An Enemy to the King Part 45

"If you are endangered, why should not I be? This is not the night, Ernanton, on which you should ask me to leave you."

"Then I shall at least remain here," said I. "Go to the head, Blaise. But if there is a challenge, I shall answer it. Perhaps they will not know us and we can make them think we are friends."

He rode forward with sparkling eyes, although not before casting one glance of solicitude at Jeannotte, who did not leave her mistress.

The men eagerly looked to their arms as they rode, and they exchanged conjectures in low, quick tones, casting many a curious look at the approaching force. Julie and I kept silence, I wondering what would be the outcome of this encounter.

Suddenly, when the head of their long, somewhat straggling line had just reached the junction, and Blaise was but a short distance from it, came from their leader--La Chatre's equerry, I think--the order to halt, and then the clear, sharp cry:

"Who goes there?"

Before I could answer, a familiar voice near their leader cried out:

"It is his company,--La Tournoire's,--I swear it! I know the big fellow at the head."

The voice was that of the foppish, cowardly rascal of De Berquin's band.

I now saw that the three fellows left by Blaise at Maury were held as prisoners by the governor's troops. Poor Jacques, doubtless, thought to get his freedom or some reward for crying out our ident.i.ty.

"I shall wring your neck yet, lap-dog!" roared Blaise.

All chance of pa.s.sing under false colors was now gone. A battle with thrice our force seemed imminent. What would befall Julie if they should be too much for us? The thought made me sick with horror. At that instant I remembered something.

"Halt!" I cried to the men. "I shall return in a moment, sweetheart.

Monsieur, the captain," and I rode forward towards the leader of the governor's troops, "your informant speaks truly. Permit me to introduce myself. I am the Sieur de la Tournoire, the person named in that order."

With which I politely handed him the pa.s.s that I had forced from La Chatre, which I had for a time forgotten.

It was about three hours after midnight, and the moon was not yet very low. The captain, taken by surprise in several respects, mechanically grasped the doc.u.ment and read it.

"It is a--a pa.s.s," he said, presently, staring at it and at me in a bewildered manner.

"As you see, for myself and all my company," said I; "signed by M. de la Chatre."

"Yes, it is his signature."

"His seal, also, you will observe."

"I do. Yet, it is strange. Certain orders that I have received,--in fact, orders to which I have just been attending,--make this very surprising. I cannot understand--"

"It is very simple. While you were attending to your orders, I was making a treaty with M. de la Chatre. In accordance with it, he wrote the pa.s.s.

He will, doubtless, relate the purport of our interview as soon as you return to the chateau. I know that he is impatient for your coming.

Therefore, since you have seen the pa.s.s, I shall not detain you longer."

"But--I do not know--it is, indeed, the writing of M. de la Chatre--it seems quite right, yet monsieur, since all is right, you will not object to returning with me to the chateau that M. de la Chatre may verify his pa.s.s?"

"Since all is right, there is no use in my doing so; and it would be most annoying to M. de la Chatre to be asked to verify his own writing, especially as the very object of this pa.s.s was to avoid my being delayed on my march this night."

The captain, a young and handsome gentleman, with a frank look and a courteous manner, hesitated.

"Monsieur will understand," I went on, "that every minute we stand here opposes the purpose for which that pa.s.s was given."

"I begin to see," he said, with a look of pleasurable discovery. "You have changed sides, monsieur? You have repented of your errors and have put your great skill and courage at the service of M. de la Chatre?"

"It is for M. de la Chatre to say what pa.s.sed between us this evening,"

said I, with a discreet air. "Then _an revoir_, captain! I trust we shall meet again."

And I took back the pa.s.s, and ordered my men forward, as if the young captain had already given me permission to go on. Then I saluted him, and returned to Julie. The captain gazed at us in a kind of abstraction as we pa.s.sed. His men were as dumbfounded as my own. His foremost hors.e.m.e.n had heard the short conversation concerning the pa.s.s, and were, doubtless, as much at a loss as their leader was. When we were well in the mountain road, I heard him give the order to march, and, looking back, I saw them turn wearily up the road to the chateau. We continued to put distance between ourselves and Clochonne.

On the northern slope of the mountains, we made but one stop. That was at G.o.deau's, where we had a short rest and some wine. I gave the good Marianne a last gold piece, received her G.o.dspeed, and took up our march, this time ignoring the forest path to Maury, following the old road southward instead. It would be time to set up our camp when we should be out of the province of Berry.

It was while we were yet ascending the northern slope of the mountains, and the moon still shone now and then from the west through the trees, that we talked, Julie and I, of the time that lay before us. It mattered not to me under which form our marriage should be. One creed was to me only a little the better of the two, in that it involved less of subjection, but if the outward profession of the other would facilitate our union, I would make that profession, reserving always my sword and my true sympathies for the side that my fathers had taken. But when I proposed this, Julie said that I ought not even to a.s.sume the appearance of having changed my colors, and that it was for her, the woman, to adopt mine, therefore she would abjure and we should be married as Protestants. She could answer for the consent of her father, who could not refuse his preserver and hers. It pleased me that she made no mention of her lack of dowry, for their little estate would certainly be confiscated after her father's flight. Judging my love by her own, she knew that I valued herself alone above all the fortunes in the world. We would, then, be united as soon as her father, guided by Frojac, should join us in Guienne. She and her father should then go to Nerac, there to await my return from the war that was now imminent; for I was to continue advancing my fortunes by following those of our Henri on the field. Some day our leader would overcome his enemies and mount the throne that the fated Henri III.--ailing survivor of three short-lived brothers--would soon leave vacant. Then our King would restore us our estates, I should rebuild La Tournoire, and there we should pa.s.s our days in the peace that our Henri's accession would bring his kingdom. Blaise should marry Jeannotte and be our steward.

So we gave word to our intentions and hopes, those that I have here written and many others. Some have been realized, and some have not, but all that I have here written have been.

Once, years after that night, having gone up to Paris to give our two eldest children a glimpse of the court, we were walking through the gallery built by our great Henri IV., to connect the Louvre with the Tuileries, when my son asked me who was the painted fat old lady that was staring so hard at him as if she had seen him before. In turn I asked the Abbe Brantome, who happened to be pa.s.sing.

"It is the Marquise de Pirillaume," he said. "She was a gallant lady in the reign of Henri III. She was Mlle. d'Arency and very beautiful."

I turned my eyes from her to Julie at my side,--to Julie, as fair and slender and beautiful still as on that night when we rode together with my soldiers towards Guienne, in the moonlight.

THE END.