Part 138 (2/2)
”I went into Henriot's room this morning to see if he was ready; he was not there, he was probably strolling about the kennels or the stables; at any rate, instead of him I found this treasure, which I brought here to read at my leisure.”
And the King again moistened his thumb, and again turned over an obstinate page.
”Sire,” stammered D'Alencon, whose hair stood on end, and whose whole body was seized with a terrible agony. ”Sire, I came to tell you”--
”Let me finish this chapter, Francois,” said Charles, ”and then you shall tell me anything you wish. I have read or rather devoured fifty pages.”
”He has tasted the poison twenty-five times,” murmured Francois; ”my brother is a dead man!”
Then the thought came to him that there was a G.o.d in heaven who perhaps after all was not chance.
With trembling hand the duke wiped away the cold perspiration which stood in drops on his brow, and waited in silence, as his brother had bade him do, until the chapter was finished.
CHAPTER L.
HAWKING.
Charles still read. In his curiosity he seemed to devour the pages, and each page, as we have said, either because of the dampness to which it had been exposed for so long or from some other cause, adhered to the next.
With haggard eyes D'Alencon gazed at this terrible spectacle, the end of which he alone could see.
”Oh!” he murmured, ”what will happen? I shall go away, into exile, and seek an imaginary throne, while at the first news of Charles's illness Henry will return to some fortified town near the capital, and watch this prey sent us by chance, able at a single stride to reach Paris; so that before the King of Poland even hears the news of my brother's death the dynasty will be changed. This cannot be!”
Such were the thoughts which dominated the first involuntary feeling of horror that had urged Francois to warn Charles. It was the never-failing fatality which seemed to preserve Henry and follow the Valois which the duke was again going to try to thwart. In an instant his whole plan with regard to Henry was altered. It was Charles and not Henry who had read the poisoned book. Henry was to have gone, and gone condemned to die.
The moment fate had again saved him, Henry must remain; for Henry was less to be feared in the Bastille or as prisoner at Vincennes than as the King of Navarre at the head of thirty thousand men.
The Duc d'Alencon let Charles finish his chapter, and when the King had raised his head:
”Brother,” said the duke, ”I have waited because your Majesty ordered me to do so, but I regret it, because I have something of the greatest importance to say to you.”
”Go to the devil!” said Charles, whose cheeks were slowly turning a dull red, either because he had been too much engrossed in his reading or because the poison had begun to act. ”Go to the devil! If you have come to discuss that same subject again, you shall leave as did the King of Poland. I rid myself of him, and I will do the same to you without further talk about it.”
”It is not about my leaving, brother, that I want to speak to you, but about some one else who is going away. Your Majesty has touched me in my most sensitive point, my love for you as a brother, my devotion to you as a subject; and I hope to prove to you that I am no traitor.”
”Well,” said Charles, as he leaned his elbow on the book, crossed his legs, and looked at D'Alencon like a man who is trying to be patient.
”Some fresh report, some accusation?”
”No, sire, a certainty, a plot, which my foolish scruples alone prevented my revealing to you before.”
”A plot?” said Charles, ”well, let us hear about it.”
”Sire,” said Francois, ”while your Majesty hawks near the river in the plain of Vesinet the King of Navarre will escape to the forest of Saint Germain, where a troop of friends will be waiting to flee with him.”
”Ah, I knew it,” said Charles, ”another calumny against my poor Henry!
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