One in a Thousand; or, The Days of Henri Quatre. G. P. R. James

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СКАЧАТЬ managed? Let me hear, that I may judge."

      "Why, lady," replied Armandi, with a mysterious smile, "there are secrets in all things on this earth, from the fine composition of a lady's heart, to the simples of poor Armandi. Nevertheless, although the mysteries of the art must remain hidden in my own bosom, as I enjoy the blessing of having been born in the same land with one so beautiful, and as I know that you were deeply beloved by my late royal and honoured mistress, though somewhat frowning on the soft pleasures of her court, I will, without reserve, reveal to you how your purpose may be best effected."

      Thus saying, he took a small silver key from his pocket, and opened a Venetian cabinet, that stood near. "See here!" he said, producing a small gilded phial, containing, apparently, a quantity of a perfectly limpid fluid; "see here! the water that Adam found in the first fountain he met in Eden was not more clear than this; and yet the fruit of the tree that stood near it was not more certain death. No odour is to be discerned therein: to the eye it has no colour; to the lip no taste; and yet, like many another thing, with all this seeming simplicity, it is the most potent of all things, having power unlimited over life and death. Three drops of this, in the simplest beverage, will ensure that slow and gradual decay, which, at the end of a year, shall leave him who drinks it a clod in his mother earth. A larger dose will shorten the time by one half; and a larger still will reduce the time to a few weeks or days. The only difficulty is how to give it: but that I will find means for when I know the person."

      "It will not do!" replied Beatrice; "it will not do! it is not quick enough. Have you no other means?"

      "Many, lady! many!" replied the perfumer, smiling; "but, in good sooth, you are as impatient as a young lover. All our art has been tasked to render the means at once slow and secure, so as, in cases of necessity, to effect our deliverance from enemies without calling suspicion on ourselves. See here! this artificial rose, so like the natural flower, that the eye must be keen, indeed, which, at the distance of half a yard, could detect the difference. The scent, too, is the same----"

      "But why do you keep it under that glass ball?" demanded Beatrice, interrupting the long description with which he was proceeding.

      "Because, lady," replied the Italian, "that rose, placed in as fair a bosom as your own, and worn there for one half-hour, would lose its scent, and the wearer health and life within a week. Its odour, therefore, is too valuable to trust to the common air."

      "And those gloves?" asked Beatrice; "those gloves, so beautifully embroidered, for what purpose are they designed?"

      "Heaven forbid that I should see them on your hands!" replied Armandi; "though I have heard that they were once worn by a queen--who is since dead. But you spoke of quicker means. Here is this small box of powder, containing a certain salt that, in the twinkling of an eye, extinguishes the fire of the heart, and the light of the mind, and leaves nothing but the ashes behind. We often use it, diluted with other things, for other purposes; but I would not administer one dose of that, to any one of note, for a less sum than ten thousand golden Henrys, though the whole box is scarcely worth a hundred crowns. But so quick is its effect, and so marked the traces that it leaves behind, that the chirurgeon were a fool who did not at once pronounce the cause of death in him who took it."

      "Give me yon bonbonnière," said Beatrice, pointing to a painted trifle on one of the tables. "And now," she continued, as the man gave it her, "is that enough for one dose?" and as she spoke, she emptied part of the powder from the box which contained it into the bonbonnière--"Is that enough for one dose?"

      "It is enough to kill the King's army!" replied the man. "But what mean you, lady? What do you intend to do?"

      "The person for whom I mean this drug," replied Beatrice, "shall receive it from no hands but my own. You shall risk nothing. There is a jewel, worth one half your shop," she added, drawing a ring from her finger, and casting it upon the table; "and the powder is mine."

      "But, lady! lady!" cried the perfumer, regarding the diamond with eager and experienced eyes, and yet trembling for the consequences which his fair visitor's strong passions might bring upon himself; "but, lady, if you should be discovered! You are young and inexperienced in such matters. They must be performed with a calm hand, and a steady eye, and an unquivering lip: and if you should be discovered, and put to the torture, you would betray me."

      "However I may contemn thee, man," answered Beatrice, "there is no power on earth that could make me betray thee. But rest satisfied; I take the powder from thee, whether thou wilt or not;--but I will make thee easy, and tell thee, that if one grain thereof ever passes any human lip, that lip will be my own. It is well to be prepared for all things--to have ever at hand a ready remedy for all the ills of life--to possess the means of snatching ourselves from the grasp of circumstance: and, in the path which I may be called to tread, the time may well come when I shall wish to change this world for another. I leave to better moralists to decide whether it be right or not, courageous or cowardly, to shake off a life that we are tired of. For my part, I will bear it to the utmost; and, when I can endure it no longer, then will I try another path."

      "If such be your purpose, lady," answered the perfumer, with a sweet smile, and a low inclination, "far be it from me to oppose you. Every one, as you say, should be prepared for all things; and I hold that man not half prepared who does not possess the means of limiting the power his enemies have over him to simple death, a fate that all must undergo. Men think far too much of death: it is but cutting off a few short hours from a long race of pain and anxiety: far oftener is it a mercy than a wrong. Men think too much of death!"

      "You think little enough of it in others, at least," answered Beatrice, looking upon him with curiosity and hate, not unmingled with that peculiar kind and degree of admiration, which wonder always more or less produces. "Have I not heard that you were busy amongst the busiest on the night of St. Bartholomew?"

      "Not I, lady! not I!" exclaimed the perfumer, with a look of disgust and horror at the very name of that fearful massacre. "Not I, indeed! not for the world would I have borne a part, either in that shameful affair, or in the late brutal murder of the great Duke and the Cardinal de Guise."

      "Why, how now!" cried Beatrice. "Would you, who hold life so lightly, and take it so carelessly from others; would you affect scruples at slaying those you consider heretics, or at putting away ambitious tyrants?"

      "Lady, you mistake it altogether," answered the dealer in poisons, with a grim smile. "The Huguenots are heretics, and damnable heretics, since such is your good pleasure and the Pope's: but in that capacity I have nought to do with them. The Guises were tyrants if you will; though Heaven forbid that any ears but yours should hear me say so! But they tyrannised not over me. What I objected to, was the manner of the thing; and it is the manner that, in this world, makes the only difference between crime and virtue. What is murder in one manner, is war and glory in another; what is fraud in a merchant, is skill in a minister; what is base when done in a burgher's coat and with a simpering smile, is noble when done in royal robes and with a kingly frown. Now, what could be more beastly, or brutal, or indecent, than to cut the throats of some hundreds of men in their beds, stain all their pillows with blood, and throw the old admiral himself, half-naked, out of a window? What could be more cruel than to put them for hours in mortal terror; inflict upon them excruciating wounds, and, in some instances, leave them half dead, half-living, when the whole might have been effected without pain, without fear, without bloodshed, in the midst of some gay banquet, or some pleasant carouse: where they would all have died as if they were going to sleep! Nay, nay, lady! our late royal mistress made there a great and a cruel mistake; and as for the Guises--Pho! was ever anything so stupid and so filthy as to swim the King's own closet with gore, and have a man reeling and tumbling about in the midst, under the strokes of half-a-dozen daggers! I cannot conceive how the King, who is as delicate a gentleman as any in all France, could consent to such an indecency."

      Beatrice СКАЧАТЬ