Part 139 (1/2)
When will you be through with him?”
”Your Majesty need not wait long at least to find out whether or not what I have just had the honor of telling you is a calumny.”
”How so?”
”Because this evening our brother-in-law will be gone.”
Charles rose.
”Listen,” said he, ”I will try for the last time to believe you; but I warn you, both you and your mother, that it will be the last time.”
Then raising his voice:
”Summon the King of Navarre!” he cried.
A guard started to obey, but Francois stopped him with a gesture.
”This is a poor way, brother, to learn anything,” said he. ”Henry will deny, will give a signal, his accomplices will be warned and will disappear. Then my mother and myself will be accused not only of being visionary but of being calumniators.”
”What do you want, then?”
”In the name of our brotherly love I ask your Majesty to listen to me, in the name of my devotion, which you will realize, I want you to do nothing hastily. Act so that the real culprit, who for two years has been betraying your Majesty in will as well as in deed, may at last be recognized as guilty by an infallible proof, and punished as he deserves.”
Charles did not answer, but going to a window raised it. The blood was rus.h.i.+ng to his head.
Then turning round quickly:
”Well!” said he, ”what would you do? Speak, Francois.”
”Sire,” said D'Alencon, ”I would surround the forest of Saint Germain with three detachments of light horse, who at a given hour, eleven o'clock, for instance, should start out and drive every one in the forest to the Pavilion of Francis I., which I would, as if by chance, have indicated as the meeting-place. Then I would spur on, as if following my falcon, to the meeting-place, where Henry should be captured with his companions.”
”The idea is good,” said the King; ”summon the captain of the guards.”
D'Alencon drew from his doublet a silver whistle, suspended from a gold chain, and raised it to his lips.
De Nancey appeared.
Charles gave him some orders in a low tone.
Meanwhile Acteon, the great greyhound, had dragged a book from the table, and was tossing it about the room, making great bounds after it.
Charles turned round and uttered a terrible oath. The book was the precious treatise on hunting, of which there existed only three copies in the world.
The punishment was proportionate to the offence.
Charles seized a whip and gave the dog three whistling blows.
Acteon uttered a howl, and fled under a table covered with a large cloth which served him as a hiding-place.
Charles picked up the book and saw with joy that only one leaf was gone, and that was not a page of the text, but an engraving. He placed the volume carefully away on a shelf where Acteon could not reach it.