The Grandissimes Part 45

"Ha-a-a-ah! Joseph, h-h-you make my blood tingle! Speak to the point; who--"

"I believe him, moreover, Citizen Fusilier, innocent of the charge laid--"

"H-innocent? H-of course he is innocent, sir! We will _make_ him inno--"

"Ah! Citizen, he is already under sentence of death!"

"_What?_ A Creole under sentence!" Agricola swore a heathen oath, set his knees apart and grasped his staff by the middle. "Sir, we will liberate him if we have to overturn the government!"

Frowenfeld shook his head.

"You have got to overturn something stronger than government."

"And pray what--"

"A conventionality," said Frowenfeld, holding the old man's eye.

"Ha, ha! my b-hoy, h-you are right. But we will overturn--eh?"

"I say I fear your engagements will prevent. I hear you take part to-morrow morning in--"

Agricola suddenly stiffened.

"Professor Frowenfeld, it strikes me, sir, you are taking something of a liberty."

"For which I ask pardon," exclaimed Frowenfeld. "Then I may not expect--"

The old man melted again.

"But who is this person in mortal peril?"

Frowenfeld hesitated.

"Citizen Fusilier," he said, looking first down at the floor and then up into the inquirer's face, "on my a.s.surance that he is not only a native Creole, but a Grandissime--"

"It is not possible!" exclaimed Agricola.

"--a Grandissime of the purest blood, will you pledge me your aid to liberate him from his danger, 'right or wrong'?"

"_Will_ I? H-why, certainly! Who is he?"

"Citizen--it is Sylves--"

Agricola sprang up with a thundering oath.

The apothecary put out a pacifying hand, but it was spurned.

"Let me go! How dare you, sir? How dare you, sir?" bellowed Agricola.

He started toward the door, cursing furiously and keeping his eye fixed on Frowenfeld with a look of rage not unmixed with terror.

"Citizen Fusilier," said the apothecary, following him with one palm uplifted, as if that would ward off his abuse, "don't go! I adjure you, don't go! Remember your pledge, Citizen Fusilier!"

Agricola did not pause a moment; but when he had swung the door violently open the way was still obstructed. The painter of "Louisiana refusing to enter the Union" stood before him, his head elevated loftily, one foot set forward and his arm extended like a tragedian's.

"Stan' bag-sah!"

"Let me pa.s.s! Let me pa.s.s, or I will kill you!"

Mr. Innerarity smote his bosom and tossed his hand aloft.

"Kill me-firse an' pa.s.s aftah!"

"Citizen Fusilier," said Frowenfeld, "I beg you to hear me."

"Go away! Go away!"

The old man drew back from the door and stood in the corner against the book-shelves as if all the horrors of the last night's dreams had taken bodily shape in the person of the apothecary. He trembled and stammered:

"Ke--keep off! Keep off! My G.o.d! Raoul, he has insulted me!" He made a miserable show of drawing a weapon. "No man may insult me and live! If you are a man, Professor Frowenfeld, you will defend yourself!"

Frowenfeld lost his temper, but his hasty reply was drowned by Raoul's vehement speech.

"'Tis not de trute!" cried Raoul. "He try to save you from h.e.l.l-'n'-d.a.m.nation w'en 'e h-ought to give you a good cuss'n!"--and in the ecstasy of his anger burst into tears.

Frowenfeld, in an agony of annoyance, waved him away and he disappeared, shutting the door.

Agricola, moved far more from within than from without, had sunk into a chair under the shelves. His head was bowed, a heavy grizzled lock fell down upon his dark, frowning brow, one hand clenched the top of his staff, the other his knee, and both trembled violently. As Frowenfeld, with every demonstration of beseeching kindness, began to speak, he lifted his eyes and said, piteously:

"Stop! Stop!"

"Citizen Fusilier, it is you who must stop. Stop before G.o.d Almighty stops you, I beg you. I do not presume to rebuke you. I _know_ you want a clear record. I know it better to-day than I ever did before. Citizen Fusilier, I honor your intentions--"

Agricola roused a little and looked up with a miserable attempt at his habitual patronizing smile.

"H-my dear boy, I overlook"--but he met in

Frowenfeld's eyes a spirit so superior to his dissimulation that the smile quite broke down and gave way to another of deprecatory and apologetic distress. He reached up an arm.

"I could easily convince you, Professor, of your error"--his eyes quailed and dropped to the floor--"but I--your arm, my dear Joseph; age is creeping upon me." He rose to his feet. "I am feeling really indisposed to-day--not at all bright; my solicitude for you, my dear b--"

He took two or three steps forward, tottered, clung to the apothecary, moved another step or two, and grasping the edge of the table stumbled into a chair which Frowenfeld thrust under him. He folded his arms on the edge of the board and rested his forehead on them, while Frowenfeld sat down quickly on the opposite side, drew paper and pen across the table and wrote.

"Are you writing something, Professor?" asked the old man, without stirring. His staff tumbled to the floor. The apothecary's answer was a low, preoccupied one. Two or three times over he wrote and rejected what he had written.

Presently he pushed back his chair, came around the table, laid the writing he had made before the bowed head, sat down again and waited.

After a long time the old man looked up, trying in vain to conceal his anguish under a smile.