The Man in Black. Weyman Stanley John

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      The showman grunted. "Cannot I?" he said. "There are tricks in all trades, master. I reckon I can-with this!" And producing from somewhere about him a thin steel chain, he held it before the other's face. "That is my lock and door," he said triumphantly.

      "It won't hold him long," the other answered impassively. "The fifth link from the end is worn through now."

      "You have sharp eyes!" the showman exclaimed, with reluctant admiration. "But it will hold a bit yet. I fasten him in yonder corner. Do you wait here, and I will come back to you."

      He was not long about it. When he returned he led the stranger into the farthest of the stalls, which, as well as that next to it, was empty. "We can talk here," he said bluntly. "At any rate, I have no better place. The house is full. Now, what is it?"

      "I want that boy," the tall man answered. The showman laughed-stopped laughing-laughed again. "I dare say you do," he said derisively. "There is not a better or a pluckier boy on the rope out of Paris. And for patter? There is nothing on the road like the bit he did this afternoon, nor a bit that pays as well."

      "Who taught it him?" the stranger asked.

      "I did."

      "That is a lie," the other answered in a perfectly unmoved tone. "If you like I will tell you what you did. You taught him the latter half of the story. The other he knew before: down to the word 'province.'"

      The showman gasped. "Diable!" he muttered. "Who told you?"

      "Never mind. You bought the boy. From whom?"

      "From some gypsies at the great fair of Beaucaire," the showman answered sullenly.

      "Who is he?"

      Crafty Eyes laughed dryly. "If I knew I should not be padding the hoof," he said. "Or, again, he may be nobody, and the tale patter. You have heard as much as I have. What do you think?"

      "I think I shall find out when I have bought the boy," the stranger answered coolly. "What will you take for him?"

      The showman gasped again. "You come to the point," he said.

      "It is my custom. What is his price?"

      The showman's imagination had never soared beyond nor his ears ever heard of a larger sum than a thousand crowns. He mentioned it trembling. There might be such a sum in the world.

      "A thousand livres, if you like. Not a sou more," was the answer.

      The nearer lantern threw a strong light on Crafty Eyes' face; but that was mere shadow beside the light of cupidity which sparkled in his eyes. He could get another boy; scores of boys. But a thousand livres! A thousand livres! "Tournois!" he said faintly. "Livres Tournois!" In his wildest moments of avarice he had never dreamed of possessing such a sum.

      "No, Paris livres," the stranger answered coldly. "Paid to-morrow at the Golden Chariot. If you agree, you will deliver the boy to me there at noon, and receive the money."

      The showman nodded, vanquished by the mere sound of the sum. Paris livres let it be. Danae did not more quickly succumb to the golden shower.

      CHAPTER II

      SOLOMON NÔTREDAME

      A little later that night, at the hour which saw the showman pay his second visit to the street before the Chariot d'Or, there to stand gaping at the lighted windows, and peering into the courtyard in a kind of fascination-or perhaps to assure himself that the house would not fly away, and his golden hopes with it-the twelve-year-old boy, the basis of those hopes, awoke and stirred restlessly in the straw. He was cold, and the chain galled him. His face ached where the man had struck him. In the next stall two drunken men were fighting, and the place reeked with oaths and foulness. But none of these things were so novel as to keep the boy awake; and sighing and drawing the monkey nearer to him, he would in a moment have been asleep again if the moon, shining with great brightness through the little square aperture above him, had not thrown its light directly on his head, and roused him more completely.

      He sat up and gazed at it, and God knows what softening thoughts and pitiful recollections the beauty of the night brought into his mind; but presently he began to weep-not as a child cries, with noise and wailing, but in silence, as a man weeps. The monkey awoke and crept into his breast, but he hardly regarded it. The misery, the hopelessness, the slavery of his life, ignored from hour to hour, or borne at other times with a boy's nonchalance, filled his heart to bursting now. Crouching in his lair in the straw, he shook with agony. The tears welled up, and would not be restrained, until they hid the face of the sky and darkened even the moon's pure light.

      Or was it his tears? He dashed them away and looked, and rose slowly to his feet; while the ape, clinging to his breast, began to mow and gibber. A black mass, which gradually resolved itself, as the boy's eyes cleared, into a man's hat and head, filled the aperture.

      "Hush!" came from the head in a cautious whisper. "Come nearer. I will not hurt you. Do you wish to escape, lad?"

      The boy clasped his hands in an ecstasy. "Yes, oh yes!" he murmured. The question chimed in so naturally with his thoughts, it scarcely surprised him.

      "If you were loose, could you get through this window?" the man asked. He spoke cautiously, under his breath; but the noise in the next stall, to say nothing of a vile drinking song which was being chanted forth at the farther end of the stable, was such he might safely have shouted. "Yes? Then take this file. Rub at the fifth link from the end: the one that is nearly through. Do you understand, boy?"

      "Yes, yes," Jehan cried again, groping in the straw for the tool, which had fallen at his feet. "I know."

      "When you are loose, cover up the chain," continued the other in a slow biting tone. "Or lie on that part of it, and wait until morning. As soon as you see the first gleam of light, climb out through the window. You will find me outside."

      The boy would have uttered his trembling thanks. But lo! in a moment the aperture was clear again; the moon sailed unchanged through an unchanged sky; and all was as before. Save for the presence of the little bit of rough steel in his hand, he might have thought it a dream. But the file was there; it was there, and with a choking sob of hope and fear and excitement, he fell to work on the chain.

      It was clumsy work he made of it in the dark. But the link was so much worn, a man might have wrenched it open, and the boy did not spare his fingers. The dispute next door covered the song of the file; and the smoky horn lantern which alone lighted that end of the stable had no effect in the dark corner where he lay. True, he had to work by feel, looking out all the while for his tyrant's coming; but the tool was good, and the fingers, hardened by many an hour of work on the rope, were strong and lithe. When the showman at last stumbled to his place in the straw, the boy lay free-free and trembling.

      All was not done, however. It seemed an hour before the man settled himself-an hour of agony and suspense to Jehan, feigning sleep; since at any moment his master might take it into his head to look into things. But Crafty Eyes had no suspicion. Having kicked the boy and heard the chain rattle, and so assured himself that he was there-so much caution he exercised every night, drunk or sober-he was satisfied; and by-and-by, when his imagination, heated by thoughts of wealth, permitted it, he fell asleep, and dreamed that he had married the Cardinal's cook-maid and ate collops on Sundays.

      Even so, the night seemed endless to the boy, lying wakeful, with his eyes on the sky. Now he was hot, now cold. One moment the thought that the window might prove too strait for him threw him into СКАЧАТЬ