Part 34 (1/2)

”Oh, sire!” exclaimed Henry, ”will you kill me--me, your brother?”

Henry thus, by his incomparable cleverness, which was one of the strongest faculties of his organization, evaded the answer which Charles IX. expected, for undoubtedly had his reply been in the negative Henry had been a dead man.

As immediately after the climax of rage, reaction begins, Charles IX.

did not repeat the question he had addressed to the Prince of Navarre; and after a moment's hesitation, during which he uttered a hoa.r.s.e kind of growl, he went back to the open window, and aimed at a man who was running along the quay in front.

”I must kill some one!” cried Charles IX., ghastly as a corpse, his eyes suffused with blood; and firing as he spoke, he struck the man who was running.

Henry uttered a groan.

Then, animated by a frightful ardor, Charles loaded and fired his arquebuse without cessation, uttering cries of joy every time his aim was successful.

”It is all over with me!” said the King of Navarre to himself; ”when he sees no one else to kill, he will kill me!”

”Well,” said a voice behind the princes, suddenly, ”is it done?”

It was Catharine de Medicis, who had entered un.o.bserved just as the King was firing his last shot.

”No, thousand thunders of h.e.l.l!” said the King, throwing his arquebuse across the room. ”No, the obstinate blockhead--he will not consent!”

Catharine made no reply. She turned her eyes slowly where Henry stood as motionless as one of the figures of the tapestry against which he was leaning. She then gave a glance at the King, which seemed to say:

”Then why he is alive?”

”He is alive, he is alive!” murmured Charles IX., who perfectly understood the glance, and replied to it without hesitation,--”he is alive--because he is my relative.”

Catharine smiled.

Henry saw the smile, and realized that his struggle was to be with Catharine.

”Madame,” he said to her, ”the whole thing comes from you, I see very well, and my brother-in-law Charles is not to blame. You laid the plan for drawing me into a snare. You made your daughter the bait which was to destroy us all. You separated me from my wife that she might not see me killed before her eyes”--

”Yes, but that shall not be!” cried another voice, breathless and impa.s.sioned, which Henry instantly recognized and which made Charles start with surprise and Catharine with rage.

”Marguerite!” exclaimed Henry.

”Margot!” said Charles IX.

”My daughter!” muttered Catharine.

”Sire,” said Marguerite to Henry, ”your last words were an accusation against me, and you were both right and wrong,--right, for I am the means by which they attempted to destroy you; wrong, for I did not know that you were going to your destruction. I, sire, owe my own life to chance--to my mother's forgetfulness, perhaps; but as soon as I learned your danger I remembered my duty, and a wife's duty is to share her husband's fortunes. If you are exiled, sire, I will follow you into exile; if you are put into prison I will be your fellow-captive; if they kill you, I will also die.”

And she offered her husband her hand, which he eagerly seized, if not with love, at least with grat.i.tude.

”Oh, my poor Margot!” said Charles, ”you had much better bid him become a Catholic!”

”Sire,” replied Marguerite, with that lofty dignity which was so natural to her, ”for your own sake do not ask any prince of your house to commit a cowardly act.”

Catharine darted a significant glance at Charles.