From the Memoirs of a Minister of France, Stanley John Weyman [read along books txt] 📗

"It has been dead some hours."

"Since midnight," I muttered.

"Pardon, sire," the page, who was holding the cat, said; "I saw it after midnight. It was alive then."

"You saw it!" I exclaimed. "How? Where?"

"Here, your excellency," the boy answered, quailing a little.

"What? In this room?"

"Yes, excellency. I heard a noise about—I think about two o'clock—and his Majesty breathing very heavily, It was a noise like a cat spitting. It frightened me, and I rose from my pallet and went round the bed. I was just in time to see the cat jump down."

"From the bed?"

"Yes, your excellency. From his Majesty's chest, I think."

"And you are sure that it was this cat?"

"Yes, sire; for as soon as it was on the floor it began to writhe and roll and bite itself, with all its fur on end, like a mad cat. Then it flew to the door and tried to get out, and again began to spit furiously. I thought that it would awaken the King, and I let it out."

"And then the King did awake?"

"He was just awaking, your excellency."

"Well, sire," I said, smiling, "this accounts, I think, for your dream of the house that fell, and the beam that lay on your chest."

It would have been difficult to say whether at this the King looked more foolish or more relieved. Whichever the sentiment he entertained, however, it was quickly cut short by a lamentable cry that drove the blood from our cheeks. La Trape was in another paroxysm. "Oh, the poor man!" Henry cried.

"I suppose that the cat came in unseen," I said; "with him last night, and then stayed in the room?"

"Doubtless."

"And was seized with a paroxysm here?"

"Such as he has now!" Henry answered; for La Trape had fallen to the floor. "Such as he has now!" he repeated, his eyes flaming, his face pale. "Oh, my friend, this is too much. Those who do these things are devils, not men. Where is Du Laurens? Where is the doctor? He will perish before our eyes."

"Patience, sire," I said. "He will come."

"But in the meantime the man dies."

"No, no," I said, going to La Trape, and touching his hand. "Yet, he is very cold." And turning, I sent the page to hasten the doctor. Then I begged the King to allow me to have the man conveyed into another room. "His sufferings distress you, sire, and you do him no good," I said.

"No, he shall not go!" he answered. "Ventre Saint Gris! man, he is dying for me! He is dying in my place. He shall die here."

Still ill satisfied, I was about to press him farther, when La Trape raised his voice, and feebly asked for me. A page who had taken the other's place was supporting his head, and two or three of my gentlemen, who had come in unbidden, were looking on with scared faces. I went to the poor fellow's side, and asked what I could do for him.

"I am dying!" he muttered, turning up his eyes. "The doctor! the doctor!"

I feared that he was passing, but I bade him have courage. "In a moment he will be here," I said; while the King in distraction sent messenger on messenger.

"He will come too late," the sinking man answered. "Excellency?"

"Yes, my good fellow," I said, stooping that I might hear him the better.

"I took ten pistoles yesterday from a man to get him a scullion's place; and there is none vacant."

"It is forgiven," I said, to soothe him.

"And your excellency's favourite hound, Diane," he gasped. "She had three puppies, not two. I sold the other."

"Well, it is forgiven, my friend. It is forgiven. Be easy," I said kindly.

"Ah, I have been a villain," he groaned. "I have lived loosely. Only last night I kissed the butler's wench, and—"

"Be easy, be easy," I said. "Here is the doctor. He will save you yet."

And I made way for M. Du Laurens, who, having saluted the King, knelt down by the sick man, and felt his pulse; while we all stood round, looking down on the two with grave faces. It seemed to me that the man's eyes were growing dim, and I had little hope. The King was the first to break the silence. "You have hope?" he said. "You can save him?"

"Pardon, sire, a moment," the physician answered, rising from his knees. "Where is the cat?"

Someone brought it, and M. Du Laurens, after looking at it, said curtly, "It has been poisoned."

La Trape uttered a groan of despair. "At what hour did it take the milk?" the physician asked.

"A little before ten last evening," I said, seeing that La Trape was too far gone for speech.

"Ah! And the man?"

"An hour later."

Du Laurens shook his head, and was preparing to lay down the cat, which he had taken in his hands, when some appearance led him to examine it again and more closely. "Why what is this?" he exclaimed, in a tone of surprise, as he took the body to the window. "There is a large swelling under its chin."

No one answered.

"Give me a pair of scissors," he continued; and then, after a minute, when they had been handed to him and he had removed the fur, "Ha!" he said gravely, "this is not so simple as I thought. The cat has been poisoned, but by a prick with some sharp instrument."

The King uttered an exclamation of incredulity. "But it drank the milk," he said. "Some milk that—"

"Pardon, sire," Du Laurens answered positively. "A draught of milk, however drugged, does not produce an external swelling with a small blue puncture in the middle."

"What does?" the King asked, with something like a sneer.

"Ah, that is the question," the physician answered. "A ring, perhaps, with a poison-chamber and hollow dart."

"But there is no question of that here," I said. "Let us be clear. Do you say that the cat did not die of the milk?"

"I see no proof that it did," he answered. "And many things to show that it died of poison administered by puncture."

"But then," I answered, in no little confusion of thought, "what of La Trape?"

He turned, and with him all eyes, to the unfortunate equerry, who still lay seemingly moribund, with his head propped on some cushions. M. Du Laurens advanced to him and again felt his pulse, an operation which appeared to bring a slight tinge of colour to the fading cheeks. "How much milk did he drink?" the physician asked after a pause.

"More than half a pint," I answered.

"And what besides?"

"A quantity of the King's posset, and a little lemonade."

"And for supper? What did you have?" the leech continued, addressing himself to his patient.

"I had some wine," he answered feebly. "And a little Frontignac with the butler; and some honey-mead that the gipsy-wench gave me.

"The gipsy-wench?"

"The butler's girl, of whom I spoke."

M. Du Laurens rose slowly to his feet, and, to my amazement, dealt the prostrate man a hearty kick; bidding him at the same time to rise. "Get up, fool! Get up," he continued harshly, yet with a ring of triumph in his voice, "all you have got is the colic, and it is no more than you deserve. Get up, I say, and beg his Majesty's pardon!"

"But," the King remonstrated in a tone of anger, "the man is dying!"

"He is no more dying than you are, sire," the other answered. "Or, if he is, it is of fright. There, he can stand as well as you or I!"

And to be sure, as he spoke, La Trape scrambled to his feet, and with a mien between shame and doubt stood staring at us, the very picture of a simpleton. It was no wonder that his jaw fell and his impudent face burned; for the room shook with such a roar of laughter, at first low, and then as the King joined in it, swelling louder and louder, as few of us had ever heard, Though I was not a little mortified by the way in which we had deceived ourselves, I could not help joining in the laugh; particularly as the more closely we reviewed the scene in which we had taken part, the more absurd seemed the jest. It was long before silence could be obtained; but at length Henry, quite exhausted by the violence of his mirth held up his hand. I seized the opportunity.

"Why, you rascal!" I said, addressing La Trape, who did not know which way to look, "where are the ten crowns of which you defrauded the scullion?"

"To be sure," the King said, going off into another roar. "And the third puppy?"

"Yes," I said, "you scoundrel; and the third puppy?"

"Ay, and the gipsy girl?" the King continued. "The butler's wench, what of her? And of your evil living? Begone, begone, rascal!" he continued, falling into a fresh paroxysm, "or you will kill US in earnest. Would nothing else do for you but to die in my chamber? Begone!"

I took this as a hint to clear the room, not only of La Trape himself but of all; and presently only I and Du Laurens remained with the King. It then appeared that there was still a mystery, and one which it behoved us to clear up; inasmuch as Du Laurens took the cat's death very seriously, insisting that it had died of poison administered in a most sinister fashion, and one that could not fail to recall to our minds the Borgian popes. It needed no more than this to direct my suspicions to the Florentines who swarmed about the Queen, and against whom the King had let drop so many threats. But the indisposition which excitement had for a time kept at bay began to return upon me; and I was presently glad to drop the subject; and retire to my own apartments, leaving the King to dress.

Consequently, I was not with him when the strange discovery which followed was made. In the ordinary course of dressing, one of the servants going to the fire-place to throw away a piece of waste linen, thought that he heard a rat stir among the boughs. He moved them, and in a moment a small snake crawled out, hissing and darting out its tongue. It was killed, and then it at once occurred to the King that he had the secret of the cat's death. He came to me hot-foot with the news, and found me with Du Laurens who was in the act of ordering me to bed.

I confess that I heard the story almost with apathy, so ill was I. Not so the physician. After examining the snake, which by the King's orders had been brought for my inspection, he pronounced that it was not of French origin. "It has escaped from some snake-charmer," he said.

The King seemed to be incredulous.

"I assure you that I speak the truth, sire," Du Laurens persisted.

"But how then did it come in my room?"

"That is what I should like to know, sire," the physician answered severely; "and yet I think that I can guess. It was put there, I fancy, by the person who sent up the milk to your chamber."

"Why do you say so?" Henry asked

"Because, sire, all snakes are inordinately fond of milk."

"Ah!" the King said slowly, with a change of countenance and a shudder which he could not repress; "and there was milk on the floor in the morning."

"Yes, sire; on the floor, and beside the head of your bed."

But at this stage I was attacked by a fit of illness so severe that I had to break in on the discussion, and beg the King to withdraw. The sickness increased on me during the day, and by noon I was prostrate, neither taking interest in anything, nor allowing others, who began to fear for my life, to divert their attention. After twenty-four hours I began to mend, but still several days elapsed before I was able to devote myself to business; and then I found that, the master-mind being absent, and the King, as always, lukewarm in the pursuit, nothing had been done to detect and punish the criminal.

I could not rest easy, however, with so abominable a suspicion attaching to my house; and as soon