Clementina Part 14

"No, not Marnier, nor any man. Listen. It is necessary that when once her Highness is rescued we must get so much start as will make pursuit vain. We shall be hampered with a coach, and a coach will travel slowly on the pa.s.ses of Tyrol. The pursuers will ride horses; they must not come up with us. From Innspruck to Italy, if we have never an accident, will take us at the least four days; it will take our pursuers three. We must have one clear day before her Highness's evasion is discovered. Now, the chief magistrate of Innspruck visits her Highness's apartments twice a day,-at ten in the morning and at ten of the night. The Princess must be rescued at night; and if her escape is discovered in the morning she will never reach Italy, she will be behind the bars again."

"But the Princess's mother will be left," said Gaydon. "She can plead that her daughter is ill."

"The magistrate forces his way into the very bedroom. We must take with us a woman who will lie in her Highness's bed with the curtains drawn about her and a voice so weak with suffering that she cannot raise it above a whisper, with eyes so tired from sleeplessness she cannot bear a light near them. Help me in this. Name me a woman with the fort.i.tude to stay behind."

Gaydon shook his head.

"She will certainly be discovered. The part she plays in the escape must certainly be known. She will remain for the captors to punish as they will. I know no woman."

"Nay," said Wogan; "you exaggerate her danger. Once the escape is brought to an issue, once her Highness is in Bologna safe, the Emperor cannot wreak vengeance on a woman; it would be too paltry." And now he made his appeal to Misset.

"No, my friend," Misset replied. "I know no woman with the fort.i.tude."

"But you do," interrupted O'Toole. "So do I. There's no difficulty whatever in the matter. Mrs. Misset has a maid."

"Oho!" said Gaydon.

"The maid's name is Jenny."

"Aha!" said Wogan.

"She's a very good friend of mine."

"O'Toole!" cried Misset, indignantly. "My wife's maid-a very good friend of yours?"

"Sure she is, and you didn't know it," said O'Toole, with a chuckle. "I am the cunning man, after all. She would do a great deal for me would Jenny."

"But has she courage?" asked Wogan.

"Faith, her father was a French grenadier and her mother a vivandiere. It would be a queer thing if she was frightened by a little matter of lying in bed and pretending to be someone else."

"But can we trust her with the secret?" asked Gaydon.

"No!" exclaimed Misset, and he rose angrily from his chair. "My wife's maid-O'Toole-O'Toole-my wife's maid. Did ever one hear the like?"

"My friend," said O'Toole, quietly, "it seems almost as if you wished to reflect upon Jenny's character, which would not be right."

Misset looked angrily at O'Toole, who was not at all disturbed. Then he said, "Well, at all events, she gossips. We cannot take her. She would tell the whole truth of our journey at the first halt."

"That's true," said O'Toole.

Then for the second time that evening he cried, "I have an idea."

"Well?"

"We'll not tell her the truth at all. I doubt if she would come if we told it her. Jenny very likely has never heard of her Highness the Princess, and I doubt if she cares a b.u.t.ton for the King. Besides, she would never believe but that we were telling her a lie. No. We'll make up a probable likely sort of story, and then she'll believe it to be the truth."

"I have it," cried Wogan. "We'll tell her that we are going to abduct an heiress who is dying for love of O'Toole, and whose merciless parents are forcing her into a loveless, despicable marriage with a tottering pantaloon."

O'Toole brought his hand down upon the arm of the chair.

"There's the very story," he cried. "To be sure, you are a great man, Charles. The most probable convincing story that was ever invented! Oh! but you'll hear Jenny sob with pity for the heiress and Lucius O'Toole when she hears it. It will be a bad day, too, for the merciless parents when they discover Jenny in her Highness's bed. She stands six feet in her stockings."

"Six feet!" exclaimed Wogan.

"In her stockings," returned O'Toole. "Her height is her one vanity. Therefore in her shoes she is six feet four."

"Well, she must take her heels off and make herself as short as she can."

"You will have trouble, my friend, to persuade her to that," said O'Toole.

"Hus.h.!.+" said Gaydon. He rose and unlocked the door. The doctor was knocking for admission below. Gaydon let him in, and he dressed Wogan's wounds with an a.s.surance that they were not deep and that a few days' quiet would restore him.

"I will sleep the night here if I may," said Wogan, as soon as the doctor had gone. "A blanket and a chair will serve my turn."

They took him into Gaydon's bedroom, where three beds were ranged.

"We have slept in the one room and lived together since your message came four days ago," said Gaydon. "Take your choice of the beds, for there's not one of us has so much need of a bed as you."

Wogan drew a long breath of relief.

"Oh! but it's good to be with you," he cried suddenly, and caught at Gaydon's arm. "I shall sleep to-night. How I shall sleep!"

He stretched out his aching limbs between the cool white sheets, and when the lamp was extinguished he called to each of his three friends by name to make sure of their company. O'Toole answered with a grunt on his right, Misset on his left, and Gaydon from the corner of the room.

"But I have wanted you these last three days!" said Wogan. "To-morrow when I tell you the story of them you will know how much I have wanted you."

They got, however, some inkling of Wogan's need before the morrow came. In the middle of the night they were wakened by a wild scream and heard Wogan whispering in an agony for help. They lighted a lamp and saw him lying with his hand upon his throat and his eyes starting from his head with horror.

"Quick," said he, "the hand at my throat! It's not the letter so much, it's my life they want."

"It's your own hand," said Gaydon, and taking the hand he found it lifeless. Wogan's arm in that position had gone to sleep, as the saying is. He had waked suddenly in the dark with the cold pressure at his throat, and in the moment of waking was back again alone in the inn near Augsburg. Wogan indeed needed his friends.

CHAPTER IX

The next morning Wogan was tossing from side to side in a high fever. The fever itself was of no great importance, but it had consequences of a world-wide influence, for it left Wogan weak and tied to his bed; so that it was Gaydon who travelled to Rome and obtained the Pope's pa.s.sport. Gaydon consequently saw what otherwise Wogan would have seen; and Gaydon, the cautious, prudent Gaydon, was careful to avoid making an inopportune discovery, whereas Wogan would never have rested until he had made it.

Gaydon stayed in Rome a week, lying snug and close in a lodging only one street removed from that house upon the Tiber where his King lived. Secrets had a way of leaking out, and Gaydon was determined that this one should not through any inattention of his. He therefore never went abroad until dark, and even then kept aloof from the house which overlooked the Tiber. His business he conducted through his servant, sending him to and fro between Edgar, the secretary, and himself. One audience of his King alone he asked, and that was to be granted him on the day of his departure from Rome.

Thus the time hung very heavily upon him. From daybreak to dusk he was cooped within a little insignificant room which looked out upon a little insignificant street. His window, however, though it promised little diversion, was his one resource. Gaydon was a man of observation, and found a pleasure in guessing at this and that person's business from his appearance, his dress, and whether he went fast or slow. So he sat steadily at his window, and after a day or two had pa.s.sed he began to be puzzled. The moment he was puzzled he became interested. On the second day he drew his chair a little distance back from the window and watched. On the third day he drew his chair close to the window, but at the side and against the wall. In this way he could see everything that happened and everyone who pa.s.sed, and yet remain himself un.o.bserved.

Almost opposite to his window stood a small mean house fallen into neglect and disrepair. The windows were curtained with dust, many of the panes were broken, the shutters hung upon broken hinges, the paint was peeling from the door. The house had the most melancholy aspect of long disuse. It seemed to belong to no one and to be crumbling pitifully to ruin like an aged man who has no friends. Yet this house had its uses, which Gaydon could not but perceive were of a secret kind. On the very first day that Gaydon sat at his window a man, who seemed from his dress to be of a high consideration, came sauntering along that sordid thoroughfare, where he seemed entirely out of place, like a b.u.t.terfly on the high seas. To Gaydon's surprise he stopped at the door, gave a cautious look round, and rapped quickly with his stick. At once the door of that uninhabited house was opened. The man entered, the door was closed upon him, and a good hour by Gaydon's watch elapsed before it was opened again to let him out. In the afternoon another man came and was admitted with the same secrecy. Both men had worn their hats drawn down upon their foreheads, and whereas one of them held a m.u.f.fler to his face, the other had thrust his chin within the folds of his cravat. Gaydon had not been able to see the face of either. After nightfall he remarked that such visits became more frequent. Moreover, they were repeated on the next day and the next. Gaydon watched, but never got any nearer to a solution of the mystery. At the end of the sixth day he was more puzzled and interested than ever, for closely as he had watched he had not seen the face of any man who had pa.s.sed in and out of that door.

But he was to see a face that night.

At nine o'clock a messenger from Edgar, the secretary, brought him a package which contained a letter and the pa.s.sport for these six days delayed. The letter warned him that Edgar himself would come to fetch him in the morning to his audience with James. The pa.s.sport gave authority to a Flemish n.o.bleman, the Count of Cernes, to make a pilgrimage to Loretto with his wife and family. The name of Warner had served its turn and could no longer be employed.