has reformed," said O'Toole; and the three menprecipitated themselves down the stairs.
The drunkard was Wogan; he was drunk with fatigue and sleeplessness andpain, but he had retained just enough of his sober nature to spare atired mare who had that day served him well.
The first intimation he received that his friends were on the watch wasO'Toole's voice bawling down the street to him.
"Is it a lottery? Tell me we're all rich men," and he felt himselfgrasped in O'Toole's arms.
"I'll tell you more wonderful things than that," stammered Wogan, "whenyou have shown me the way to a stable."
"There's one at the back of the house," said Gaydon. "I'll take thehorse."
"No," said Wogan, stubbornly, and would not yield the bridle to Gaydon.
O'Toole nodded approval.
"There are two things," said he, "a man never trusts to his friends.One's his horse; t' other's his wife."
Wogan suddenly stopped and looked at O'Toole. O'Toole answered the lookloftily.
"It is a little maxim of philosophy. I have others. They come to me inthe night."
Misset laughed. Wogan walked on to the stable. It was a long building,and a light was still burning. Moreover, a groom was awake, for the doorwas opened before they had come near enough to knock. There were twelvestalls, of which nine were occupied, and three of the nine horses stoodready saddled and bridled.
Wogan sat down upon a corn-bin and waited while his mare was groomed andfed. The mare looked round once or twice in the midst of her meal,twisting her neck as far as her halter allowed.
"I am not gone yet, my lady," said he, "take your time."
Wogan made a ghostly figure in the dim shadowy light. His face was of anextraordinary pallor; his teeth chattered; his eyes burned. Gaydonlooked at him with concern and said to the groom, "You can take thesaddles off. We shall need no horses to-night."
The four men returned to the house. Wogan went upstairs first. Gaydonheld back the other two at the foot of the stairs.
"Not a word, not a question, till he has eaten, or we shall have him inbed for a twelvemonth. Misset, do you run for a doctor. O'Toole, seewhat you can find in the larder."
Wogan sat before the fire without a word while O'Toole spread the tableand set a couple of cold partridges upon it and a bottle of red wine.Wogan ate mechanically for a little and afterwards with some enjoyment.He picked the partridges till the bones were clean, and he finished thebottle of wine. Then he rose to his feet with a sigh of something verylike to contentment and felt along the mantel-shelf with his hands.O'Toole, however, had foreseen his wants and handed him a pipe newlyfilled. While Wogan was lighting the tobacco, Misset came back into theroom with word that the doctor was out upon his last rounds, but wouldcome as soon as he had returned home. The four men sat down about thefire, and Wogan reached out his hand and felt O'Toole's arm.
"It is you," he said. "There you are, the three of you, my good friends,and this is Schlestadt. But it is strange," and he laughed a little tohimself and looked about the room, assuring himself that this indeed wasGaydon's lodging.
"You received a slip of paper?" said he.
"Four days back," said Gaydon.
"And understood?"
"That we were to be ready."
"Good."
"Then it's not a lottery," murmured O'Toole, "and we've drawn noprizes."
"Ah, but we are going to," cried Wogan. "We are safe here. No one canhear us; no one can burst in. But I am sure of that. Misset knows thetrick that will make us safe from interruption, eh?"
Misset looked blankly at Wogan.
"Why, one can turn the key," said he.
"To be sure," said Wogan, with a laugh of admiration for that device ofwhich he had bethought himself, and which he ascribed to Misset, "ifthere's a key; but if there's no key, why, a chair tilted against thedoor to catch the handle, eh?"
Misset locked the door, not at all comprehending that device, andreturned to his seat.
"We are to draw the greatest prize that ever was drawn," resumed Wogan,and he broke off.
"But is there a cupboard in the room? No matter; I forgot that this isGaydon's lodging, and Gaydon's not the man to overlook a cupboard."
Gaydon jumped up from his chair.
"But upon my word there is a cupboard," he cried, and crossing to acorner of the room he opened a door and looked in. Wogan laughed againas though Gaydon's examination of the cupboard was a ver
y good joke.
"There will be nobody in it," he cried. "Gaydon will never feel a handgripping the life out of his throat because he forgot to search acupboard."
The cupboard was empty, as it happened. But Gaydon had left the door ofthe street open when he went out to meet Wogan; there had been time andto spare for any man to creep upstairs and hide himself had there been aman in Schlestadt that night minded to hear. Gaydon returned to hischair.
"We are to draw the biggest prize in all Europe," said Wogan.
"There!" cried O'Toole. "Will you be pleased to remember when next Ihave an idea that I was right?"
"But not for ourselves," added Wogan.
O'Toole's face fell.
"Oh, we are to hand it on to a third party," said he.
"Yes."
"Well, after all, that's quite of a piece with our luck."
"Who is the third party?" asked Misset.
"The King."
Misset started up from his chair and leaned forward, his hands upon thearms.
"The King," said O'Toole; "to be sure, that makes a difference."
Gaydon asked quietly, "And what is the prize?"
"The Princess Clementina," said Wogan. "We are to rescue her from herprison in Innspruck."
Even Gaydon was startled.
"We four!" he exclaimed.
"We four!" repeated Misset, staring at Wogan. His mouth was open; hiseyes started from his head; he stammered in his speech. "We four againsta nation, against half Europe!"
O'Toole simply crossed to a corner of the room, picked up his sword andbuckled it to his waist.
"I am ready," said he.
Wogan turned round in his chair and smiled.
"I know that," said he. "So are we all--all ready; is not that so, myfriends? We four are ready." And he looked to Misset and to Gaydon."Here's an exploit, if we but carry it through, which even antiquitywill be at pains to match! It's more than an exploit, for it has thesanctity of a crusade. On the one side there's tyranny, oppression,injustice, the one woman who most deserves a crown robbed of it. And onthe other--"
"There's the King," said Gaydon; and the three brief words seemedsomehow to quench and sober Wogan.
"Yes," said he; "there's the King, and we four to serve him in hisneed. We are few, but in that lies our one hope. They will never lookfor four men, but for many. Four men travelling to the shrine of Lorettowith the Pope's passport may well stay at Innspruck and escape a closeattention."
"I am ready," O'Toole repeated.
"But we shall not start to-night. There's the passport to be got, a planto be arranged."
"Oh, there's a plan," said O'Toole. "To be sure, there's always a plan."And he sat down again heavily, as though he put no faith in plans.
Misset and Gaydon drew their chairs closer to Wogan's and instinctivelylowered their voices to the tone of a whisper.
"Is her Highness warned of the attempt?" asked Gaydon.
"As soon as I obtained the King's permission," replied Wogan, "I hurriedto Innspruck. There I saw Chateaudoux, the chamberlain of the Princess'smother. Here is a letter he dropped in the cathedral for me to pick up."
He drew the letter from his fob and handed it to Gaydon. Gaydon read itand handed it to Misset. Misset nodded and handed it to O'Toole, whoread it four times and handed it back to Gaydon with a flourish of thehand as though the matter was now quite plain to him.
"Chateaudoux has a sweetheart," said he, sententiously. "Very good; I donot think the worse of him."
Gaydon glanced a second time through the letter.
"The Princess says that you must have the Prince Sobieski's writtenconsent."
"I went from Innspruck to Ohlau," said Wogan. "I had some trouble, andthe reason of my coming leaked out. The Countess de Berg suspected itfrom the first. She had a friend, an Englishwoman, Lady Featherstone,who was at Ohlau to outwit me."
"Lady Featherstone!" said Misset. "Who can she be?"
Wogan told them of his first meeting with Lady Featherstone on theFlorence road, but he knew no more about her, and not one of the threeknew anything at all.
"So the secret's out," said Gaydon. "But you outstripped it."
"Barely," said Wogan. "Forty miles away I had last night to fight for mylife."
"But you have the Prince's written consent?" said Misset.
"I had last night, but I made a spill of it to light my pipe. There weresix men against me. Had that been found on my dead body, why, there wasproof positive of our attempt, and the attempt foiled by suresafeguards. As it is, if we lie still a little while, their fears willcease and the rumour become discredited."
Misset leaned across Gaydon's arm and scanned the letter.
"But her Highness writes most clearly she will not move without thatsure token of her father's consent."
Wogan drew from his breast pocket a snuff-box made from a singleturquoise.
"Here's a token no less sure. It was Prince Sobieski's New Year's giftto me,--a jewel unique and in an unique setting. This must persuade her.His father, great King John of Poland, took it from the Grand Vizier'stent when the Turks were routed at Vienna."
O'Toole reached out his hand and engulfed the jewel.
"Sure," said he, "it is a pretty sort of toy. It would persuade anywoman to anything so long as she was promised it to hang about her neck.You must promise it to the Princess, but not give it to her--no, lestwhen she has got it she should be content to remain in Innspruck. Iknow. You must promise it."
Wogan bowed to O'Toole's wisdom and took back the snuff-box. "I will notforget to promise it," said he.
"But here's another point," said Gaydon. "Her Highness, the Princess'smother, insists that a woman shall attend upon her daughter, and whereshall we find a woman with the courage and the strength?"
"I have thought of that," said Wogan. "Misset has a wife. By theluckiest stroke in the world Misset took a wife this last spring."
There was at once a complete silence. Gaydon stared into the fire,O'Toole looked with intense interest at the ceiling, Misset buried hisface in his hands. Wogan was filled with consternation. Was Misset'swife dead? he asked himself. He had spoken lightly, laughingly, and hewent hot and cold as he recollected the raillery of his words. He sat inhis chair shocked at the pain which he had caused his friend. Moreover,he had counted surely upon Mrs. Misset.
Then Misset raised his head from his hands and in a trembling voice hesaid slowly, "My boy would only live to serve his King. Why should henot serve his King before he lives? My wife will say the like."
There was a depth of quiet feeling in his words which Wogan would neverhave expected from Misset; and the words themselves were words which hefelt no man, no king, however much beloved, however generous to hisservants, had any right to expect. They took Wogan's breath away, andnot Wogan's only, but Gaydon's and O'Toole's, too. A longer silence thanbefore followed upon them. The very simplicity with which they had beenuttered was startling, and made those three men doubt at the firstwhether they had heard aright.
O'Toole was the first to break the silence.
"It is a strange thing that there never was a father since Adam who wasnot absolutely sure in his heart that his first-born must be a boy. Whenyou come to think philosophically about it, you'll see that if fathershad their way the world would be peopled with sons with never a bit ofa lass in any corner to marry them."
O'Toole's reflection, if not a reason for laughter, made a pretext forit, at which all--even Misset, who was a trifle ashamed of his displayof feeling--eagerly caught. Wogan held his hand out and claspedMisset's.
"That was a great saying," said he, "but so much sacrifice is not to beaccepted."
Misset, however, was firm. His wife, he said, though naturally timid,could show a fine spirit on occasion, and would never forgive one ofthem if she was left behind. He argued until a compromise was reached.Misset should lay the matter openly before his wife, and the fourcrusaders, to use Wogan's term, would be bound by her decision.
"So you may take it that matter's settled," said Misset. "There will befive of us."
"Six," said Wogan.
"There's another man to join us, then," said Gaydon. "I have it. Yourservant, Marnier."
"No, not Marnier, nor any man. Listen. It is necessary that when onceher Highness is rescued we must get so much start as will make pursuitvain. We shall be hampered with a coach, and a coach will travel slowlyon the passes of Tyrol. The pursuers will ride horses; they must notcome up with us. From Innspruck to Italy, if we have never an accident,will take us at the least four days; it will take our pursuers three. Wemust have one clear day before her Highness's evasion is discovered.Now, the chief magistrate of Innspruck visits her Highness's apartmentstwice a day,--at ten in the morning and at ten of the night. ThePrincess must be rescued at night; and if her escape is discovered inthe morning she will never reach Italy, she will be behind the barsagain."
"But the Princess's mother will be left," said Gaydon. "She can pleadthat her daughter is ill."
"The magistrate forces his way into the very bedroom. We must take withus a woman who will lie in her Highness's bed with the curtains drawnabout her and a voice so weak with suffering that she cannot raise itabove a whisper, with eyes so tired from sleeplessness she cannot bear alight near them. Help me in this. Name me a woman with the fortitude tostay behind."
Gaydon shook his head.
"She will certainly be discovered. The part she plays in the escape mustcertainly be known. She will remain for the captors to punish as theywill. I know no woman."
"Nay," said Wogan; "you exaggerate her danger. Once the escape isbrought to an issue, once her Highness is in Bologna safe, the Emperorcannot wreak vengeance on a woman; it would be too paltry." And now hemade his appeal to Misset.
"No, my friend," Misset replied. "I know no woman with the fortitude."
"But you do," interrupted O'Toole. "So do I. There's no difficultywhatever in the matter. Mrs. Misset has a maid."
"Oho!" said Gaydon.
"The maid's name is Jenny."
"Aha!" said Wogan.
"She's a very good friend of mine."
"O'Toole!" cried Misset, indignantly. "My wife's maid--a very goodfriend of yours?"
"Sure she is, and you didn't know it," said O'Toole, with a chuckle. "Iam the cunning man, after all. She would do a great deal for me wouldJenny."
"But has she courage?" asked Wogan.
"Faith, her father was a French grenadier and her mother a _vivandiere_.It would be a queer thing if she was frightened by a little matter oflying in bed and pretending to be someone else."
"But can we trust her with the secret?" asked Gaydon.
"No!" exclaimed Misset, and he rose angrily from his chair. "My wife'smaid--O'Toole--O'Toole--my wife's maid. Did ever one hear the like?"
"My friend," said O'Toole, quietly, "it seems almost as if you wished toreflect upon Jenny's character, which would not be right."
Misset looked angrily at O'Toole, who was not at all disturbed. Then hesaid, "Well, at all events, she gossips. We cannot take her. She wouldtell the whole truth of our journey at the first halt."
"That's true," said O'Toole.
Then for the second time that evening he cried, "I have an idea."
"Well?"
"We'll not tell her the truth at all. I doubt if she would come if wetold it her. Jenny very likely has never heard of her Highness thePrincess, and I doubt if she cares a button for the King. Besides, shewould never believe but that we were telling her a lie. No. We'll makeup a probable likely sort of story, and then she'll believe it to be thetruth."
"I have it," cried Wogan. "We'll tell her that we are going to abduct anheiress who is dying for love of O'Toole, and whose merciless parentsare forcing her into a loveless, despicable marriage with a totteringpantaloon."
O'Toole brought his hand down upon the arm of the chair.
"There's the very story," he cried. "To be sure, you are a great man,Charles. The most probable convincing story that was ever invented! Oh!but you'll hear Jenny sob with pity for the heiress and Lucius O'Toolewhen she hears it. It will be a bad day, too, for the merciless parentswhen they discover Jenny in her Highness's bed. She stands six feet inher stockings."
"Six feet!" exclaimed Wogan.
"In her stockings," returned O'Toole. "Her height is her one vanity.Therefore in her shoes she is six feet four."
"Well, she must take her heels off and make herself as short as shecan."
"You will have trouble, my friend, to persuade her to that," saidO'Toole.
"Hush!" said Gaydon. He rose and unlocked the door. The doctor wasknocking for admission below. Gaydon let him in, and he dressed Wogan'swounds with an assurance that they were not deep and that a few days'quiet would restore him.
"I will sleep the night here if I may," said Wogan, as soon as thedoctor had gone. "A blanket and a chair will serve my turn."
They took him into Gaydon's bedroom, where three beds were ranged.
"We have slept in the one room and lived together since your messagecame four days ago," said Gaydon. "Take your choice of the beds, forthere's not one of us has so much need of a bed as you."
Wogan drew a long breath of relief.
"Oh! but it's good to be with you," he cried suddenly, and caught atGaydon's arm. "I shall sleep to-night. How I shall sleep!"
He stretched out his aching limbs between the cool white sheets, andwhen the lamp was extinguished he called to each of his three friends byname to make sure of their company. O'Toole answered with a grunt on hisright, Misset on his left, and Gaydon from the corner of the room.
"But I have wanted you these last three days!" said Wogan. "To-morrowwhen I tell you the story of them you will know how much I have wantedyou."
They got, however, some inkling of Wogan's need before the morrow came.In the middle of the night they were wakened by a wild scream and heardWogan whispering in an agony for help. They lighted a lamp and saw himlying with his hand upon his throat and his eyes starting from his headwith horror.
"Quick," said he, "the hand at my throat! It's not the letter so much,it's my life they want."
"It's your own hand," said Gaydon, and taking the hand he found itlifeless. Wogan's arm in that position had gone to sleep, as the sayingis. He had waked suddenly in the dark with the cold pressure at histhroat, and in the moment of waking was back again alone in the inn nearAugsburg. Wogan indeed needed his friends.