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

a twinkling he thrust a pistol into my face, and cried triumphantly,—‘You are my prisoner!’ while one of the sergeants raised a lanthorn and threw its light into my eyes.

‘What folly is this?’ I said savagely.

The Lieutenant’s jaw fell, and he stood for a moment paralysed with astonishment. Less than an hour before he had left me at the Chateau. Thence he had come hither with the briefest delay; yet he found me here before him. He swore fearfully, his face black, his moustachios stiff with rage.

‘What is this? What is it?’ he cried. ‘Where is the man?’

‘What man?’ I said.

‘This Cocheforet!’ he roared, carried away by his passion. ‘Don’t lie to me! He is here, and I will have him!’

‘You are too late,’ I said, watching him heedfully. ‘M. de Cocheforet is here, but he has already surrendered to me, and is my prisoner.’

‘Your prisoner?’

‘Certainly!’ I answered, facing the man with all the harshness I could muster. ‘I have arrested him by virtue of the Cardinal’s commission granted to me. And by virtue of the same I shall keep him.’

‘You will keep him?’

‘I shall!’

He stared at me for a moment, utterly aghast; the picture of defeat. Then on a sudden I saw his face lighten with, a new idea.

‘It is a d—d ruse!’ he shouted, brandishing his pistol like a madman. ‘It is a cheat and a fraud! By God! you have no commission! I see through it! I see through it all! You have come here, and you have hocussed us! You are of their side, and this is your last shift to save him!’

‘What folly is this?’ I said contemptuously.

‘No folly at all,’ he answered, perfect conviction in his tone. ‘You have played upon us. You have fooled us. But I see through it now. An hour ago I exposed you to that fine Madame at the house there, and I thought it a marvel that she did not believe me. I thought it a marvel that she did not see through you, when you stood there before her, confounded, tongue-tied, a rogue convicted. But I understand now. She knew you. She was in the plot, and you were in the plot, and I, who thought that I was opening her eyes, was the only one fooled. But it is my turn now. You have played a bold part and a clever one,’ he continued, a sinister light in his little eyes,’ and I congratulate you. But it is at an end now, Monsieur. You took us in finely with your talk of Monseigneur, and his commission and your commission, and the rest. But I am not to be blinded any longer—or bullied. You have arrested him, have you? You have arrested him. Well, by G—, I shall arrest him, and I shall arrest you too.’

‘You are mad!’ I said staggered as much by this new view of the matter as by his perfect certainty. ‘Mad, Lieutenant.’

‘I was,’ he snarled. ‘But I am sane now. I was mad when you imposed upon us, when you persuaded me to think that you were fooling the women to get the secret out of them, while all the time you were sheltering them, protecting them, aiding them, and hiding him—then I was mad. But not now. However, I ask your pardon. I thought you the cleverest sneak and the dirtiest hound Heaven ever made. I find you are cleverer than I thought, and an honest traitor. Your pardon.’

One of the men, who stood about the rim of the bowl above us, laughed. I looked at the Lieutenant and could willingly have killed him.

‘MON DIEU!’ I said—and I was so furious in my turn that I could scarcely speak. ‘Do you say that I am an impostor—that I do not hold the Cardinal’s commission?’

‘I do say that,’ he answered coolly.

‘And that I belong to the rebel party?’

‘I do,’ he replied in the same tone. ‘In fact,’ with a grin, ‘I say that you are an honest man on the wrong side, M. de Berault. And you say that you are a scoundrel on the right. The advantage, however, is with me, and I shall back my opinion by arresting you.’

A ripple of coarse laughter ran round the hollow. The sergeant who held the lanthorn grinned, and a trooper at a distance called out of the darkness ‘A BON CHAT BON RAT!’ This brought a fresh burst of laughter, while I stood speechless, confounded by the stubbornness, the crassness, the insolence of the man. ‘You fool!’ I cried at last, ‘you fool!’ And then M. de Cocheforet, who had come out of the hut and taken his stand at my elbow, interrupted me.

‘Pardon me one moment,’ he said, airily, looking at the Lieutenant with raised eyebrows and pointing to me with his thumb, ‘but I am puzzled between you. This gentleman’s name? Is it de Berault or de Barthe?’

‘I am M. de Berault,’ I said, brusquely, answering for myself.

‘Of Paris?’

‘Yes, Monsieur, of Paris.’

‘You are not, then, the gentleman who has been honouring my poor house with his presence?’

‘Oh, yes!’ the Lieutenant struck in, grinning. ‘He is that gentleman, too.’

‘But I thought—I understood that that was M. de Barthe!’

‘I am M. de Barthe, also,’ I retorted impatiently. ‘What of that, Monsieur? It was my mother’s name. I took it when I came down here.’

‘To—er—to arrest me, may I ask?’

‘Yes,’ I said, doggedly; ‘to arrest you. What of that?’

‘Nothing,’ he replied slowly and with a steady look at me—a look I could not meet. ‘Except that, had I known this before, M. de Berault I should have thought longer before I surrendered to you.’

The Lieutenant laughed, and I felt my cheek burn; but I affected to see nothing, and turned to him again. ‘Now, Monsieur,’ I said, ‘are you satisfied?’

‘No,’ he answered? ‘I am not! You two may have rehearsed this pretty scene a dozen times. The word, it seems to me, is—Quick march, back to quarters.’

At length I found myself driven to play my last card; much against my will.

‘Not so,’ I said. ‘I have my commission.’

‘Produce it!’ he replied incredulously.

‘Do you think that I carry it with me?’ I cried in scorn. ‘Do you think that when I came here, alone, and not with fifty dragoons at my back, I carried the Cardinal’s seal in my pocket for the first lackey to find. But you shall have it. Where is that knave of mine?’

The words were scarcely out of my mouth before a ready hand thrust a paper into my fingers. I opened it