all this while the occupants of m. charlot’s attic, which the abbé had so abruptly quitted, were taken up with their own anxieties, and though they had at last fallen silent, the chiaroscuro of their abode was fairly throbbing with uneasiness. what made their leader, with a guide above suspicion, so late in finding his way from sca?r?
at last, just about the moment that m. chassin, next door, had finished the proficiscere and was calling for “clotilde,” the vicomte de céligny exclaimed, not for the first time, “this must be they!” the four men strained their ears, for a noise could certainly be heard on the staircase.
“dame! it sounds as though le blé-aux-champs were drunk!” observed artamène.
“or hurt!” added the comte de brencourt, listening uneasily.
the heavy, shuffling footsteps which they had heard ascending the stairs paused outside the door. roland sprang up and opened it, drawing back instantly with a little cry. two men, both in breton costume, stood on the threshold, the elder and taller supporting the other, a young saturnine-looking peasant, whose face was sulky with pain, and whose unshod left foot was enveloped in a stained and muddy handkerchief.
“monsieur le marquis!” cried roland and artamène together, “what has happened?”
“nothing very serious,” replied the elder newcomer cheerfully. “we startled a colonne mobile in the dusk, that is all, and our poor blé-aux-champs has a ball through his foot.”
“but you yourself are unhurt, de kersaint, i hope?” asked the comte de brencourt, not without anxiety, as he came forward from his corner. “we were getting very uneasy about you.”
“i am untouched, thank you. but this lad of mine——”
“let him lie down on my mattress, sir,” suggested the vicomte de céligny, and, as it happened to be the nearest to the door, the young chouan, after vain protests, hobbled towards it, his arm still round his leader’s neck.
“yes, lie down, mon gars,” said m. de kersaint, lowering him to the pallet, “and we will see what can be done for this foot.” he looked round. “where is our surgeon-in-chief, the abbé?”
“confessing or otherwise ministering to a dying woman next door,” replied m. de brencourt. “m. charlot came in for him.”
the marquis de kersaint raised his eyebrows a trifle, but made no comment. “i am afraid that we are somewhat of an infirmary here altogether,” he remarked. “what of your injuries, comte—and yours, la vergne?”
“i do not deny that i have a headache,” returned m. de brencourt. “but, as for the cause, the abbé dressed the scratch this afternoon, and reported that it was doing excellently. my wrist” he showed a bandage “will, he says, take a little longer to heal.”
“and your safe arrival, monsieur le marquis, has done even more for my arm than the abbé’s ministrations,” said artamène.
m. de kersaint smiled at him and shook his head, as he knelt down by the prostrate guide and began to take the handkerchief off his foot. he would have been more or less than human if he had not known that he was idolised, as well as feared, by these well-born young followers of his.
“let me do that, monsieur le marquis!” now begged roland, while the thoughtful lucien produced from the recesses of the attic a bowl of water and some torn linen.
but the marquis de kersaint, asking roland when he had ever dressed a gunshot wound, went through the process with a deftness which suggested that he himself had dressed not a few. the young peasant, who had lain with his face hidden in the pillow, caught his hand as he finished and carried it dumbly to his lips.
“there, mon gars,” said his leader kindly, as he withdrew it. “lie there and be as comfortable as you can under the circumstances. the ball has gone clean through, which is a great mercy. roland, put a covering of some kind over him.—thank you, lucien; yes, i should like some fresh water. you can put it on that convenient chest of drawers yonder.”
as he stood there, washing the blood off his hands, it was not difficult to understand the attraction that the marquis de kersaint might possess for either sex or any age. as a young man he must have been superlatively handsome, and now the grey at his temples only served to emphasize his appearance of extreme distinction. just as his dark, slightly rippling hair gained by contrast with that touch of time’s powder, so the peasant’s dress which he wore merely set off the natural air of command that hung about him—an air of which it was plainly impossible for him to divest himself, even for purposes of disguise. it was innate in the whole poise of his tall figure, in the aquiline nose with its delicate nostrils, in the imperious glance of the fine grey eyes. yet there was a measure of geniality about the mouth—of the kind that it is not wise to presume upon. everybody in the attic knew that.
“well, my children, and what have you been doing since you arrived?” he asked, looking round as he dried his hands. “lucien, i see, has got hold of a book as usual. what have you been reading, lucien?”
“this is what he has been reading, monsieur le marquis!” cried the young chevalier de la vergne, snatching up du boisfossé’s virgil whence he had laid it, face downwards, on his chair. and holding the book with the hand which rested in the sling, of which he still had the use, he flourished his other arm at roland, who was standing near, and began to declaim at him the famous lament out of the sixth book for the untimely dead marcellus—
“heu miserande puer! si qua fata aspera rumpas,
tu marcellus eris. manibus date lilia plenis
purpureos——”
he had got no further when, to his enormous surprise, the book was gently but firmly taken out of his hand.
“do not repeat those lines, boy, over anyone young, as you are doing at this moment,” said m. de kersaint quietly looking, not at him, but at roland. “i always think they are unlucky. . . .”
and before the two young men had time to recover from their astonishment he had walked over to the other side of the attic, and joined his second in command at the little table to which the latter had returned.
“i have some papers here, de brencourt,” he said, sitting down, “which we could look at till the abbé returns. undoubtedly our attempt was premature . . . but unless we can get money it always will be premature. i have seen ‘sincère’; he could join us with at least two hundred and fifty men if we could only provide arms for them.”
“always the same cry—insufficient arms and ammunition,” remarked his lieutenant rather bitterly. “how is anything considerable going to be done in finistère if there is always this lack? and we could get both in plenty from england if we only had the money to buy them with.”
“exactly,” said the marquis. “but where the money is to come from i do not know—beyond the not very generous subsidy which the british government has promised me for the summer.—well, we must take counsel with georges when he comes. now, look at these figures.”
and he and the comte de brencourt were still bending over the papers which he had spread out on the table when the three young men, who had withdrawn themselves as far as possible from the conclave of their superiors, became aware that the priest was once more in their midst. he had entered among the shadows very quietly.
“a la bonne heure, monsieur l’abbé!” said roland de céligny. “monsieur le marquis has arrived.” and he indicated the other side of the attic.
“and have you been to the wedding at mirabel?” enquired artamène mischievously.
the abbé chassin quickly turned on him with a frown, putting his finger to his lips. but he was too late; the words were out, and, though the culprit had moderated his voice, they had been heard. and artamène, roused at once to interest and alertness by the priest’s gesture, was somehow aware of a sudden stiffening of m. de kersaint’s whole figure, ere he said, turning round from the table, “what is this about . . . mirabel?”
the abbé seeming in no great haste to answer, it was m. de brencourt who replied, “the old lady whom the abbé has been visiting next door is, apparently, suffering from delusions about mirabel—that chateau of the duc de trélan’s near paris. that is what m. de la vergne means.”
“this is interesting,” observed the marquis de kersaint, turning further round to look at the little priest, who had not advanced a step since artamène’s jest. “and did you learn anything fresh about mirabel, abbé?”
“yes, i did, monsieur le marquis,” answered the priest rather shortly.
“may we hear it?”
m. chassin was silent, and seemed to be considering this request. artamène saw his face, and it was oddly perturbed.
“we are not, i hope, inviting you to reveal the secrets of the confessional?”
“no.”
“why may we not hear it, then?”
“because,” said the abbé gravely, “it is more suited for your private ear, monsieur le marquis.”
“why?” asked m. de brencourt, instantly, looking from one to the other, “why for m. de kersaint’s private ear?”
this question the abbé seemed totally unable to answer, and after a second or two the marquis de kersaint said carelessly to his subordinate, “because m. chassin knows that i am a kinsman of the duc de trélan’s, i suppose.”
“a kinsman of the duc de trélan’s—you!” exclaimed the comte de brencourt in obvious surprise. “a near kinsman?”
“no, no, very distant,” replied his leader quickly. “and that is why i cannot conceive how a disclosure affecting his property can possibly be destined for my ear alone. so let us all hear it, if you please, monsieur l’abbé.”
m. de brencourt, still under the empire of surprise or some other emotion, continued to look at this kinsman of m. de trélan’s very fixedly; so, from where he still stood near the door, did the priest. a better light would have revealed entreaty in his eyes.
“well, monsieur l’abbé, i am waiting!” said the marquis de kersaint rather haughtily, and in the fashion of a man who has never been used to that discipline.
the abbé set his lips obstinately. “it will keep well enough till to-morrow, monsieur le marquis.”
“what, a communication from the dying? and who knows whether we shall all see to-morrow? come, abbé, i command you!—roland, a chair here for m. chassin.”
whether the priest could have stood out, had he willed, against that masterful voice and gesture, at any rate he did not.
“very well, marquis,” said he, and artamène, thrilled to the core, thought, “?‘tu l’as voulu, georges dandin!’ that’s what he would really like to say, our abbé!” and since their leader had intimated that the matter was not private after all, he applied himself to listen with all his ears. roland, looking rather troubled, set a chair at the table for the priest and stood back.
“you must know then, monsieur le marquis,” began the abbé in a low voice, “that the old lady whom i have been visiting had been present at the festivities in 1771, when the . . . the young duc de trélan married his bride.”
“that beautiful and most unfortunate lady!” commented m. de brencourt under his breath.
the marquis glanced at him for the fraction of a second, and the priest went on, nervously rubbing his hands together, and rather pale:
“it seems that there is a legend of a treasure hidden in mirabel since the days of the fronde, a treasure whose whereabouts no one has ever been able to discover. since you are a kinsman of m. de trélan’s, monsieur le marquis, it is possible that you have heard of the legend?”
m. de kersaint nodded thoughtfully. “i believe i have heard of it. yes?”
“the story appears to be true. the document describing the hiding-place of the treasure was stolen at the time—nearly a hundred and fifty years ago—and came into the possession of this old lady’s family, but in such a way that it was only recently rediscovered by the old lady herself.”
“what an extraordinary tale! well?”
“since then she had desired to give it to the duc, but could not, as he was not in france. and in her delirium just now, fancying herself back at the wedding, she was talking so persistently of offering to the . . . the young couple, as a wedding gift, this paper, which would help them to what was after all their own, that m. charlot——”
“a wedding gift for de trélan and his wife!” interposed the comte de brencourt with a laugh. “bon dieu, what irony, considering how their wedded life ended!”
“surely that need not concern us now, monsieur de brencourt!” said his leader coldly. “go on please, abbé.”
“by the most curious coincidence,” pursued m. chassin, his eyes fixed on the marquis, “m. charlot asked me, as a priest, to see if i could not set the old lady’s mind at rest by some means. she did at last regain control of her senses, and i was able in the end to assure her that i could and would despatch the document, if she entrusted me with it, to the proper quarter.”
“and she gave it you?” asked the marquis, bending forward with some eagerness.
“i have it here now,” answered the priest, touching his breast.
m. de kersaint drew back again, and artamène was struck with his resemblance to a chess player who is meditating the next move. but only the marquis de kersaint himself and the man whom he had forced into playing out this gambit with him, fully realised the awkward position into which his insistence had got them.
“so i must make it my business to despatch it, somehow, to m. le duc,” finished the abbé. “it was of course my knowledge that you were kin to him, monsieur le marquis, which made me accept the trust, as i knew i could rely on your assistance.”
but the marquis was looking down at the table and said nothing.
“the document will hardly be of much use to m. de trélan when he does get it,” remarked the comte de brencourt. “mirabel, i have heard, is now a museum or something of the sort; at any rate it is in government hands. and m. de trélan—where is m. de trélan? in england still? no, hardly. one never hears of him. perhaps he is dead.”
“no, he is alive,” replied his kinsman briefly, lifting his eyes for a second.
“ah! but how is he going to profit by this treasure, even if it is still there?”
“nevertheless, i must fulfil my trust,” observed m. chassin, looking across the table at m. de kersaint’s lowered head.
“oh, undoubtedly, abbé, though i do not know how you are going to do it even with m. de kersaint’s cousinly . . . is it cousinly? . . . assistance. what do you yourself think of the problem, marquis?”
the marquis de kersaint raised his head. “i think,” he said slowly, looking hard at m. chassin, “that the abbé is right. m. de trélan must be informed, somehow. but at the same time, since it is practically out of the question for him, in exile, to take any steps in the matter—and would be difficult and dangerous even were he in france—and since our need for money is so pressing at this moment, i would propose——”
“what?” asked the comte.
“to ask, as his kinsman, for his authorisation to use the treasure, if we can come at it, for the needs of finistère—that is to say, for the king’s service.”
“o sir, do you think we could!” cried roland eagerly, starting forward.
“o, monsieur le marquis, send us to mirabel!” cried artamène.
“you are going too fast, gentlemen. we must first get the duc’s leave to pillage his property, even though it be confiscated.”
“do you think you will have difficulty in getting it?” asked the comte de brencourt, narrowing his eyes.
“no, i do not think so. as you have yourself pointed out, comte, how is m. de trélan going to profit, in any case, by this suddenly revealed hoard?”
“well, when the king comes into his own again, it would be of no small service to the duc, a fund in his own chateau! i expect his financial resources, great as they once were, are much embarrassed. he could hardly have been accused of husbanding them!”
“you seem to know a great deal about the private affairs of m. de trélan, comte!” observed m. de kersaint drily, turning and looking at him. “i might observe that no honest man has gained by the revolution, and that those with much to lose have lost proportionately. however, if my kinsman takes the view that you suggest—which i do not think he will—he must be induced to look upon our present proposed use of the money as a loan to his majesty. after all, it was never of any advantage to him as long as he was unaware of its existence or of its whereabouts, and of these, apparently, he never would have known but for the extraordinary coincidence of which the abbé has just told us.”
“but,” suggested m. de brencourt, “before approaching him on the subject—through you—might it not be as well to get a sight of this precious document, so that we may form some idea as to whether the amount will repay the risking a man’s neck to find, and whether it will prove easy to come at?”
the priest and m. de kersaint looked at one another. “yes. i think we might do that without indiscretion,” said the latter, after a moment’s hesitation. “do not you, abbé?”
m. chassin made no reply in words, but drew out from his coat the parchment received from the dying woman and gave it into the hands of his leader. the marquis de kersaint spread out the ancient memorandum on the table, moved the candles in their bottles nearer, and the three men studied in silence the rough diagram and its legend. nor were roland and artamène, in the background, innocent of craning their necks to see likewise.
“ten bags—two thousand five hundred pistoles in each,” murmured the comte reflectively. “how much is that, i wonder, in modern money? and there are jewels too, apparently.”
the marquis de kersaint’s lips were compressed, his face an enigma. “it certainly appears to be worth taking risks for,” he said at last. “money is what we most need in the world now for finistère. we can get the men; the last few months have shown me that clearly, but of what use are unarmed men?”
“less than none,” observed his second in command. “this document, therefore, seems singularly like a gift from heaven.”
“i shall certainly communicate with m. de trélan without delay,” said the marquis. “may i keep this parchment, abbé?”
“i had hoped that you would charge yourself with its despatch, monsieur le marquis,” replied the priest, and m. de kersaint without more ado folded it up and put it in his breast.
“it seems to me, de kersaint,” said the comte de brencourt reflectively, playing with the cards which still strewed the table, “that, considering all things, the exceptional circumstances, our pressing needs, the possibility that you may never succeed in communicating with the duc—wherever he may be—that we could hardly be blamed if we took the law into our own hands, and did not wait for his authorisation. after all, the risk would be ours.”
“that solution had already occurred to me, i admit,” said the marquis, with the ghost of a smile, while mute applause from mm. de céligny and de la vergne greeted the comte’s suggestion. “but the affair is in a sense the abbé’s, and entrusted to him.”
“i am quite content to abide by your decision, monsieur le marquis,” replied the priest sedately.
“but, de kersaint,” objected the comte, evidently struck by a sudden idea, “have you not some reversionary interest in the treasure yourself, if you are kin to m. de trélan? should we not ultimately be robbing you, perhaps?”
“no, i am not sufficiently nearly related to the duc for that,” returned the marquis quickly. “i am connected with him by marriage only—a distant kinsman.”
“perhaps you will allow me to congratulate you on that, then,” said m. de brencourt in a sombre tone. “for myself, i should not care to think that i had near ties of blood with a man who, in safety himself, left his wife to perish as he did!”
an electric shock seemed at these words to communicate itself to the other two men. m. de kersaint’s right hand, which rested on the table in the ring of candlelight, was seen instantly to clench itself. the next instant the abbé, by a sudden clumsy movement, sent the candle nearest to him to the floor where, with a crash of the bottle, it was immediately extinguished.
“pardon me, monsieur le comte!” he interposed quickly, bending forward. “—dear me, how awkward i am!—pardon me, but you do the duc de trélan a great injustice, surely! how could he, an émigré to whom france was closed, possibly rescue a woman immured in a paris prison? the thing is preposterous. besides, he probably knew nothing about her being there till all was over. i have heard that mirabel was not sacked till august the thirtieth, and the prison massacres, you will remember, began on the second of september.”
“you seem very much the champion of m. de trélan, abbé!” remarked the comte, looking at him hard. “you have wasted a candle over him.”
“one should try, surely, to be just to those who cannot answer for themselves,” retorted the priest. “moreover, i am certain m. de kersaint would bear me out in what i say.”
“he does not seem to be in any great haste to do so,” observed the other, half to himself, and his eyes suddenly moved to the clenched hand.
“i am too much amazed at your attack on my kinsman,” retorted the marquis, in a voice unlike his own. “it is incredible that such a thing should be said in france of m. de trélan—that he could have saved his wife and did not!”
the comte shrugged his shoulders. “i do not know that it is what others say, for i imagine that few people trouble their heads about de trélan now-a-days. but it is what i think—though as a matter of fact you are putting more into my words than i actually uttered. perhaps i am prejudiced. i knew that lady many years ago,” he went on, with lowered eyes, fidgeting with the cards again, “the most gracious of god’s creatures, and to remember that she went, abandoned by everybody, through that door, saw, as her last glimpse of life, those obscene faces, that gutter running with blood, that mound of——”
the priest jumped up and seized him by the arm. “for god’s sake, stop, monsieur de brencourt!” he whispered. “do you not know that most of m. de kersaint’s family perished in the massacres!”
and at that the comte did stop. after a moment m. de kersaint removed the hand with which he had covered his eyes.
“i should indeed be glad if you would spare me that subject,” he said, in a scarcely audible voice, not looking at either of them. even the one remaining candle showed him to be frightfully pale. “i . . . i cannot . . . perhaps we should finish this discussion . . . in the morning. it is already very late.”
“yes, it is very late,” agreed the comte, plainly rather horrified. he leant over the table. “can you forgive me, marquis? of course i was not aware, and i regret——”
“i knew that,” said m. de kersaint with a palpable effort, and touched the hand which the other held out. and so ended the reception of mlle magny’s wedding gift.
