Captain Dieppe Part 15

"You betray the Count of Fieramondi, your friend; why not betray your employers also?"

For a moment there was a look in the Captain's eye which seemed to indicate annoyance, but the next instant he smiled.

"As if there were any parallel!" said he. "Matters of love are absolutely different, my good friend." Then he went on very carelessly, "The candle 's low. Why don't you light your lantern?"

"That rascal Paul threw it away, and I had n't time to get it." No expression, save a mild concern, appeared on Captain Dieppe's face, although he had discovered a fact of peculiar interest to him. "The candle will last as long as we shall want it," pursued Guillaume.

"Very probably," agreed the Captain, with a languid yawn; again he s.h.i.+fted his straw till the bulk of it was under his right shoulder, and he lay on an incline that sloped down to the left. "And you 'll kill me and take my papers, eh?" he inquired, turning and looking up at Guillaume. He could barely see his enemy's face now, for the candle guttered and sputtered, while the moon, high in heaven, threw light on the dip of the hill outside, but did little or nothing to relieve the darkness within the hut.

"No, I shall not murder you. You 'll give them to me, I 'm sure."

"And if I refuse, dear M. Guillaume?"

"I shall invite you to accompany me to the village--or, more strictly, to precede me."

"What should we do together in the village?" cried Dieppe.

"I shall beg of you to walk a few paces in front of me,--just a few,--to go at just the pace I go, and to remember that I carry a revolver in my hand."

"My memory would be excellent on such a point," the Captain a.s.sured him. "But, again, why to the village?"

"We should go together to the office of the police. I am on good terms with the police."

"Doubtless. But what have they to do with me? Come, come, my matter is purely political, they would n't mix themselves up in it."

"I should charge you with the unlawful possession of my portfolio. You would admit it, or you would deny it. In either case your person would be searched, the papers would be found, and I, who am on such friendly terms with the police, should certainly enjoy an excellent opportunity of inspecting them. You perceive, my dear Captain, that I have thought it out."

"It's neat, certainly," agreed the Captain, who was not a little dismayed at this plan of Guillaume's. "But I should not submit to the search."

"Ah! Now how would you prevent it?"

"I should send for my friend the Count. He has influence; he would answer for me."

"What, when he hears my account of your interview with his wife?" Old Guillaume played this card with a smile of triumph. "I told you that the little affair might perhaps be turned to my purposes," he reminded Dieppe, maliciously.

The Captain reflected, taking as long as he decently could over the task. Indeed he was in trouble. Guillaume's scheme was sagacious, Guillaume's position very strong. And at last Guillaume grew impatient. But still the persistent candle burnt.

"I give you one minute to make up your mind," said Guillaume, dropping his tone of sarcastic pleasantry, and speaking in a hard, sharp voice.

"After that, either you give me the papers, or you get up and march before me to the village."

"If I refuse to do either?"

"You can't refuse," said Guillaume.

"You mean--?"

"I should order you to hold your hands behind your back while I took the papers. If you moved--"

"Thank you. I see," said the Captain, with a nod of understanding.

"Awkward for you, though, if it came to that."

"Oh, I think not very, in view of your dealings with my portfolio."

"I 'm in a devil of a hole," admitted the Captain, candidly.

"Time's up," announced M. Guillaume, slowly raising the barrel of his revolver, and taking aim at the Captain. For the candle still burnt, although dimly and fitfully, and still there was light to guide the bullet on its way.

"It's all up!" said the Captain. "But, deuce take it, it's hardly the way to treat a gentleman!" Even as he spoke the light of the candle towered for a second in a last shoot of flame, and then went out.

At the same moment the Captain rolled down the incline of straw on which he had been resting, rose on his knees an instant, seized the truss and flung it at Guillaume, rolled under the next truss, seized that in like manner and propelled it against the enemy, and darted again to shelter. "Stop, or I fire," cried Guillaume; he was as good as his word the next minute, but the third truss caught him just as he aimed, and his bullet flew against and was buried in the planking of the roof. By now, the Captain was escaping from under the fourth truss, and making for the fifth. Guillaume, dimly seeing the fourth truss not thrown, but left in its place, discharged another shot at it.

The fifth truss caught him in the side and drove him against the wooden block. He turned swiftly in the direction whence the missile came, and fired again. He was half dazed, his eyes and ears seemed full of the dust of the straw. He fired once again at random, swearing savagely; and before he could recover aim his arm was seized from behind, his neck was caught in a vigorous garotte, and he fell on the floor of the hut with Captain Dieppe on the top of him--Dieppe, dusty, dirty, panting, bleeding freely from a bullet graze on the top of the left ear, and with one leg of his trousers slit from ankle to knee by a rusty nail, that had also ploughed a nasty furrow up his leg. But now he seized Guillaume's revolver, and dragged the old fellow out of the hut. Then he sat down on his chest, pinning his arms together on the ground above his head.

"You enjoyed playing your mouse just a trifle too long, old cat," said he.

Guillaume lay very still, exhausted, beaten, and defenceless. Dieppe released his hands, and, rising, stood looking down at him. A smile came on his face.

"We are now in a better position to adjust our accounts fairly," he observed, as he took from his pocket M. Guillaume's portfolio.

"Listen," he commanded; and Guillaume turned weary but spiteful eyes to him. "Here is your portfolio. Take it. Look at it."

Guillaume sat up and obeyed the command.

"Well?" asked Dieppe, when the examination was ended.

"You have robbed me of twenty-five thousand francs."

The Captain looked at him for a moment with a frown. But the next instant he smiled.

"I must make allowances for the state of your temper," he remarked.

"But I wish you would carry all your money in notes. That draft, now, is no use to me. Hence"--he shrugged his shoulders regretfully--"I am obliged to leave your Government still no less than twenty-five thousand francs in debt to me."

"What!" cried Guillaume, with a savage stare.

"Oh, yes, you know that well. They have fifty thousand which certainly don't belong to them, and certainly do to me."

"That money 's forfeited," growled Guillaume.

"If you like, then, I forfeit twenty-five thousand of theirs. But I allow it in account with them. The debt now stands reduced by half."

"I 'll get it back from you somehow," threatened Guillaume, who was helpless, but not cowed.

"That will be difficult. I gave it to Paul de Roustache to discharge a claim he had on me."

"To Paul de Roustache?"

"Yes. It 's true he lent me five thousand again; but that 's purely between him and me. And I shall have spent it long before you can even begin to take steps to recover it." He paused a moment and then added, "If you still hanker after your notes, I should recommend you to find your friend and accomplice, M. Paul."

"Where is he?"