CHAPTER XXIX.
A CONSPIRACY.
When Francine found herself in the power of these scoundrels she faintedaway, and these men carried her over their shoulders as if she had beena bag of flour, perfectly indifferent to her beauty.
Robeccal suddenly bade them halt. They had reached the vile place knownas the Cour de Bretagne, a part of Paris known for its poverty and vice.
"I think it is about time!" grumbled one of Robeccal's men in reply.
"Oh! I suppose you thought you were to be paid for nothing, did you?"
Without heeding the growling of these fellows, Robeccal stepped up to adoor and knocked. It was opened by a person who stood back in theshadow, and a hurried conversation took place. Satisfied apparently withwhat he heard, Robeccal bade his men follow him. They went toBelleville, which at that time was an excessively pretty place, asalmost all the houses of any pretension had gardens and grounds.Robeccal had been extremely adroit in diverting suspicion and theobservation of the people they encountered. He now knocked at a door ina wall half hidden by overhanging ivy.
"Who is there?" called a woman's voice.
"Robec and the kid," was the reply.
The door opened noiselessly on well-oiled hinges.
"Come in, all of you." It was Roulante who spoke.
Francine was at once carried to a little cottage at the foot of a longgarden, where, still unconscious, she was laid on a couch.
Then Robeccal paid his assistants the sum agreed upon. They were notaltogether satisfied, but he managed to get rid of them.
La Roulante was unchanged since the day when she and her lover discussedthe assassination of Iron Jaws.
"I have done well, have I not?" asked Robeccal, with a friendly tap onthe massive shoulders of this monstrosity.
"Her beauty is not marred, I hope?" she asked, anxiously.
"I am not such a fool as that! But I am afraid that the handkerchief wastoo tight. She is confoundedly pretty, that is a fact!"
"What is that to you?" asked the giantess, angrily. "Now give me thatbottle."
"What are you going to do?"
"None of your business! Hand it here."
The woman poured out something that looked like wine, and dropped aspoonful between the girl's lips. She had so much difficulty in doingso, that Robeccal took a knife from his pocket, and inserted it betweenFrancine's close shut teeth. As soon as the liquid disappeared down thegirl's throat she started.
"You are not poisoning her?" asked Robeccal.
"Am I a fool? Hark! I hear a carriage. Take this girl up-stairs."
Robeccal snatched Francine from the sofa, and ran lightly up the stairs.
The room above was elegantly furnished, and had long windows looking outupon the garden, which seemed to stretch out indefinitely. In reality itended at no very great distance in a wall sixteen feet in height.
As Robeccal laid the girl on the bed, he looked at her again with someanxiety. She was absolutely motionless.
There came a knock at the door. Robeccal started.
"That must be he!" said La Roulante.
It was in fact Talizac, who had arrived. Fernando was with him, but theVicomte had knocked with the handle of his cane. It was not the signalagreed upon, and the door was not opened. Suddenly Frederic uttered anoath.
"Oh! it is he!" said Robeccal. "That is better than a visiting card!"
But La Roulante insisted on a little argument through the door beforeshe would consent to move the heavy bolts.
"Damned sorceress!" cried Talizac, "you deserve that I should cut yourface with my cane, for keeping me waiting so long."
La Roulante made no reply to this gentle address, and Talizac, withblood-stained face and torn clothing, entered the house, followed byFernando, who was as dignified and correct in costume as he always was.
When Talizac reached the salon, he dropped into a chair. "Water! for thelove of Heaven, give me some water!" he murmured. He felt almost ill,and would have been glad of a few hours of rest. "Is she here?" heasked.
"Yes, she is here," answered La Roulante.
Talizac rose. "I must repair the disorder of my toilette," he said."Robeccal, come with me."
On Talizac's return, he asked La Roulante where the Marquise was.
"Oh! she is asleep," was the reply.
"Show me where she is, and move a little faster!"
"It strikes me, sir, that you are not over polite," muttered Robeccal.
"Let him have his own way," sneered the giantess; "he is in a hurry tosee his darling, and has no time to be civil!" She made a grotesquereverence as she spoke. She preceded the Vicomte to show him the way."Do you know," she cried, stopping on the stairs, "that the girl is aspretty as a pink."
"That is none of your affairs," answered Talizac, roughly, "I pay you toserve me, not to talk!"
"You are a little hard on us, I think," said La Roulante, with a sneer,"but I suppose when people are rich they can say and do as they please!"
"Is that the room?" Talizac asked, as he reached the top of the stairs,"if so, open the door at once, or I will force it!"
"No, you won't injure my house like that! But you want to see her, doyou? Very well, I will show her to you, then."
She quickly slid back a narrow panel in the door, which permitted him tolook into the room.
"Look in, gentlemen and ladies," said La Roulante, in the sing-song toneof a showman at the circus, "look in, it won't cost you anything!" Andthen the creature laughed.
Talizac did not heed her, but leaning toward the open panel looked atFrancine, who lay with her arms folded on her breast like a child. Herhair was loosened, and nothing could have been lovelier than this facewith its delicate features, reminding one of Raphael's pictures. Talizaclooked, and forgot that this child was the victim of a miserableconspiracy. He was so impressed by her beauty and her innocence that hewas ready to kneel before her. But La Roulante touched his arm with acynical laugh.
"Open the door, I say!"
La Roulante closed the panel with a snap, and slowly drew a key from herpocket and stood with it in her fingers, and then said quietly andfirmly:
"If I unlock that door, it will cost you twenty thousand francs!"
Talizac started back. "What do you mean?" he exclaimed.
"Just what I say, twenty thousand francs!"
"But this is abominable. Have I not paid the sum agreed upon?"
"A trifle, yes; but that won't do!"
"It is robbery, bare-faced robbery--"
"None of that, sir, you are not so honest yourself, that you can affordto taunt others!"
He looked at her in astonishment, and then rushed at the door as if toforce it open. She called for Robeccal, who hurried to obey her summons.Talizac called Fernando, and Robeccal turned back. Drawing an enormousknife, he said, fiercely:
"Don't you interfere! My wife will settle her own matters with thisgentleman!"
Fernando's attitude during the fight between Frederic and Montferrandhas already informed us as to the courage of this man. Perhaps he waswise in not risking his life to defend Talizac, whom he estimated at hisproper value. He was interested in the Fongereues family only as anemissary of that Society which at that time labored to strangleLiberalism at its birth.
"Very good!" answered Fernando, shrugging his shoulders indifferently,but as he did not propose to be mixed up in any disagreeable affair inthis house, he determined to take himself off.
The giantess was not alarmed by Talizac's mad attempt. She calmly liftedhim by the collar and landed him on the stairs, half way down.
"Robbers! Murderers!" shouted the Vicomte.
"Confound you! hold your tongue!" said Robeccal, flourishing the knifewhich had such an effect on Fernando.
"Why do you not keep your word?" angrily asked the Vicomte; "youpromised--"
"People like us do not keep our promises," answered La Roulante,cynically. "You paid us for carrying off the girl, you paid us forgiving her a shelter; we have don
e both. But if you wish to enter thatroom it will cost you twenty thousand francs!"
"But that is an enormous sum!" moaned Talizac.
"Not to a man like you, who has a grandee for a father, and a motherrolling in wealth. She has diamonds, plenty of them!"
"Wretches that you are!"
"Thank you! I don't care for any more of these hard names, if it is allthe same to you! And now let me tell you, if you don't hand over thismoney that the police will be at your heels."
At the word police, Fernando went to the Vicomte. "Come," he said, "wehad better not remain in this cut-throat place. You must give the matterup, that is all there is to be said."
"No, I tell you, no!" Feeling in his pocket, Talizac drew out a handfulof gold and flung it at the woman.
"Take this," he cried, "and unlock that door!"
La Roulante counted the money. "No," she replied, "this is butthirty-two louis."
"Come," persisted Fernando, dragging Talizac away.
"Call again!" shouted the woman. "You need not be in a hurry, but callagain!"
And the door closed.
"My idea is a good one," said La Roulante to Robeccal. "He will comeback, and will bring the twenty thousand francs!"