Under the Red Robe by Stanley John Weyman (positive books to read txt) 📕

‘You coward!’ But the Englishman stepped forward, a fixed look in his blue eyes. He took his place without a word. I read in his drawn white face that he had made up his mind to the worst, and his courage so won my admiration that I would gladly and thankfully have set one of the lookers-on—any of the lookers-on—in his place; but that could not be. So I thought of Zaton’s closed to me, of Pombal’s insult, of the sneers and slights I had long kept at the sword’s point; and, pressing him suddenly in a heat of affected anger, I thrust strongly over his guard, which had grown feeble, and ran him through the chest.

When I saw him lying, laid out on the stones with his eyes half shut, and his face glimmering white in the dusk—not that I saw him thus long, for there were a dozen kneeling round him in a twinkling—I felt an unwonted pang. It passed, however, in a moment. For I found myself confronted by a ring of angry faces—of men who, keeping at a distance, hissed and cursed and threatened me, calling me Black Death and the like.

They were mostly canaille, who had gathered during the fight, and had viewed all that passed from the farther side of the railings. While some snarled and raged at me like wolves, calling me ‘Butcher!’ and ‘Cut-throat!’ or cried out that Berault was at his trade again, others threatened me with the vengeance of the Cardinal, flung the edict in my teeth, and said with glee that the guard were coming—they would see me hanged yet.

‘His blood is on your head!’ one cried furiously. ‘He will be dead in an hour. And you will swing for him! Hurrah!’

‘Begone,’ I said.

‘Ay, to Montfaucon,’ he answered, mocking me.

‘No; to your kennel!’ I replied, with a look which sent him a yard backwards, though the railings were between us. And I wiped my blade carefully, standing a little apart. For—well, I could understand it—it was one of those moments when a man is not popular. Those who had come with me from the eating-house eyed me askance, and turned their backs when I drew nearer; and those who had joined us and obtained admission were scarcely more polite.

But I was not to be outdone in SANG FROID. I cocked my hat, and drawing my cloak over my shoulders, went out with a swagger which drove the curs from the gate before I came within a dozen paces of it. The rascals outside fell back as quickly, and in a moment I was in the street. Another moment and I should have been clear of the place and free to lie by for a while—when, without warning, a scurry took place round me. The crowd fled every way into the gloom, and in a hand-turn a dozen of the Cardinal’s guards closed round me.

I had some acquaintance with the officer in command, and he saluted me civilly.

‘This is a bad business, M. de Berault,’ he said. ‘The man is dead they tell me.’

‘Neither dying nor dead,’ I answered lightly. ‘If that be all you may go home again.’

‘With you,’ he replied, with a grin, ‘certainly. And as it rains, the sooner the better. I must ask you for your sword, I am afraid.’

‘Take it,’ I said, with the philosophy which never deserts me. ‘But the man will not die.’

‘I hope that may avail you,’ he answered in a tone I did not like. ‘Left wheel, my friends! To the Chatelet! March!’

‘There are worse places,’ I said, and resigned myself to fate. After all, I had been in a prison before, and learned that only one jail lets no prisoner escape.

But when I found that my friend’s orders were to hand me over to the watch, and that I was to be confined like any common jail-bird caught cutting a purse or slitting a throat, I confess my heart sank. If I could get speech with the Cardinal, all would probably be well; but if I failed in this, or if the case came before him in strange guise, or if he were in a hard mood himself, then it might go ill with me. The edict said, death!

And the lieutenant at the Chatelet did not put himself to much trouble to hearten me. ‘What! again M. de Berault?’ he said, raising his eyebrows as he received me at the gate, and recognised me by the light of the brazier which his men were just kindling outside. ‘You are a very bold man, or a very foolhardy one, to come here again. The old business, I suppose?’

‘Yes, but he is not dead,’ I answered coolly. ‘He has a trifle—a mere scratch. It was behind the church of St Jacques.’

‘He looked dead enough, my friend,’ the guardsman interposed. He had not yet left us.

‘Bah!’ I answered scornfully. ‘Have you ever known me make a mistake When I kill a man I kill him. I put myself to pains, I tell you, not to kill this Englishman. Therefore he will live.’

‘I hope so,’ the lieutenant said, with a dry smile. ‘And you had better hope so, too, M. de Berault, For if not—’

‘Well?’ I said, somewhat troubled. ‘If not, what, my friend?’

‘I fear he will be the last man you will fight,’ he answered. ‘And even if he lives, I would not be too sure, my friend. This time the Cardinal is determined to put it down.’

‘He and I are old friends,’ I said confidently.

‘So I have heard,’ he answered, with a short laugh. ‘I think that the same was said of Chalais. I do not remember that it saved his head.’

This was not reassuring. But worse was to come. Early in the morning orders were received that I should be treated with especial strictness, and I was given the choice between irons and one of the cells below the level. Choosing the latter, I was left to reflect upon many things; among others, on the queer and uncertain nature of the Cardinal, who loved, I knew, to play with a man as a cat with a mouse; and on the ill effects which sometimes attend a high chest-thrust however carefully delivered. I only rescued myself at last from these and other unpleasant reflections by obtaining the loan of a pair of dice; and the light being just enough to enable me to reckon the throws, I amused myself for hours by casting them on certain principles of my own. But a long run again and again upset my calculations; and at last brought me to the conclusion that a run of bad luck may be so persistent as to see out the most sagacious player. This was not a reflection very welcome to me at the moment.

Nevertheless, for three days it was all the company I had. At the end of that time, the knave of a jailor who attended me, and who had never grown tired of telling me, after the fashion of his kind, that I should be hanged, came to me with a less assured air.

‘Perhaps you would like a little water?’ he said civilly.

‘Why, rascal?’ I asked.

‘To wash