The Helmet of Navarre Part 45

XX

_"On guard, monsieur."_

We found ourselves in a narrow panelled pa.s.sageway, lighted by a flickering oil-lamp pendent from a bracket. Confronting us was our preserver--a little old lady in black velvet, leaning back in chuckling triumph against the shot bolts.

She was very small and very old. Her figure was bent and shrunken, a pitiful little bag of bones in a rich dress; her hair was as white as her ruff; her skin as yellow and dry as parchment, furrowed with a thousand wrinkles; but her black eyes sparkled like a girl's.

"I did not mean to let my nightingale's throat be slit," she cried in a shrill voice quavering like a young child's. "I have listened to your singing many a night, monsieur; I was glad to-night to find the nightingale back again. When I saw that crew rush at you, I said I would save you if only you would put your back to my door. Monsieur, you are a young man of intelligence."

"I am a young man of amazing good fortune, madame," M. etienne replied, with his handsomest bow, sheathing his wet blade. "I owe you a debt of grat.i.tude which is ill repaid in the base coin of bringing trouble to this house."

"Not at all--not at all!" she protested with animation. "No one is likely to molest this house. It is the dwelling of M. Ferou."

"Of the Sixteen?"

"Of the Sixteen," she nodded, her shrewd face agleam with mischief. "In truth, if my son were within, you were little likely to find harbourage here. But, as it is, he and his wife are supping with his Grace of Lyons. And the servants are one and all gone to ma.s.s, leaving madame grand'mere to s.h.i.+ft for herself. No, no, my good friends; you may knock till you drop, but you won't get in."

The attacking party was indeed hammering energetically on the door, shouting to us to open, to deny them at our peril. The eyes of the old lady glittered with new delight at every rap.

"I fancy they will think twice before they batter down M. Ferou's door!

Ma foi! I fancy they are a little mystified at finding you sanctuaried in this house. Was it not my Lord Mayenne's jackal, Francois de Brie?"

"Yes; and Marc Latour."

"I thought I knew them," she cried in evident pride at her sharpness.

"It was dark, and they were masked, and my eyes are old, but I knew them! And which of the ladies is it?"

He could do no less than answer his saviour.

"Ah, well," she said, with a little sigh, "I too once--but that is a long time ago." Then her eyes twinkled again; I trow she was not much given to sighing. "That is a long time ago," she repeated briskly, "and now they think I am too old to do aught but tell my beads and wait for death. But I like to have a hand in the game."

"I will come to take a hand with you any time, madame," M. etienne a.s.sured her. "I like the way you play."

She broke into shrill, delighted laughter.

"I'll warrant you do! And I don't mean to do the thing by halves. No; I shall save you, hide and hair. Be so kind, my lad, as to lift the lantern from the hook."

I did as she bade me, and we followed her down the pa.s.sage like spaniels. She was so entirely equal to the situation that we made no protests and asked no questions. At the end of the hall she paused, opening neither the door on the right nor the door on the left, but, pa.s.sing her hand up one of the panels of the wainscot, suddenly she flung it wide.

"You are not so small as I," she chuckled, "yet I think you can make s.h.i.+ft to get through. You, monsieur lantern-bearer, go first."

I doubled myself up and scrambled through. The old lady, gathering her petticoats daintily, followed me without difficulty, but M. etienne was put to some trouble to bow his tall head low enough. We stood at the top of a flight of stone steps descending into blackness. The old lady unhesitatingly tripped down before us.

At the foot of the stairs was a vaulted stone pa.s.sageway, slippery with lichen, the dampness hanging in beads on the wall. Turning two corners, we brought up at a narrow, nail-studded door.

"Here I bid you farewell," quoth the little old lady. "You have only to walk on till you get to the end. At the steps, pull the rope once and wait. When he opens to you, say, 'For the Cause,' and draw a crown with your finger in the air."

"Madame," M. etienne cried, "I hope the day may come when I shall make you suitable acknowledgements. My name--"

"I prefer not to know it," she interrupted, glancing up at him. "I will call you M. Yeux-gris; that is enough. As for acknowledgments--pooh! I am overpaid in the sport it has been."

"But, madame, when monsieur your son discovers--"

"Mon dieu! I am not afraid of my son or of any other woman's son!" she cried, with cackling laughter. And I warrant she was not.

"Madame," M. etienne said, "I trust we shall meet again when I shall have time to tell you what I think of you." He dropped on his knees before her, kissing both her hands.

"Yes, yes, of course you are grateful," she said, somewhat bored apparently by his demonstration. "Naturally one does not like to die at your age. I wish you a pleasant journey, M. Yeux-gris, and you too, you fresh-faced boy. Give me back my lantern and fare you well."

"You will let us see you safe back in your hall."

"I will do nothing of the sort! I am not so decrepit, thank you, that I cannot get up my own stairs. No, no; no more gallantries, but get on your way! Begone with you! I must be back in my chamber working my altar-cloth when my daughter-in-law comes home."

Crowing her elfin laugh, she pulled the door open and fairly hustled us through.

"Good-by--you are fine boys"; and she slammed the door upon us. We were in absolute darkness. As we took our first breath of the dank, foul air, we heard bolts snap into place.

"Well, since we cannot go back, let us go forward," said M. etienne, cheerfully. "I am glad she has bolted the door; it is to throw them off the scent should they track us."

I knew very well that he was not at all glad; that the same thought which chilled my blood had come to him. This little beldam, with her beady eyes and her laughter, was the wicked witch of our childhood days; she had shut us up in a charnel-house to die.

I heard him tapping the pavement before him with his scabbard, using it as a blind man's staff. And so we advanced through the fetid gloom, the pa.s.sage being only wide enough to let us walk shoulder to shoulder.

There was a whirring of wings about us, and a squeaking; once something swooped square into my face, knocking a cry of terror from me, and a laugh from him.

"What was it? a bat? Cheer up, Felix; they don't bite." But I would not go on till I had made sure, as well as I could without seeing, that the cursed thing was not clinging on me somewhere.

We walked on then in silence, the stone walls vibrant with our tread.

We went on till it seemed we had traversed the width of Paris; and I wondered who were sleeping and feasting and scheming and loving over our heads. M. etienne said at length:

"Mordieu! I hope this snake-hole does not empty us out into the Seine."

But I thought that as long as it emptied us out somewhere, I should not greatly mind the Seine.

At this very moment M. etienne clutched my arm, jerking me to a halt. I bounded backward, trying in the blackness to discern a precipice yawning at my feet. "Look!" he cried in a low, tense voice. I perceived, far before us in the gloom, a point of light, which, as we watched it, grew bigger and bigger, till it became an approaching lantern.

"This is like to be awkward," murmured M. etienne.

The man carrying the light came on with firm, heavy tread; naturally he did not see us as soon as we saw him. I thought him alone, but it was hard to tell in this dark, echoy place.

He might easily have approached within touch of my sad clothing without becoming aware of me, but M. etienne's azure and white caught the lantern rays a rod away. The newcomer stopped short, holding up the light between us and his face. We could make nothing of him, save that he was a large man, soberly clad.

"Who is it?" he demanded, his voice ringing out loud and steady. "Is it you, Ferou?"

M. etienne hooked his scabbard in place, and went forward into the clear circle of light.

"No, M. de Mayenne; it is etienne de Mar."

"Ventre bleu!" Mayenne e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, changing his lantern with comical alacrity to his left hand, and whipping out his sword. My master's came bare, too, at that. They confronted each other in silence, till Mayenne's ever-increasing astonishment forced the cry from him: