Chapter VI
THE NAKED SWORD
A man who has been posting all day long, and changing the air hebreathes every half hour, who is well pleased with himself, and hasnothing on earth to trouble him, and who sits alone by a fire in acomfortable chair after having eaten a hearty supper, may be pardonedif he takes an accidental nap.
I had filled my fourth glass when I fell asleep. My head, I daresay,hung uncomfortably; and it is admitted that a variety of French dishesis not the most favorable precursor to pleasant dreams.
I had a dream as I took mine ease in mine inn on this occasion. Ifancied myself in a huge cathedral, without light, except from fourtapers that stood at the corners of a raised platform hung with black,on which lay, draped also in black, what seemed to me the dead body ofthe Countess de St. Alyre. The place seemed empty, it was cold, and Icould see only (in the halo of the candles) a little way round.
The little I saw bore the character of Gothic gloom, and helped my fancyto shape and furnish the black void that yawned all round me. I heard asound like the slow tread of two persons walking up the flagged aisle. Afaint echo told of the vastness of the place. An awful sense ofexpectation was upon me, and I was horribly frightened when the bodythat lay on the catafalque said (without stirring), in a whisper thatfroze me, "They come to place me in the grave alive; save me."
I found that I could neither speak nor move. I was horribly frightened.
The two people who approached now emerged from the darkness. One, theCount de St. Alyre, glided to the head of the figure and placed his longthin hands under it. The white-faced Colonel, with the scar across hisface, and a look of infernal triumph, placed his hands under her feet,and they began to raise her.
With an indescribable effort I broke the spell that bound me, andstarted to my feet with a gasp.
I was wide awake, but the broad, wicked face of Colonel Gaillarde wasstaring, white as death, at me from the other side of the hearth. "Whereis she?" I shuddered.
"That depends on who she is, Monsieur," replied the Colonel, curtly.
"Good heavens!" I gasped, looking about me.
The Colonel, who was eyeing me sarcastically, had had his _demitasse_of _cafe noir_, and now drank his _tasse_, diffusing a pleasantperfume of brandy.
"I fell asleep and was dreaming," I said, lest any strong language,founded on the _role_ he played in my dream, should have escapedme. "I did not know for some moments where I was."
"You are the young gentleman who has the apartments over the Count andCountess de St. Alyre?" he said, winking one eye, close in meditation,and glaring at me with the other.
"I believe so--yes," I answered.
"Well, younker, take care you have not worse dreams than that somenight," he said, enigmatically, and wagged his head with a chuckle."Worse dreams," he repeated.
"What does Monsieur the Colonel mean?" I inquired.
"I am trying to find that out myself," said the Colonel; "and I think Ishall. When _I_ get the first inch of the thread fast between myfinger and thumb, it goes hard but I follow it up, bit by bit, little bylittle, tracing it this way and that, and up and down, and round about,until the whole clue is wound up on my thumb, and the end, and itssecret, fast in my fingers. Ingenious! Crafty as five foxes! wide awakeas a weasel! _Parbleu_! if I had descended to that occupation Ishould have made my fortune as a spy. Good wine here?" he glancedinterrogatively at my bottle.
"Very good," said I. "Will Monsieur the Colonel try a glass?"
He took the largest he could find, and filled it, raised it with a bow,and drank it slowly. "Ah! ah! Bah! That is not it," he exclaimed, withsome disgust, filling it again. "You ought to have told _me_ toorder your Burgundy, and they would not have brought you that stuff."
I got away from this man as soon as I civilly could, and, putting on myhat, I walked out with no other company than my sturdy walking-stick. Ivisited the inn-yard, and looked up to the windows of the Countess'sapartments. They were closed, however, and I had not even theunsubstantial consolation of contemplating the light in which thatbeautiful lady was at that moment writing, or reading, or sitting andthinking of--anyone you please.
I bore this serious privation as well as I could, and took a littlesaunter through the town. I shan't bore you with moonlight effects, norwith the maunderings of a man who has fallen in love at first sight witha beautiful face. My ramble, it is enough to say, occupied about half anhour, and, returning by a slight detour, I found myself in a littlesquare, with about two high gabled houses on each side, and a rude stonestatue, worn by centuries of rain, on a pedestal in the center of thepavement. Looking at this statue was a slight and rather tall man, whomI instantly recognized as the Marquis d'Harmonville: he knew me almostas quickly. He walked a step towards me, shrugged and laughed:
"You are surprised to find Monsieur Droqville staring at that old stonefigure by moonlight. Anything to pass the time. You, I see, suffer from_ennui_, as I do. These little provincial towns! Heavens! what aneffort it is to live in them! If I could regret having formed in earlylife a friendship that does me honor, I think its condemning me to asojourn in such a place would make me do so. You go on towards Paris, Isuppose, in the morning?"
"I have ordered horses."
"As for me I await a letter, or an arrival, either would emancipate me;but I can't say how soon either event will happen."
"Can I be of any use in this matter?" I began.
"None, Monsieur, I thank you a thousand times. No, this is a piece inwhich every _role_ is already cast. I am but an amateur, andinduced solely by friendship, to take a part."
So he talked on, for a time, as we walked slowly toward the BelleEtoile, and then came a silence, which I broke by asking him if he knewanything of Colonel Gaillarde.
"Oh! yes, to be sure. He is a little mad; he has had some bad injuriesof the head. He used to plague the people in the War Office to death. Hehas always some delusion. They contrived some employment for him--notregimental, of course--but in this campaign Napoleon, who could sparenobody, placed him in command of a regiment. He was always a desperatefighter, and such men were more than ever needed."
There is, or was, a second inn in this town called l'Ecu de France. Atits door the Marquis stopped, bade me a mysterious good-night, anddisappeared.
As I walked slowly toward my inn, I met, in the shadow of a row ofpoplars, the garcon who had brought me my Burgundy a little time ago. Iwas thinking of Colonel Gaillarde, and I stopped the little waiter as hepassed me.
"You said, I think, that Colonel Gaillarde was at the Belle Etoile for aweek at one time."
"Yes, Monsieur."
"Is he perfectly in his right mind?"
The waiter stared. "Perfectly, Monsieur."
"Has he been suspected at any time of being out of his mind?"
"Never, Monsieur; he is a little noisy, but a very shrewd man."
"What is a fellow to think?" I muttered, as I walked on.
I was soon within sight of the lights of the Belle Etoile. A carriage,with four horses, stood in the moonlight at the door, and a furiousaltercation was going on in the hall, in which the yell of ColonelGaillarde out-topped all other sounds.
Most young men like, at least, to witness a row. But, intuitively, Ifelt that this would interest me in a very special manner. I had onlyfifty yards to run, when I found myself in the hall of the old inn. Theprincipal actor in this strange drama was, indeed, the Colonel, whostood facing the old Count de St. Alyre, who, in his traveling costume,with his black silk scarf covering the lower part of his face,confronted him; he had evidently been intercepted in an endeavor toreach his carriage. A little in the rear of the Count stood theCountess, also in traveling costume, with her thick black veil down, andholding in her delicate fingers a white rose. You can't conceive a morediabolical effigy of hate and fury than the Colonel; the knotted veinsstood out on his forehead, his eyes were leaping from their sockets, hewas grinding his teeth, and froth was on his lips. His sword was drawnin his hand, and
he accompanied his yelling denunciations with stampsupon the floor and flourishes of his weapon in the air.
The host of the Belle Etoile was talking to the Colonel in soothingterms utterly thrown away. Two waiters, pale with fear, stared uselesslyfrom behind. The Colonel screamed and thundered, and whirled his sword."I was not sure of your red birds of prey; I could not believe you wouldhave the audacity to travel on high roads, and to stop at honest inns,and lie under the same roof with honest men. You! _you! both_--vampires,wolves, ghouls. Summon the _gendarmes_, I say. By St. Peter and allthe devils, if either of you try to get out of that door I'll take yourheads off."
For a moment I had stood aghast. Here was a situation! I walked up tothe lady; she laid her hand wildly upon my arm. "Oh! Monsieur," shewhispered, in great agitation, "that dreadful madman! What are we to do?He won't let us pass; he will kill my husband."
"Fear nothing, Madame," I answered, with romantic devotion, and steppingbetween the Count and Gaillarde, as he shrieked his invective, "Holdyour tongue, and clear the way, you ruffian, you bully, you coward!" Iroared.
A faint cry escaped the lady, which more than repaid the risk I ran, asthe sword of the frantic soldier, after a moment's astonished pause,flashed in the air to cut me down.