The Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini. Rafael Sabatini

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 had 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.

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