Clementina by A. E. W. Mason (book reader for pc TXT) 📕

Misset knew very well why the courier had suffered these falls. The horses he had ridden had first been tired by the Prince of Baden, and then had the last spark of fire flogged out of them by the Princess's postillions. He merely shrugged his shoulders, however, and said, "That looks ill for us."

The courier gazed suddenly at Misset, then at O'Toole, with a dull sort of suspicion in his eyes.

"And which way might you gentlemen be travelling?"

"To Innspruck; we're from Trent," said Misset, boldly.

The courier turned to O'Toole.

"And you too, sir?"

O'Toole turned a stolid, uncomprehending face upon the courier.

"Pour moi, monsieur, je suis Savoyard. Monsieur qui vous parle, c'est mon compagnon de négoce."

The courier gazed with blank, heavy eyes at O'Toole. He had the appearance of a man fuddled with drink. He heaved a sigh or two.

"Will you repeat that," he said at length, "and slowly?"

O'Toole repeated his remark, and the courier [pg 232] nodded at him. "That's very strange," said he, solemnly, wagging his head. "I do not dispute its truth, but it is most strange. I will tell my wife of it." He turned in his chair, and a twinge from his bruises made him cry out. "I shall be as stiff as a mummy in the morning," he exclaimed, and swore loudly at "the bandits" who had caused him this deplorable journey. Misset and O'Toole exchanged a quick glance, and Misset pushed the glass across the table. The courier took it, and his eyes lighted up.

"You have come from Trent," said he. "Did you pass a travelling carriage on the road?"

"Yes," said Misset; "the Prince of Baden with a large following drove into Trent as we came out."

"Yes, yes," said the courier. "But no second party behind the Prince?"

Misset shook his head; he made a pretence of consulting O'Toole in French, and O'Toole shook his head.

"Then I shall have the robbers," cried the courier. "They are to be flayed alive, and they deserve it," he shouted fiercely to Misset. "Gallows-birds!"

He dropped his head upon his arms and muttered "gallows-birds" again. It seemed that he was falling asleep, but he suddenly sat up and beat on the table with his fist.

"I have eaten nothing since the morning. Ah—gallows- birds—flayed alive, and hanged—no, hanged and flayed alive—no, that's impossible." [pg 233] He drank off the wine which Misset had poured out for him, and rose from his chair. "Where's the landlord? I want supper. I want besides to speak to him;" and he staggered towards the door.

"As for supper," said Misset, "we shall be glad if you will share ours. Travellers should be friendly."

O'Toole caught the courier by the arm and with a polite speech in French drew him again down into his chair. The courier stared at O'Toole and forgot all about the landlord. He had eaten nothing all day, and the wine and the water-jug had gone to his head. He put a long forefinger on O'Toole's knee.

"Say that again," said he, and O'Toole obeyed. A slow, fat smile spread all over the courier's face.

"I'll tell my wife about it," said he. He tried to clap O'Toole on the back, and missing him fell forward with his face on the table. The next minute he was snoring. Misset walked round the table and deftly picked his pockets. There was a package in one of them superscribed to "Prince Taxis, the Governor of Trent." Misset deliberately broke the seal and read the contents. He handed the package to O'Toole, who read it, and then flinging it upon the ground danced upon it. Misset went out of the room and found Wogan and Gaydon keeping watch by Clementina's door. To them he spoke in a whisper.

"The fellow brings letters from General Heister to the Governor of Trent to stop us at all costs. [pg 234] But his letters are destroyed, and he's lying dead-drunk on the table."

The three men quickly concerted a plan. The Princess must be roused; a start must be made at once; and O'Toole must be left behind to keep a watch upon the courier, Wogan rapped at the door and waked Clementina; he sent Gaydon to the stables to bribe the ostlers, and with Misset went down to inform O'Toole.

O'Toole, however, was sitting with his eyes closed and his head nodding, surrounded by scraps of the letter which he had danced to pieces. Wogan shook him by the shoulder, and he opened his eyes and smiled fatuously.

"He means to tell his wife," he said with a foolish gurgle of laughter. "He must be an ass. I don't think if I had a wife I should tell her. Would you, Wogan, tell your wife if you had one? Misset wouldn't tell his wife."

Misset interrupted him.

"What have you drank since I went out of the room?" he asked roughly. He took up the water-jug and turned it topsy-turvy. It was quite empty.

"Only water," said O'Toole, dreamily, and he laughed again. "Now I wouldn't mind telling my wife that," said he.

Misset let him go and turned with a gesture of despair to Wogan.

"I poured my flask out into the water-bottle. It was full of burnt Strasbourg brandy, of double strength. It is as potent as opium. Neither of [pg 235] them will have his wits before to-morrow. It will not help us to leave O'Toole to guard the courier."

"And we cannot take him," said Wogan. "There is the Princess to be thought of. We must leave him, and we cannot leave him alone, for his neck's in danger,—more than in danger if the courier wakes before him."

He picked up carefully the scraps of the letter and placed them in the middle of the fire. They were hardly burnt before Gaydon came into the room with word that horses were already being harnessed to the berlin. Wogan explained their predicament.

"We must choose which of us three shall stay behind," said he.

"Which of us two," Misset corrected, pointing to Gaydon and himself. "When the Princess drives into Bologna, Charles Wogan, who first had the high heart to dare this exploit, the brain to plot, the hand to execute it,—Charles Wogan must ride at her side, not Misset, not Gaydon. I take no man's honours." He shook Wogan by the hand as he spoke, and he had spoken with an extraordinary warmth of admiration. Gaydon could do no less than follow his companion's example, though there was a shade of embarrassment in his manner of assenting. It was not that he had any envy of Wogan, or any desire to rob him of a single tittle of his due credit. There was nothing mean in Gaydon's nature, but here was a halving of Clementina's protectors, and he could not stifle a suspicion [pg 236] that the best man of the four to leave behind was really Charles Wogan himself. Not a word, however, of this could he say, and so he nodded his assent to Misset's proposal.

"It is I, then, who stay behind with O'Toole and the courier," he said. "Misset has a wife; the lot evidently falls to me. We will make a shift somehow or another to keep the fellow quiet till sundown to-morrow, which time should see you out of danger." He unbuckled the sword from his waist and laid it on the table, and that simple action somehow touched Wogan to the heart. He slipped his arm into Gaydon's and said remorsefully,—

"Dick, I do hate to leave you, you and Lucius. I swept you into the peril, you two, my friends, and now I leave you in the thick of it to find a way out for yourselves. But there is no remedy, is there? I shall not rest until I see you both again. Goodbye, Lucius." He looked at O'Toole sprawling with outstretched legs upon his groaning chair. "My six feet four," said he, turning to Gaydon; "you must give me the passport. Have a good care of him, Dick;" and he gripped O'Toole affectionately by the arms for a second, and then taking the passport hurried from the room. Gaydon had seldom seen Wogan so moved.

The berlin was brought round to the door; the Princess, rosy with sleep, stepped into it; Wogan had brought with him a muff, and he slipped it over Clementina's feet to keep her warm during the night; Misset took Gaydon's place, and the postillion [pg 237] cracked his whip and set off towards Trent. Gaydon, sitting before the fire in the parlour, heard the wheels grate upon the road; he had a vision of the berlin thundering through the night with a trail of sparks from the wheels; and he wondered whether Misset was asleep or merely leaning back with his eyes shut, and thus visiting incognito Woman's fairy-land of dreams. However, Gaydon consoled himself with the reflection that it was none of his business.

But Gaydon was out of his reckoning. There were no fairy tales told for Misset to overhear, and the Princess Clementina slept in her corner of the carriage. If a jolt upon a stone wakened her, a movement opposite told her that her sentinel was watchful