Bardelys the Magnificent, Rafael Sabatini [best free e book reader .txt] 📗
- Author: Rafael Sabatini
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sufficient to warrant such slight favours as it may be in my power
to show you.”
“You have my parole that I will attempt no escape, Monsieur le
Capitaine,” I answered, bowing may acknowledgment of his compliments.
“I am Mironsac de Castelroux, of Chateau Rouge in Gascony,” he
informed me, returning my bow. My faith, had he not made a pretty
soldier he would have made an admirable master of deportment.
My leave-taking of Monsieur de Lavedan was brief but cordial;
apologetic on my part, intensely sympathetic on his. And so I went
out alone with Castelroux upon the road to Toulouse, his men being
ordered to follow in half an hour’s time and to travel at their
leisure.
As we cantered along - Castelroux and I - we talked of many things,
and I found him an amusing and agreeable companion. Had my mood
been other than despairing, the news he gave me might have
occasioned me some concern; for it seemed that prisoners arraigned
for treason and participation in the late rising were being very
summarily treated. Many were never so much as heard in their own
defence, the evidence collected of their defection being submitted
to the Tribunal, and judgment being forthwith passed upon them by
judges who had no ears for anything they might advance in their
own favour.
The evidence of my identity was complete: there was my own admission
to Castelroux; the evidence of the treason of Lesperon was none the
less complete; in fact, it was notorious; and there was the Duke’s
letter found amongst my effects. If the judges refused to lend an
ear to my assurances that I was not Lesperon at all, but the missing
Bardelys, my troubles were likely to receive a very summary solution.
The fear of it, however, weighed not over-heavily upon me. I was
supremely indifferent. Life was at an end so far as I was concerned.
I had ruined the one chance of real happiness that had ever been
held out to me, and if the gentlemen of the courts of Toulouse were
pleased to send me unheeded to the scaffold, what should it signify?
But there was another matter that did interest me, and that was my
interview with Marsac. Touching this, I spoke to my captor.
“There is a gentleman I wish to see at Grenade this morning. You
have amongst the papers taken from me a letter making this
assignation, Monsieur le Capitaine, and I should be indeed grateful
if you would determine that we shall break our fast there, so that
I may have an opportunity of seeing him. The matter is to me of
the highest importance.”
“It concerns—?” he asked.
“A lady,” I answered.
“Ah, yes! But the letter is of the nature of a challenge, is it
not? Naturally, I cannot permit you to endanger your life.”
“Lest we disappoint the headsman at Toulouse?” I laughed. “Have no
fear. There shall be no duel!”
“Then I am content, monsieur, and you shall see your friend.”
I thanked him, and we talked of other things thereafter as we rode
in the early morning along the Toulouse road. Our conversation
found its way, I scarce know how, to the topic of Paris and the
Court, and when I casually mentioned, in passing, that I was well
acquainted with the Luxembourg, he inquired whether I had ever
chanced to meet a young spark of the name of Mironsac.
“Mironsac?” I echoed. “Why, yes.” And I was on the point of adding
that I knew the youth intimately, and what a kindness I had for him,
when, deeming it imprudent, I contented myself with asking, “You
know him?”
“Pardieu!” he swore. “The fellow is my cousin. We are both
Mironsacs; he is Mironsac of Castelvert, whilst I, as you may
remember I told you, am Mironsac of Castelroux. To distinguish us,
he is always known as Mironsac, and I as Castelroux. Peste! It is
not the only distinction, for while he basks in the sunshine of the
great world of Paris - they are wealthy, the Mironsacs of Castelvert
—I, a poor devil of a Gascony cadet, am playing the catchpoll in
Languedoc!”
I looked at him with fresh interest, for the mention of that dear
lad Mironsac brought back to my mind the night in Paris on which my
ill-starred wager had been laid, and I was reminded of how that
high-minded youth had sought - when it was too late to reason me out
of the undertaking by alluding to the dishonour with which in his
honest eyes it must be fraught.
We spoke of his cousin - Castelroux and I - and I went so far now
as to confess that I had some love for the youth, whom I praised in
unmistakable terms. This inclined to increase the friendliness
which my young Captain had manifested since my arrest, and I was
presently emboldened by it to beg of him to add to the many favours
that I already owed him by returning to me the portrait which his
men had subtracted from my pocket. It was my wish to return this
to Marsac, whilst at the same time it would afford corroboration of
my story.
To this Castelroux made no difficulty.
“Why, yes,” said he, and he produced it. “I crave your pardon for
not having done the thing of my own accord. What can the Keeper of
the Seals want with that picture?”
I thanked him, and pocketed the locket.
“Poor lady!” he sighed, a note of compassion in his voice. “By my
soul, Monsieur de Lesperon, fine work this for soldiers, is it not?
Diable! It is enough to turn a gentleman’s stomach sour for life,
and make him go hide himself from the eyes of honest men. Had I
known that soldiering meant such business, I had thought twice
before I adopted it as a career for a man of honour. I had remained
in Gascony and tilled the earth sooner than have lent myself to this!”
“My good young friend,” I laughed, “what you do, you do in the King’s
name.”
“So does every tipstaff,” he answered impatiently, his moustaches
bristling as the result of the scornful twist he gave his lips. “To
think that I should have a hand in bringing tears to the eyes of that
sweet lady! Quelle besogne! Bon Dieu, quelle besogne!”
I laughed at the distress vented in that whimsical Gascon tongue of
his, whereupon he eyed me in a wonder that was tempered with
admiration. For to his brave soul a gentleman so stoical as to
laugh under such parlous circumstances was very properly a gentleman
to be admired.
THE RISEN DEAD
It was close upon ten o’clock as we rode into the yard of the
imposing Hotel de la Couronne at Grenade.
Castelroux engaged a private room on the first floor - a handsome
chamber overlooking the courtyard - and in answer to the inquiries
that I made I was informed by the landlord that Monsieur de Marsac
was not yet arrived.
“My assignation was ‘before noon,’ Monsieur de Castelroux,” said I.
“With your permission, I would wait until noon.”
He made no difficulty. Two hours were of no account. We had all
risen very early, and he was, himself, he said, entitled to some
rest.
Whilst I stood by the window it came to pass than a very tall,
indifferently apparelled gentleman issued from the hostelry and
halted for some moments in conversation with the ostler below. He
walked with an enfeebled step, and leaned heavily for support upon
a stout cane. As he turned to reenter the inn I had a glimpse of
a face woefully pale, about which, as about the man’s whole figure,
there was a something that was familiar - a something that puzzled
me, and on which my mind was still dwelling when presently I sat
down to breakfast with Castelroux.
It may have been a half-hour later, and, our meal being at an end,
we were sitting talking - I growing impatient the while that this
Monsieur de Marsac should keep me waiting so - when of a sudden the
rattle of hoofs drew me once more to the window. A gentleman,
riding very recklessly, had just dashed through the portecochere,
and was in the act of pulling up his horse. He was a lean, active
man, very richly dressed, and with a face that by its swarthiness
of skin and the sable hue of beard and hair looked almost black.
“Ah, you are there!” he cried, with something between a snarl and
a laugh, and addressing somebody within the shelter of the porch.
“Par la mort Dieu, I had hardly looked to find you!”
From the recess of the doorway I heard a gasp of amazement and a
cry of “Marsac! You here?”
So this was the gentleman I was to see! A stable boy had taken his
reins, and he leapt nimbly to the ground. Into my range of vision
hobbled now the enfeebled gentleman whom earlier I had noticed.
“My dear Stanislas!” he cried, “I cannot tell you how rejoiced I am
to see you!” and he approached Marsac with arms that were opened as
if to embrace him.
The newcomer surveyed him a moment in wonder, with eyes grown dull.
Then abruptly raising his hand, he struck the fellow on the breast,
and thrust him back so violently that but for the stableboy’s
intervention he had of a certainty fallen. With a look of startled
amazement on his haggard face, the invalid regarded his assailant.
As for Marsac, he stepped close up to him.
“What is this?” he cried harshly. “What is this make-believe
feebleness? That you are pale, poltroon, I do not wonder! But why
these tottering limbs? Why this assumption of weakness? Do you
look to trick me by these signs?”
“Have you taken leave of your senses?” exclaimed the other, a note
of responsive anger sounding in his voice. “Have you gone mad,
Stanislas?”
“Abandon this pretence,” was the contemptuous answer. “Two days
ago at Lavedan, my friend, they informed me how complete was your
recovery; from what they told us, it was easy to guess why you
tarried there and left us without news of you. That was my
reason, as you may have surmised, for writing to you. My sister
has mourned you for dead - was mourning you for dead whilst you
sat at the feet of your Roxalanne and made love to her among the
roses of Lavedan.”
“Lavedan?” echoed the other slowly. Then, raising his voice, “what
the devil are you saying?” he blazed. “What do I know of Lavedan?”
In a flash it had come to me who that enfeebled gentleman was.
Rodenard, the blunderer, had been at fault when he had said that
Lesperon had expired. Clearly he could have no more than swooned;
for here, in the flesh, was Lesperon himself, the man I had left
for dead in that barn by Mirepoix.
How or where he had recovered were things that at the moment did
not exercise my mind - nor have I since been at any pains to
unravel the mystery of it; but there he was, and for the moment
that fact was all-sufficing. What complications would come of his
presence Heaven alone could foretell.
“Put an end to this play-acting!” roared the savage Marsac. “It
will avail you nothing. My sister’s tears may have weighed lightly
with you, but you shall pay the price of them, and of the slight
you have put upon her.”
“My God, Marsac!”
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