The Helmet of Navarre Part 50

"No, lad; you will be at my side hereafter."

M. etienne laughed and said no more.

"But in truth," Monsieur added, "I did not expect waylaying. If these fellows watched by the gate, they hid cleverly. I never saw a finger-tip of them till they sprang upon us by the corner here, when we were almost home."

M. etienne bent over and turned face up the man whom Monsieur had run through the heart. He was an ugly enough fellow, one eye entirely closed by a great scar that ran from his forehead nearly to his grizzled mustache.

"This is Bernet le Borgne," he said. "Have you encountered him before, Monsieur? He was a soldier under Guise once, they say, but he has done naught but hang about Paris taverns this many a year. We used to wonder how he lived; we knew he did somebody's dirty work. Clisson employed him once, so I know something of him. With his one eye he could fence better than most folks with two. My congratulations to you, Monsieur."

But Monsieur, not heeding, was bending over the other man.

"Your acquaintance is wider than mine. Do you know this one?"

M. etienne shook his head over this other man, who lay face up, staring with wide dark eyes into the sky. His hair curled in little rings about his forehead, and his cheeks were smooth; he looked no older than I.

"He dashed at me the first of all," Monsieur said in a low voice. "I ran him through before the others came up. Mordieu! I am glad it was dark. A boy like that!"

"He had good mettle to run up first," M. etienne said. "And it is no disgrace to fall to your sword, Monsieur. Come, let us go."

But Monsieur looked back again at the dead lad, and then at his son and at me, and came with us heavy of countenance.

On the stones before us lay a trail of blood-drops.

"Now, that is where Huguet ran with his wounded arm," I said to M.

etienne.

"Aye, and if we did not know the way home we could find it by this red track."

But the trail did not reach the door; for when we turned into the little street where the arch is, where I had waited for Martin, as we turned the familiar corner under the walls of the house itself, we came suddenly on the body of a man. Monsieur ran forward with a cry, for it was the squire Huguet.

He wore a leather jerkin lined with steel rings, mail as stout as any forged. Some one had stabbed once and again at the coat without avail, and had then torn it open and stabbed his defenceless breast. Though we had killed two of their men, they had rained blows enough on this man of ours to kill twenty.

Monsieur knelt on the ground beside him, but he was quite cold.

"The man who fled when we charged them must have lurked about," I said.

"Huguet's sword-arm was useless; he could not defend himself."

"Or else he fainted from his wound, he bled so," M. etienne answered.

"And one of those who fled last came upon him helpless and did this."

"Why didn't I follow him instead of sitting down, a John o'dreams?" I cried. "But I was thinking of you and Monsieur; I forgot Huguet."

"I forgot him, too," Monsieur sorrowed. "Shame to me; he would not have forgotten me."

"Monsieur," his son said, "it was no negligence of yours. You could have saved him only by following when he ran. And that was impossible."

"In sight of the door," Monsieur said sadly. "In sight of his own door."

We held silent. Monsieur got soberly to his feet.

"I never lost a better man."

"Monsieur," I cried, "he asks no better epitaph. If you will say that of me when I die, I shall not have lived in vain."

He smiled at the outburst, but I did not care; if he would only smile, I was content it should be at me.

"Nay, Felix," he said. "I hope it will not be I who compose your epitaph. Come, we must get to the house and send after poor Huguet."

"Felix and I will carry him," M. etienne said, and we lifted him between us--no easy task, for he was a heavy fellow. But it was little enough to do for him.

We bore him along slowly, Monsieur striding ahead. But of a sudden he turned back to us, laying quick fingers on the poor torn breast.

"What is it, Monsieur?" cried his son.

"My papers."

We set him down, and the three of us examined him from top to toe, stripping off his steel coat, pulling apart his blood-clotted linen, prying into his very boots. But no papers revealed themselves.

"What were they, Monsieur?"

A drawn look had come over Monsieur's face.

"Papers which the king gave me, and which I, fool and traitor, have lost."

I ran back to the spot where we had found Huguet; there was his hat on the ground, but no papers. I followed up the red trail to its beginning, looking behind every stone, every bunch of gra.s.s; but no papers. In my desperation I even pulled about the dead man, lest the packet had been covered, falling from Huguet in the fray. The two gentlemen joined me in the search, and we went over every inch of the ground, but to no purpose.

"I thought them safer with Huguet than with me," Monsieur groaned. "I knew we ran the risk of ambush. Myself would be the object of attack; I bade Huguet, were we waylaid, to run with the papers."

"And of course he would not."

"He should; it was my command. He stayed and saved my life perhaps, and lost me what is dearer than life--my honour."

"He could not leave you to be killed, Monsieur; that were asking the impossible."

"Aye, but I am saved at the ruin of a hundred others!" Monsieur cried.

"The papers contained certain lists of names of Mayenne's officers pledged to support the king if he turn Catholic. I had them for Lemaitre. But at this date, in Mayenne's hands, they spell the men's destruction. Huguet should have known that if I told him to desert me, I meant it."

M. etienne ventured no word, understanding well enough that in such bitter moments no consolation consoles. M. le Duc added after a moment:

"Mordieu! I am ashamed of myself. I might be better occupied than in blaming the dead--the brave and faithful dead. Belike he could not run, they set on us so suddenly. When he could, he did go, and he went to his death. They were my charge, the papers. I had no right to put the responsibility on any other. I should have kept them myself. I should have gone to Tarigny. I should never have ventured myself through these black lanes. Fool! traitorous fool!"

"Nay, Monsieur, the mischance might have befallen any one."

"It would not have befallen Villeroi! It would not have befallen Rosny!"

Monsieur exclaimed bitterly. "It befalls me because I am a lack-wit who rushes into affairs for which he is not fit. I can handle a sword, but I have no business to meddle in statecraft."

"Then have those wiseheads out at St. Denis no business to employ you,"

M. etienne said. "He is not unknown to fame, this Duke of St. Quentin; everybody knows how he goes about things. Monsieur, they gave you the papers because no one else would carry them into Paris. They knew you had no fear in you; and it is because of that that the papers are lacking. But take heart, Monsieur. We'll get them back."