Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

by Rafael Sabatini

  Rejoiced to see the man so wide awake in him, I followed him closely across the terrace, and through the rose garden to the bank of the river. This we followed until we came at last to the belt of willows, where, having found a suitable patch of even and springy turf, I drew my sword and invited him to make ready.

  “Will you not strip?” he inquired sullenly.

  “I do not think so,” I answered. “The night air is sharp. Nevertheless, do you make ready as best you deem fit, and that speedily, Monsieur.”

  With an exclamation of contempt, he divested himself of his wig, mask, and doublet, then drawing his sword, he came forward, and announced himself at my disposal.

  As well you may conceive, we wasted no time in compliments, but straightway went to work, and that with a zest that drew sparks from our rapiers at the first contact.

  The Marquis attacked me furiously, and therein lay his only chance; for a fierce, rude sword-play that is easily dealt with in broad daylight is vastly discomposing in such pale moonshine as lighted us. I defended myself warily, for of a sudden I had grown conscious of the danger that I ran did he once by luck or strength get past my guard with that point of his which in the spare light I could not follow closely enough to feel secure.

  ‘Neath the fury of his onslaught I was compelled to break ground more than once, and each time he was so swift to follow up his advantage that I had ne’er a chance to retaliate.

  Still fear or doubt of the issue I had none. I needed but to wait until the Marquis’s fury was spent by want of breath, to make an end of it. And presently that which I waited for came about. His attack began to lag in vigour, and the pressure of his blade to need less resistance, whilst his breathing grew noisy as that of a broken-winded horse. Then with the rage of a gambler who loses at every throw, he cursed and reviled me with every thrust or lunge that I turned aside.

  My turn was come; yet I held back, and let him spend his strength to the utmost drop, whilst with my elbow close against my side and by an easy play of wrist, I diverted each murderous stroke of his point that came again and again for my heart.

  When at last he had wasted in blasphemies what little breath his wild exertions had left him, I let him feel on his blade the twist that heralded my first riposte. He caught the thrust, and retreated a step, his blasphemous tongue silenced, and his livid face bathed in perspiration.

  Cruelly I toyed with him then, and with every disengagement I made him realise that he was mastered, and that if I withheld the coup de grâce it was but to prolong his agony. And to add to the bitterness of that agony of his, I derided him whilst I fenced; with a recitation of his many sins I mocked him, showing him how ripe he was for hell, and asking him how it felt to die unshriven with such a load upon his soul.

  Goaded to rage by my bitter words, he grit his teeth, and gathered what rags of strength were left him for a final effort, And before I knew what he was about, he had dropped on to his left knee, and with his body thrown forward and supported within a foot of the ground by his left arm, he came, like a snake, under my guard with his point directed upwards.

  So swift had been this movement and so unlooked-for, that had I not sprung backwards in the very nick of time, this narrative of mine had ne’er been written. With a jeering laugh I knocked aside his sword, but even as I disengaged, to thrust at him, he knelt up and caught my blade in his left hand, and for all that it ate its way through the flesh to the very bones of his fingers, he clung to it with that fierce strength and blind courage that is born of despair.

  Then raising himself on his knees again, he struck at me wildly. I swung aside, and as his sword, missing its goal, shot past me, I caught his wrist in a grip from which I contemptuously invited him to free himself. With that began a fierce tugging and panting on both sides, which, however, was of short duration, for presently, my blade, having severed the last sinew of his fingers, was set free. Simultaneously I let go his wrist, pushing his arm from me so violently that in his exhausted condition it caused him to fall over on his side.

  In an instant, however, he was up and at me again. Again our swords clashed — but once only. It was time to finish. With a vigorous disengagement I got past his feeble guard and sent my blade into him full in the middle of his chest and out again at his back until a foot or so of glittering steel protruded.

  A shudder ran through him, and his mouth worked oddly, whilst spasmodically he still sought, without avail, to raise his sword; then as I recovered my blade, a half-stifled cry broke from his lips, and throwing up his arms, he staggered and fell in a heap.

  As I turned him over to see if he were dead, his eyes met mine, and were full of piteous entreaty; his lips moved, and presently I caught the words:

  “I am sped, Luynes.” Then struggling up, and in a louder voice: “A priest!” he gasped. “Get me a priest, Luynes. Jesu! Have mer—”

  A rush of blood choked him and cut short his utterance. He writhed and twitched for a moment, then his chin sank forward and he fell back, death starkening his limbs and glazing the eyes which stared hideously upwards at the cold, pitiless moon.

  Such was the passing of the Marquis César de St. Auban.

  CHAPTER XXV. PLAY-ACTING

  For a little while I stood gazing down at my work, my mind full of the unsolvable mysteries of life and death; then I bethought me that time stood not still for me, and that something yet remained to be accomplished ere my evening’s task were done.

  And forthwith I made shift to do a thing at the memory of which my blood is chilled and my soul is filled with loathing even now — albeit the gulf of many years separates me from that June night at Canaples.

  To pass succinctly o’er an episode on which I have scant heart to tarry, suffice it you to know that using my sash as a rope I bound a heavy stone to St. Auban’s ankle; then lifting the body in my arms, I half dragged, half bore it across the little stretch of intervening sward to the water’s edge, and flung it in.

  As I write I have the hideous picture in my mind, and again I can see St. Auban’s ghastly face grinning up at me through the moonlit waters, until at last it was mercifully swallowed up in their black depths, and naught but a circling wavelet that spread swiftly across the stream was left to tell of what had chanced.

  I dare not dwell upon the feelings that assailed me as I stooped to rinse the blood from my hands, nor yet of the feverish haste wherewith I tore my blood-stained doublet from my back, and hurled it wide into the stream. For all my callousness I was sick and unmanned by that which had befallen.

  No time, however, did I waste in mawkish sentiment, but setting my teeth hard, I turned away from the river, and back to the trampled ground of our recent conflict. There, with no other witness save the moon, I clad myself in the Marquis’s doublet of black velvet; I set his mask of silk upon my face, his golden wig upon my head, and over that his sable hat with its drooping feather. Next I buckled on his sword belt, wherefrom hung his rapier that I had sheathed.

  In Blois that day I had taken the precaution — knowing the errand upon which I came — to procure myself haut-de-chausses of black velvet, and black leather boots with gilt spurs that closely resembled those which St. Auban had worn in life.

  Now, as I have already written, St. Auban and I were of much the same build and stature, and so methought with confidence that he would have shrewd eyes, indeed, who could infer from my appearance that I was other than the same masked gentleman who had that very day ridden into Canaples at the head of a troop of his Eminence’s guards.

  I made my way swiftly back along the path that St. Auban and I had together trodden but a little while ago, and past the château until I came to the shrubbery where Michelot — faithful to the orders I had given him — awaited my return. From his concealment he had seen me leave the château with the Marquis, and as I suddenly loomed up before him now, he took me for the man whose clothes I wore, and naturally enough assumed that ill had befallen Gaston de Luynes. Of a certainty I had been pistolled by him h
ad I not spoken in time. I lingered but to give him certain necessary orders; then, whilst he went off to join Abdon and see to their fulfilment, I made my way stealthily, with eyes keeping watch around me, across the terrace, and through the window into the room that St. Auban had left to follow me to his death.

  The tapers still burned, and in all respects the chamber was as it had been; the back and breast pieces still lay upon the floor, and on the table the littered documents. The door I ascertained had been locked on the inside, a precaution which St. Auban had no doubt taken so that none might spy upon the work that busied him.

  I closed and made fast the window, then I bethought me that, being in ignorance of the whereabouts of St. Auban’s bed-chamber, I must perforce spend the night as best I could within that very room.

  And so I sat me down and pondered deeply o’er the work that was to come, the part I was about to play, and the details of its playing. In this manner did I while away perchance an hour; through the next one I must have slept, for I awakened with a start to find three tapers spent and the last one spluttering, and in the sky the streaks that heralded the summer dawn.

  Again I fell to thinking; again I slept, and woke again to find the night gone and the sunlight on my face. Someone knocked at the door, and that knocking vibrated through my brain and set me wide-awake, indeed. It was as the signal to uplift the curtain and let my play-acting commence.

  Hastily I rose and shot a glance at the mirror to see that my wig hung straight and that my mask was rightly adjusted. I started at my own reflection, for methought that from the glass ‘t was St. Auban who looked at me, as I had seen him look the night before when he had donned those things at my command.

  “Holà there, within!” came Montrésor’s voice. “Monsieur le Capitaine!” A fresh shower of blows descended on the oak panels.

  I yawned with prodigious sonority, and overturned a chair with my foot. Then bracing myself for the ordeal, through which I looked to what scant information I possessed and my own mother wit, to bear me successfully, I strode across to admit my visitor.

  Muffling my voice, as I had heard St. Auban do at the inn, by drawing my nether lip over my teeth —

  “Pardieu!” quoth I, as I opened the door, “it seems, Lieutenant, that I must have fallen asleep over those musty documents.”

  I trembled as I watched him, waiting for his reply, and I thanked Heaven that in the rôle I had assumed a mask was worn, not only because it hid my features, but because it hid the emotions which these might have betrayed.

  “I was beginning to fear,” he replied coldly, and without so much as looking at me, “that worse had befallen you.”

  I breathed again.

  “You mean — ?”

  “Pooh, nothing,” said he half contemptuously. “Only methinks ‘t were well whilst we remain at Canaples that you do not spend your nights in a room within such easy access of the terrace.”

  “Your advice no doubt is sound, but as I shall not spend another night at Canaples, it comes too late.”

  “You mean, Monsieur — ?”

  “That we set out for Paris to-day.”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “Oh, ça! I have just visited the stables, and there are not four horses fit for the journey. So that unless you have in mind the purchase of fresh animals—”

  “Pish! My purse is not bottomless,” I broke in, repeating the very words that I heard St. Auban utter.

  “So you said once before, Monsieur. Still, unless you are prepared to take that course, the only alternative is to remain here until the horses are sufficiently recovered. But perhaps you think of walking?” he added with a sniff.

  “Such is your opinion, your time being worthless and it being of little moment where you spend it. I have conceived a plan.”

  “Ah!”

  “Has it not occurred to you that the danger which threatens us and which calls for the protection of a troop is only on this side of the Loire, where the Blaisois might be minded to attempt a rescue of the Chevalier? But over yonder, Chevalier, on the Chambord side, who cares a fig for the Lord of Canaples or his fate? None; is it not so?”

  He made an assenting gesture, whereupon I continued:

  “This being so, I have bethought me that it will suffice if I take but three or four men and the sergeant as an escort, and cross the river with our prisoner after nightfall, travelling along the opposite shore until we reach Orleans. What think you, Lieutenant?”

  He shrugged his shoulders again.

  “‘T is you who command here,” he answered with apathy, “not I.”

  “Nevertheless, do you not think the plan a safe one, as well as one that will allay his Eminence’s very natural impatience?”

  “Oh, it is safe enough, I doubt not,” he replied coldly.

  “Your enthusiasm determines me,” quoth I, with an irony that made him wince. “And we will follow the plan, since you agree with me touching its excellence. But keep the matter to yourself until an hour or so after sunset.”

  He bowed, so utterly my dupe that I could have laughed at him. Then— “There is a little matter that I would mention,” he said. “Mademoiselle de Canaples has expressed a wish to accompany her father to Paris and has asked me whether this will be permitted her.”

  My heart leaped. Surely the gods fought on my side!

  “I cannot permit it,” I answered icily.

  “Monsieur, you are pitiless,” he protested in a tone of indignation for which I would gladly have embraced him.

  I feigned to ponder.

  “The matter needs consideration. Tell Mademoiselle that I will discuss it with her at noon, if she will condescend to await me on the terrace; I will then give her my definite reply. And now, Lieutenant, let us breakfast.”

  As completely as I had duped Montrésor did I presently dupe those of the troopers with whom I came in contact, among others the sergeant — and anon the Chevalier himself.

  From the brief interview that I had with him I discovered that whilst he but vaguely suspected me to be St. Auban — and when I say “he suspected me” I mean he suspected him whose place I had taken — he was, nevertheless, aware of the profit which his captor, whoever he might be, derived from this business. It soon grew clear to me from what he said that St. Auban had mocked him with it whilst concealing his identity; that he had told him how he had obtained from Malpertuis the treasonable letter, and of the bargain which it had enabled him to strike with Mazarin. I did not long remain in his company, and, deeming the time not yet ripe for disclosures, I said little in answer to his lengthy tirades, which had, I guessed, for scope to trap me into betraying the identity he but suspected.

  It wanted a few minutes to noon as I left the room in which the old nobleman was confined, and by the door of which a trooper was stationed, musket on shoulder. With every pulse a-throbbing at the thought of my approaching interview with Mademoiselle, I made my way below and out into the bright sunshine, the soldiers I chanced to meet saluting me as I passed them.

  On the terrace I found Mademoiselle already awaiting me. She was standing, as often I had seen her stand, with her back turned towards me and her elbows resting upon the balustrade. But as my step sounded behind her, she turned, and stood gazing at me with a face so grief-stricken and pale that I burned to unmask and set her torturing fears at rest. I doffed my hat and greeted her with a silent bow, which she contemptuously disregarded.

  “My lieutenant tells me, Mademoiselle,” said I in my counterfeited voice, “that it is your desire to bear Monsieur your father company upon this journey of his to Paris.”

  “With your permission, sir,” she answered in a choking voice.

  “It is a matter for consideration, Mademoiselle,” I pursued. “There are in it many features that may have escaped you, and which I shall discuss with you if you will honour me by stepping into the garden below.”

  “Why will not the terrace serve?”

  “Because I may have that to say which
I would not have overheard.”

  She knit her brows and stared at me as though she would penetrate the black cloth that hid my face. At last she shrugged her shoulders, and letting her arms fall to her side in a gesture of helplessness and resignation —

  “Soit; I will go with you,” was all she said.

  Side by side we went down the steps as a pair of lovers might have gone, save that her face was white and drawn, and that her eyes looked straight before her, and never once, until we reached the gravel path below, at her companion. Side by side we walked along one of the rose-bordered alleys, until at length I stopped.

  “Mademoiselle,” I said, speaking in the natural tones of that good-for-naught Gaston de Luynes, “I have already decided, and you have my permission to accompany your father.”

  At the sound of my voice she started, and with her left hand clutching at the region of her heart, she stood, her head thrust forward, and on her face the look of one who is confronted with some awful doubt. That look was brief, however, and swift to replace it was one of hideous revelation.

  “In God’s name, who are you?” she cried in accents that bespoke internal agony.

  “Already you have guessed it, Mademoiselle,” I answered, and I would have added that which should have brought comfort to her distraught mind, when —

  “You!” she gasped in a voice of profound horror. “You! You, the Judas who has sold my father to the Cardinal for a paltry share in our estates. And I believed that mask of yours to hide the face of St. Auban!”

  Her words froze me into a stony mass of insensibility. There was no logic in my attitude; I see it now. Appearances were all against me, and her belief no more than justified. I overlooked all this, and instead of saving time by recounting how I came to be there and thus delivering her from the anguish that was torturing her, I stood, dumb and cruel, cut to the quick by her scorn and her suspicions that I was capable of such a thing as she imputed, and listening to the dictates of an empty pride that prompted me to make her pay full penalty.