The Duke's Motto: A Melodrama Read online

  VI

  THE MOAT OF CAYLUS

  The descent into the moat of Caylus was rather a ticklish business, evenwith the aid of an improvised rope, for the face of the cliff was, forthe most part, smooth, and afforded little in the way of foothold, butLagardere was a trained athlete and a man of great physical strength, onethat could use his feet with skill for purchase against the face of therock, and he made his way dexterously to the end of his tether. Even whenhe had got thus far, and was swinging by his hands from the end of histaut sash, he was a considerable distance from the ground. But Lagarderelet go with as light a heart as if he were a new Curtius leaping into anew gulf; and, indeed, if he had been of a mind to make the parallel, hewould have counted his stake as great as the safety of Rome. Droppinglike a plummet, he alighted on his hands and knees on the ground. Quicklyhe picked himself up, dusted the earth from his palms, and, aftercarefully feeling himself all over to make sure that he was none theworse, save for the jar of his tumble, he looked about him cautiously. Itwas late evening now, and the hot day knew no cooler dusk.

  As he looked up from the strange vault in which he stood, the vault thatwas formed by the moat of Caylus between the rock on which the castlerose and the rock on which the Inn of the Seven Devils was perched, hesaw above him the late evening sky painted with the strangest pageant. Tothe right of the spot where the sun had declined the purple melancholy ofthe heavens was broken by a blaze of gold, such as might have flashedfrom the armor of some celestial host marshalled and marching against thePowers of Darkness. To the left, under lowered eyelids of sable clouds,there ran a band of red fire that seemed as if it must belt the earthwith its fury, a red fire that might have flamed from the mouth of thevery pit. Lagardere was not over-imaginative, but the strangeness of thecontrast, the fierce splendor of the warring colors, touched the player'sheart beneath the soldier's hide. "The gold of heaven," he murmured, andsaluted the sky to the right. "The rod of hell," he thought, and pointedtowards the left, where distant trees stared, black, angry outlinesagainst those waves of livid fire. Was not this contest in the clouds akind of allegory of the quarrel in which he was now engaged, and was nothis cause very surely, in its righteousness, its justice, its honor,gilded and invigorated by those noble rays to strive against andoverthrow the legionaries of evil?

  Even as he thought such unfamiliar thoughts, the pageant of opposingforces dimmed and dwindled. The darkness was gathering swiftly, investingthe world with its legion of gloom; and in the shadow of the great Castleof Caylus, rising like a rock itself out of the solid rock behindLagardere, the moat was soon very dark indeed. There was little light inthe moonless sky; there came none from the castle, which in its dimoutline of towers and battlements might have been the enchanted palace ofsome fairy tale, so soundless, so lightless, so unpeopled did it seem.There was a faint gleam discernible in the windows of the Inn on theother side of the gorge from which he had just succeeded in escaping.

  Lagardere looked up at the Inn and laughed; Lagardere looked up at thecastle and smiled. What was she like, he wondered, that beautifulGabrielle de Caylus, whom it had been his impudent ambition to woo, andwhom he now knew to be married to Nevers, his appointed antagonist? Hehad come all that way with the pleasant intention of killing Nevers, buthe felt more friendly towards his enemy since he had learned of the plotagainst his life, and he wondered who was the instigator of that plot,who was the paymaster of the, as he believed, baffled assassins. For in asense he believed them to be baffled, and this for two reasons. The firstwas that he heard no sound of stealthy footsteps creeping across thebridge. The second was that when he glanced up at the Inn window he sawthat the dim glow in the distant window was suddenly occulted, and thenas suddenly became visible again. It was plain to Lagardere that someone had entered the room and had looked out of the window for an instant.Therefore some one had already discovered his absence, probably the maidof the Inn. No doubt she would send word to the bravos, and it might verywell chance that the bravos would not think the odds in their favorsufficiently good when they knew that they had to deal with Henri deLagardere as well as with Louis de Nevers.

  Lagardere whistled cheerfully the lilt of a drinking-song as he reflectedthus, for he considered himself quite equal to handling the whole batchof rascallions if only he had a wall of some kind to back him. He wasfondling the possibility that they had given up the whole business indisgust at his interruption of their purpose, when it suddenly stabbedhis fancy that they might ambush Nevers on his way. But he dismissed thatfear instantly. He hoped and believed that if they knew he was free theywould give him the first chance to kill Nevers for them. In any case, allthat he could do was to wait patiently where he was and see what thecreeping minutes brought.

  The moat of Caylus did not appear to him to be, under the existingconditions, by any means the ideal field for a duel. In the darkness itseemed to him to be more happily adapted for a game of blindman's-buff.There was a half-filled hay-cart in the moat, and bundles of hay werescattered hither and thither on the ground and littered the placeconfusingly. Lagardere began to busy himself in clearing some of this hayout of the way, so as to afford an untroubled space for the comingcombat. While he was thus engaged he heard for the first time a faintsound come from the direction of the castle. It was the sound of a doorbeing turned cautiously upon its hinges. Crouching in the shadow of therock down which he had lately descended, Lagardere looked round and sawdimly two forms emerge like shadows from the very side of the castle. Thenew-comers had come forth from a little postern that gave onto the moat,to which they descended by some narrow steps cut in the rock, and theynow walked a little way slowly into the darkness. Lagardere, allwatchfulness, could hear one of the shadows say to the other, "This way,monseigneur," and the word "monseigneur" made him wonder. Was he going tobe brought face to face with the Marquis of Caylus, the old ogre whosegrim tyranny had been talked of even in Paris?

  The shadow addressed as monseigneur answered, "I see no one," and thevoices of both the shadows were unfamiliar to the listener. But the voiceof the shadow that was saluted as monseigneur sounded like the voice of ayoung man.

  The leading shadow seemed to be peering into the darkness in front ofhim. "I told them to place a sentinel," he said to his companion; and ashe spoke he caught sight of Lagardere, who must have looked as shadowyto him as he looked to Lagardere, and he pointed as he added: "Yes, thereis some one there, monseigneur."

  "Who is it?" the second shadow questioned, and again the voice soundedyouthful to Lagardere's ears.

  "It looks like Saldagno," said the first shadow; and, coming a littlefarther forward, he called dubiously into the gloom: "Is that you,Saldagno?"

  Now, as Saldagno was the name of one of the swordsmen who had met at theInn in menace of Nevers, Lagardere came to the swift conclusion that thetwo shadows now haunting him had something to do with that conspiracy,and that, if it were possible, it would be as well to learn theirpurposes. He was, therefore, quite prepared to be Saldagno for theoccasion, and it was with a well-affected Lusitanian accent that hepromptly answered, "Present," and came a little nearer to the strangers.

  The first shadow spoke again, craning a long neck into the darkness. "Itis I, Monsieur Peyrolles. Come here."

  Lagardere advanced obediently, and the second shadow, coming to the sideof his companion, questioned him. "Would you like to earn fiftypistoles?"

  Although both the voices were strange to Lagardere, the voice of thissecond shadow seemed to denote a person of better breeding than hiscompanion, a person accustomed to command when the other was accustomedto cajole. Also, it was decidedly the voice of a young man. Whoever thespeaker might be, he certainly was not the crabbed old Marquis de Caylus.Lagardere endeavored eagerly but unsuccessfully to see the face of thespeaker. Night had by this time fallen completely. The moat was as blackas a wolf's mouth, and the shadow that was muffled in a cloak held acorner of it so raised that it would have concealed his visage if thegorge had been flooded with moonlight.<
br />
  "Who would not?" Lagardere answered, with a swagger which seemed to himappropriate to a light-hearted assassin.

  The shadow gave him commands. "When ten o'clock strikes, tap at thiswindow with your sword." He pointed as he spoke to the wall of thecastle, and in that wall Lagardere, peering through the obscurity, couldfaintly discern a window about a man's height from the moat. The speakerwent on: "A woman will open. Whisper very low, 'I am here.'"

  Involuntarily Lagardere echoed the last words, "I am here," and added,"The motto of Nevers."

  There was annoyance in the well-bred voice as it questioned, sharply:"What do you know of Nevers?"

  Peyrolles respectfully answered for the sham Saldagno: "Monseigneur, theyall know whom they are to meet. How they know I cannot tell, but they doknow. But they are to be trusted."

  The shadow shrugged his shoulders and resumed his instructions: "Thewoman will hand you a child, a baby a few months old. Take it at once tothe Inn." He paused for a moment and then said, slowly: "I trust you arenot tender-hearted."

  Lagardere protested with voice and gesture. "You pain me," he declared.

  Apparently satisfied, the shadow went on: "If the girl should die in yourarms, no one will blame you, and your fifty pistoles will be a hundred.'Tis but a quick nip of finger and thumb on an infant's neck. Do youunderstand?"

  "What I do not understand," retorted Lagardere, "is why you do not do thejob yourself and save your money."

  It was now Peyrolles's turn to be annoyed. "Rascal!" he exclaimed,angrily. But the man he called monseigneur restrained him.

  "Calm, Peyrolles, calm! For the very good reason, inquisitive gentleman,that the lady in question would know my voice or the voice of my friendhere, and as I do not wish her to think that I have anything to do withto-night's work--"

  Lagardere interrupted, bluffly: "Say no more. I'm your man."

  Even as he spoke the plaintive sound of a horn was heard far away in thedistance. Peyrolles spoke: "The first signal. The shepherds have beentold to watch and warn at the wood-ends and the by-path and the causewayto the bridge. Nevers has entered the forest."

  The noble shadow gave a little laugh. "He is riding to his death, thefool amorist. Come."

  Then the two shadows flitted away in the darkness as nebulously as theyhad come, and the castle swallowed them up, and Lagardere was alone againin the moat among the bundles of hay.

  "May the devil fly away with you for a pair of knaves!" he said beneathhis breath, apostrophizing the vanished shadows. "But I'll save the childand Nevers in spite of you." For in those moments of horrid colloquy allhis purpose had been transmuted. These unknown plotters of murder hadconfirmed him in his alliance to the man he had come to slay. So long asNevers was in peril from these strange enemies, so long Lagardere wouldbe his friend, free, of course, to rekindle his promise later. But noweven Nevers's life was not of the first importance. There was a childthreatened, a child to be saved. Who were these devils, these Herods,that sought to slay a baby?

  Even as he asked himself this question he could hear through the clearair the striking of a clock in the distant village. He counted thestrokes from one to ten. This was the time that had been fixed by themaster shadow. Lagardere made his way carefully across the moat till hestood beneath the designated window. He drew his sword and tapped withthe blade thrice against the pane. Then he sheathed his sword and waitedupon events.