The Duke's Motto Part 25

Breant did not seem to be tempted by the offer. "That may be, but I must attend on his majesty."

aesop still restrained him. "You can do me a favor."

Breant eyed the impertinent hunchback with disfavor. "Why should I do you a favor, aesop the Second?"

The hunchback explained, gayly: "In the first place, because I am the guest of his Majesty the King. In the second place, because I am the confidential devil of his Highness the Prince de Gonzague. But my third reason is perhaps better."

As he spoke he took a well-filled purse from his pocket and tossed it lightly from one hand to the other, looking at Breant with a sneering smile. Breant would have been no true servant of the time if he had not liked money for the sake of the pleasure that money could give; Breant would have been no true servant of the time if he had not been always in want of money. He eyed the purse approvingly, and his manner was more amiable.

"What do you want?" he asked.

aesop made his wishes clear. "There is a little lodge yonder in the darkness at the end of that alley, hard by the small gate that is seldom used. You know the gate, for you sometimes used to wait in that little lodge when a late exalted personage chose to walk abroad incognito."

Breant frowned at him. "You know much, Master aesop."

aesop shrugged his shoulders. "I am a wizard. But it needs no wizard to guess that, as the exalted personage is no longer with us, he will not walk abroad to-night, and you will not have to yawn and doze in the lodge till he return."

"What then?" asked Breant.

aesop lowered his voice to a whisper. "Let me have the key of the little lodge for to-night."

Breant lifted his hands in protest. "Impossible!" he said.

aesop shook his head. "I hate that word, Monsieur Breant. 'Tis a vile word. Come now, twenty louis and the key of the lodge for an hour after midnight."

Breant looked at the purse and looked at the hunchback. "Why do you want it?" he asked.

aesop laughed mockingly. "Vanity. I wish to walk this ball like a gentleman. I have fine clothes; they lie now in a bundle on the lodge step. If I had the key I could slip inside and change and change again and enjoy myself, and no one the worse or the wiser."

The purse seemed to grow larger to Breant's eyes, and his objections to dwindle proportionately. "A queer whim, crookback," he said.

aesop amended the phrase: "A harmless whim, and twenty louis would please the pocket."

Breant slipped his hand into a side-pocket, and, producing a little key, he handed it to aesop. "There's the key, but I must have it back before morning."

aesop took the key, and the purse changed owners. "You shall," he promised. "Good. Now I shall make myself beautiful."

Breant looked at him good-humoredly. "Good sport, aesop the Second." He turned and disappeared into the tent.

aesop, looking at the key with satisfaction, murmured to himself: "The best."

As he moved slowly away from the king's tent a little crowd of Gonzague's friends--Chavernay, Oriol, Navailles, Noce, Gironne, Choisy, Albret, and Montaubert--all laughing and talking loudly, crossed his path and perceived the hunchback, who seemed to them, naturally enough, a somewhat singular figure in such a scene. "Good Heavens! What is this?" cried Navailles.

Noce chuckled: "A hunchback brings luck. May I slap you on the back, little lord?"

aesop answered him, coolly: "Yes, Monsieur de Noce, if I may slap you in the face."

Noce took offence instantly. "Now, by Heaven, crookback!" he cried, and made a threatening gesture against aesop, who eyed him insolently with a mocking smile.

Chavernay interposed. "Nonsense!" he cried. "Nonsense, Noce, you began the jest." Then he added, in a lower voice: "You can't pick a quarrel with the poor devil."

The hunchback paid him an extravagant salutation. "Monsieur de Chavernay, you are always chivalrous. You really ought to die young, for it will take so much trouble to turn you into a rogue."

Fat Oriol, staring in amazement at the controversy, questioned: "What does the fellow mean?"

Chavernay burst into a fit of laughing, and patted Oriol on the back.

"I'm afraid he means that you are a rogue, Oriol."

While the angry gentlemen stood together, with the hunchback apart eying them derisively, and Chavernay standing between the belligerents as peace-maker, Taranne hurriedly joined the group. He was evidently choking with news and eager to distribute it.

"Friends, friends," he cried, "there is something extraordinary going on here to-night!"

"What is it?" asked Chavernay.

Taranne answered him, with a voice as grave as an oracle: "All the sentinels are doubled, and there are two companies of soldiers in the great court."

Navailles protested: "You are joking!"

Taranne was not to be put down. "Never more serious. Every one who enters is scrutinized most carefully."

"That is easy to explain," said Chavernay; "it is just to make sure that they really are invited."

Taranne declined to admit this interpretation of his mystery: "Not so, for n.o.body is allowed on any pretext to leave the gardens."

Oriol flushed with a sudden wave of intelligence: "Perhaps some plot against his majesty."

"Heaven knows," Navailles commented.

aesop interrupted the discussion with a dry laugh, dimly suggestive of the cackle of a jackdaw. "I know, gentlemen."

Oriol stared at him. "You know?"

Noce gave vent to an angry laugh. "The hunchback knows."

While this conversation was going on a group of middle-aged gentlemen had been moving down the avenue that led to the Pond of Diana. These were the Baron de la Hunaudaye, Monsieur de Marillac, Monsieur de Barbanchois, Monsieur de la Ferte, and Monsieur de Vauguyon. They had been taking a peaceful interest in the spectacle afforded them, had been comparing it with similar festivities that they recalled in the days of their youth, and had been enjoying themselves tranquilly enough. Perceiving a group of young men apparently engaged in animated discussion, the elders quickened their pace a little to join the party and learn the cause of its animation.

When they arrived aesop was speaking. "Something extraordinary is going on here to-night, Monsieur de Navailles. The king is preoccupied. The guard is doubled, but no one knows why, not even these gentlemen. But I know, aesop the Wise."

"What do you know?" asked Navailles.

aesop looked at him mockingly. "You would never guess it if you guessed for a thousand years. It has nothing to do with plots or politics, with foreign intrigues or domestic difficulties--"

Oriol thirsted for information. "What is it for, then?"

aesop answered, gravely, with an amazing question: "Gentlemen, do you believe in ghosts?" And the gravity of his voice and the strangeness of his question forced his hearers, surprised and uneasy, in spite of themselves, to laugh disdainfully.

aesop accepted their laughter composedly. "Of course not. No one believes in ghosts at noonday, on the crowded street, though perhaps some do at midnight when the world is over-still. But here, to-night, in all this glitter and crowd and noise and color, the king is perturbed and the guards are doubled because of a ghost--the ghost of a man who has been dead these seventeen years."