CHAPTER XXIII
A MARQUIS DONS HIS BALDRIC
They were men, the marquis and his contemporaries. They were born inrough times, they lived and died roughly. They were men who madeFrance what it was in life and is to-day in history, resplendent. Themarquis never went about his affairs impetuously; he calculated thisand balanced that. When he arrived at a conclusion or formed apurpose, it was definite. He never swerved nor retreated. To-night hehad formed a purpose, and he proceeded toward it directly, as was hiscustom.
"Jehan, my campaign rapier," he said.
"Campaign rapier, Monsieur!" repeated the astonished lackey. Monsieurle Marquis had not worn that weapon in almost ten years.
"Take care, Jehan; you know that I am not particularly fond ofrepeating commands. Certainly my old basket-hilt took the journey withme."
Jehan went rummaging among his master's personal effects, and soonreturned. He buckled on the marquis's shoulder a worn baldric pendentto which was the famous basket-sword which had earned for its owner thesobriquet of "Prince of a hundred duels."
"It has grown heavy since the last time I put it on," observed themarquis, thoughtfully, weighing the blade on his palms. "Those weremerry days," reminiscently.
"Monsieur goes abroad to-night?" essayed the lackey, experiencing anold-time thrill.
"Yes, but alone. Now, a cup of wine undiluted. Monsieur de Levistonis still in the hospital?"
"Yes, Monsieur."
"Through the kindly offices of Monsieur de Saumaise."
"Who is a gallant fellow."
To this Monsieur le Marquis readily agreed. "But Monsieur d'Herouvilleis no longer confined. I saw him abroad this afternoon."
"They say that he is a furious swordsman, Monsieur," ventured Jehan,trembling.
The marquis threw a keen glance at his servant. "What did they say ofme, even ten years ago?"
"You had no peer in all France, Monsieur . . . ten years ago."
The marquis smiled. "I have grown thin in ten years, that is all."
"Shall you leave any commands, Monsieur?"
"You may have the evening to yourself, and don't return till midnight."
Jehan bowed. There was nothing for him to say.
At dinner the marquis was unusually brilliant and witty. He dazzledthe governor and his ladies, and unbent so far as to accept fourglasses of burgundy. On one side sat Anne de Vaudemont, on the otherthe governor's son, and directly opposite, Madame de Brissac, anunnamed mystery to them all save Anne. Madame, despite her antagonismand the terror lest she be discovered and unmasked by those remarkablegrey eyes, found herself irresistibly drawn toward and fascinated bythis remarkable exponent of a past epoch. She forgot the stories shehad heard regarding his past, she forgot the sinister shadow he hadcast over her own life, she forgot all save that without such men asthis there would and could be no history. And she was quite ignorantof the fact that her scrutiny was being returned in kind.
"Madame," he asked, "have I not met you somewhere in wide and beautifulFrance?"
"France is wide, as you say. I do not recollect having seen you beforetaking passage on the Henri IV."
He felt instinctively that she had immediately erected a barrierbetween them; not from her words, but from their hidden sense. He atonce turned to Anne and recounted an anecdote relating to herdistinguished grandsire. But covertly he watched madame; watched thehalf-drooping eyelids, the shadow of a dimple in her left cheek, thecurving throat, the shimmering ringlet which half obscured the perfectear. He had seen this face before, or one as like it as the reflectionof the moon upon placid water is like the moon itself. Now and then hefrowned, remembering his purpose. But why was this young woman, whowas fit to grace a palace, why was she here incognito? Ah!
"Madame, have you met Monsieur le Chevalier du Cevennes, my son?"
Anne trembled for her friend.
"I have noticed him, Monsieur. Is he anything like you, as you were inyour youth?" It was admirable, but not even Anne dreamed of thedelicacy of the thread which held together madame's tones.
"Modesty compels me to remain silent," replied the marquis.
"And how goes Mazarin's foreign policy?" asked De Lauson.
"Politics is a weed which I have cast out of my garden, yourExcellency," said the marquis, laughing.
Madame had a grateful thought for the governor, and she regretted thatshe could not express it aloud. He had changed the current from adangerous channel.
It was the marquis who opened the door for the ladies; it was themarquis who said good night with an inflection which gave it a newmeaning; it was the marquis who intruded into madame's thoughts,causing her partly to forget the letter and the broken sentence ofD'Herouville's.
"What an extraordinary man he is, that marquis!" was Anne's comment asthey mounted the stairs.
"Monsieur le Chevalier has yet a good deal to learn from his father.See the moon, Anne; how beautiful it is!"
"Your Excellency," began the marquis, resuming his seat, "where may Ifind Monsieur le Comte d'Herouville this evening?"
"I am at a loss to say," was the reply, "unless he is at the hospital,which I understand he left this day."
"He is not here at the chateau, then?"
"Not at my invitation," tersely. "I will, however, undertake to findhim for you."
"I shall be grateful."
So the governor despatched an orderly, who returned within half an hourwith the information that Monsieur le Comte was waiting in thecitadel's parade. The marquis rose.
"Monsieur, my thanks; your Excellency will excuse me, as I havesomething important to say to Monsieur d'Herouville."
It was only when the marquis was leaving the hall that the governornoticed the basket-hilt of the old man's dueling sword. Its formidablelength disquieted his Excellency more than he would have liked toconfess.
It was early moonlight, and the parade ground was empty and ghostly.The marquis glanced about. He discovered D'Herouville leaning againsta cannon, contemplating the escarps and bastions of the citadel. Themarquis went forward, striking his heels soundly. D'Herouville rousedhimself and turned round.
"You are Monsieur le Comte d'Herouville," began the marquis, abruptly.
"I am," peering into the marquis's face, and stepping back in surprise.
"You come, I believe, from an ancient and notable house."
"Almost as notable as yours, Monsieur le Marquis," bowing in hiswonder, though this wonder was not wholly free from suspicion.
"Almost, but not quite," added the marquis. "The House of Perigny wasestablished some hundred and fifty years before royalty gave you apatent. Your grandsire and your father were brave men."
"So history writes it," his puzzlement still growing.
"I wish a few words with you in private."
"With me?"
"With you."
"I suppose his Excellency has summoned me here for this purpose. But Iam in a hurry. The night air is not good for me, it being heavy withdews, and I am out of the hospital only this day."
The marquis's grim laugh was jarring.
"You laugh, Monsieur?" patiently.
"Yes. I am never in a hurry."
"What is it you wish to say?"
"It is a question. Why do you hate Monsieur le Comte, my son?"
"Monsieur le Comte?" with frank irony.
"In all that the name implies. Some man has, over De Leviston'sshoulder, called my son a son of . . . the left hand." The wordsseemed to skin the marquis's lips.
"And you, Monsieur," banteringly, "did you not make him so?"D'Herouville began to understand.
"He is my lawful son."
"Ah! then you have gone to Parliament and had him legitimatized? Thatis royal on your part, believe me."
"The son of my wife, Monsieur."
"Then, what the devil . . . !"
"And when Monsieur de Leviston accused my son of not knowing who hismother was," continued the old man, coldly and e
venly, which signifieda deadly wrath, "you laughed."
"Certainly I did not weep." D'Herouville did not know the caliber ofthe man he was speaking to. He merely expected that the marquis wouldrequest him to apologize.
"My son has challenged you?" with the same unchanging quiet.
"He has; but I have this day advised him not to wear out his voice inthat direction, for certainly I shall not cross swords with him."
"You are very discreet," dryly.
"And I shall make no apologies."
"Apologies, Monsieur! Can one offer an apology for what you have done?Besides, it is said that my son is magnificent with the rapier andwould accept the apology of no man."
"Bah! That is a roundabout way of calling me a coward."
"I was presently coming to the phrase bluntly. If I were not seventy;if I were young," as if musing.
"Well," truculently, "if you were young?"
The marquis's bold and fearless eyes sparkled with fire. "I am an oldman; vain wishes are useless. You are a coward, Monsieur; one of thecoarser breed; and I say to you if my son had not challenged you or hadaccepted an apology, I would disown him indeed. As you will not fighthim, and as apologies are out of the question . . . Here, Monsieur;there is equal light, and we are alone."
"I do not kill old men."
"Then listen: I apply to you the term De Leviston applied to my son."
"Monsieur, retract that!"
Their shoulders brushed and glowing eyes looked into glowing eyes.
"Bah! In my fifties I killed more men of your kidney than I am proudof. Retract? I never retract;" and the marquis snapped his fingersunder D'Herouville's nose.
D'Herouville slapped the marquis in the face. "Your age, Monsieur,will not save you. No man shall address me in this fashion!"
"Not even my son, eh, Monsieur? There is still blood in your muddyveins, then? Come to my room, Monsieur; no one will see us there. Andyou will not be subjected to the evils of the night air and the dew;"and the calm old man waved a hand toward the lights which shone fromthe windows of his room above.
"You have brought this upon yourself," said D'Herouville, cold withfury, forgetting his newly healed wound.
"What worried me most was the fear that you might not understand me.Permit me to show you the way, Monsieur."
The marquis was the calmer of the two. A strange and springing newlife seemed to have entered his watery veins. A flare of the old-timefire rose up within him: he was again the prince of a hundred duels.On reaching the room, he lit all the candles and arranged them so as toleave no shadows. Next he poured out a glass of wine and drank it,drew his rapier, and bared his arm.
At the sight of that arm, thin and white, D'Herouville felt all his ireooze from his pores. He could not measure swords with this old man,who stood near enough to his grave without being sent into it offhand.
"Monsieur, forgive me for striking an old man, who is visibly myinferior in strength and youth. My anger got the better of me. Yourcourage compels my admiration. I can not fight you."
The marquis spat upon the floor. "On guard, Monsieur!"
"If you insist;" and D'Herouville stepped forward carelessly.
The blades came together. Then followed a sight for the paladins. Forit took D'Herouville but a moment to learn why the marquis had beencalled the prince of a hundred duels. Only twice in his life had hemet such a master.
"I am old, eh, Monsieur?" said the marquis, making an assault whichD'Herouville, had his blade swerved the breadth of a hair, would neverhave neutralized.
Back, step by step, he was forced, till he felt his shoulders touch thewall. He was beginning to suffer cruelly. A warmth on his side toldhim that his old wound had opened and was bleeding. Good God! and ifthis old man at whom he had laughed should kill him! With a desperatereturn he succeeded in regaining the open. He tried the offensive, itwas too late. The marquis, describing a circle, toppled over a candle,which rolled across the floor and was snuffed in its own melting wax.
The marquis's eyes burned like carbuncles; his blade was like livinglight. He spoke.
"I am old; beware of old dogs that have teeth."
Round and round they circled, back and forth. D'Herouville wasfighting for his life. His own wonderful mastery, and this alone, keptthe life in his body. Sometimes it seemed that he must be in a dream,the victim of some terrible nightmare. For the marquis's face did notlook human, animated as it was with the lust to kill.
"God!" burst from the count's cracked lips. His sword was rolling athis feet. It was the end. He shut his eyes.
The marquis drew back his arm to send the blade home, and there came achange. At the very moment when victory must have been his, hestaggered, a black mist filming his eyes. The magic blade slipped fromhis grasp and clanged to the floor. He tried to save himself, but hecould not. He fell by the side of his sword and lay there silent. Hisstrength, had been superhuman, the last flare of a burnt-out fire.
"Good God, and I never touched him!" gasped, D'Herouville. He wascovered with a cold sweat. "A moment more and I had been a dead man!"He brushed his eyes, and his hand shook with a transient palsy.
There was a tableau: the aged noble stretched out beside his rapier,D'Herouville leaning against the wall and wild-eyed . . . and ablack-robed figure standing in the doorway.
"Have you killed him?" asked the black-robed figure, stepping into theroom.
D'Herouville gazed at him, incapable of speaking.
"Have you killed him, I say?" repeated Brother Jacques.
D'Herouville choked, and presently found his voice. "I have not eventouched him. God is witness! He has been stricken by a vapor, or heis dead."
"It is well for you, Monsieur, that your sword did not touch him. Youhad better go."
The count's hand shook so that he could hardly put his rapier into thescabbard. With a dazed glance at the marquis, who had not yet stirred,with another glance at the priest, he passed out, holding the flat ofhis hand against his side.
Immediately Brother Jacques bent over the fallen man.
"He lives; that is well. So I must go on to the end."
He poured out some wine and bathed the marquis's temples and wrists.Next he lifted the old man in his arms and carried him to the bed,undressed him, and covered him over. He drew a chair to the side ofthe bed and sat down, waiting and watching. Occasionally his glancewandered, to the sinking candles, to the moon outside, from the marbledface on the pillow to the empty wine-glass on the small table. Once herecollected seeing an envelope within a hand's span of the glass.
A duel! This palsied old man pressing youth and vigor to the wall! Itseemed incredible. What must this man have been in his prime? Agevanquishing youth! A shiver ran across Brother Jacques's spine, ashiver of admiration and wonder. He touched the withered hand whichhad but a few moments since been endowed with marvelous skill andcunning and strength: it was icy and damp.
He filled the glass of wine, ready for the marquis's awakening, andagain found his gaze entrapped by the envelope. His hand reached outfor it absently and without purpose. He read the addressindifferently--"To Monsieur le Marquis de Perigny, to be delivered intohis hands at my death." The marquis, then, had lost some friend? Heput back the letter, placing a book upon it to prevent its being sweptto the floor.
There was a sound. The marquis had recovered his senses. He lookedblankly around, at the candles, at Brother Jacques, at the sheets whichcovered his strangely deadened limbs.
"Ah! I have had only a bad dream, then? Pour me a glass of wine, andI shall sleep."