Part 5 (1/2)
Some distance below was the roof of a house which clung to the castle wall like a mussel to a rock. The dwarf caught Herrick to steady him as he landed on the roof, for it sloped at a sharp angle, and was dilapidated.
”Sit, and put your hand on my shoulder, and shuffle down after me,” he said. ”Now carefully. Catch hold of this rafter. Let yourself swing, and drop lightly. It's barely four feet fall for your length of body.”
Herrick did as he was told, and dropped into a dark attic, followed by the dwarf.
”You please me, friend Roger,” said Jean, chuckling quietly. ”My private road is not an easy one to travel in a hurry, and the man who takes it is not likely to wear a scared face and feel his knees tremble when danger comes.”
”I like not murder, friend Jean.”
”You'd like being murdered less, I warrant,” was the prompt answer.
”Besides it wasn't murder, for two reasons. Killing a man in self-defence is not murder, and you're likely to do it yourself before many hours have pa.s.sed if you would serve Mademoiselle; and secondly, the sentry yonder isn't dead. I had to let his strength out of an artificial hole lest it should come through his mouth in a shout which would have betrayed us. He will be well on his way to recovery before a new moon, and, if not, there are plenty more sentries in the castle to take his place. Come, you are not out of Vayenne yet, and you must be on your way to Pa.s.sey before the dawn.”
The dwarf led the way down two flights of broken stairs, and through the door of the house, and pa.s.sed into a narrow, deserted street.
”We'll go quickly,” he whispered. ”No one will suspect you in those garments. We shall meet few, and they will think that some one dying has need of a priest, and that I have fetched you. I have done it often before.”
They pa.s.sed through a perfect labyrinth of narrow streets in silence, and the two or three night wanderers they met took no notice of them.
Vayenne was asleep under the pale moon; that temporary death called sleep was in every habitation. The dead Duke in his chamber in the castle was hardly less silent than the sleeping thousands he had ruled.
Presently the dwarf stopped before the door of a house at the end of a blind alley.
”We go in here, friend Roger,” he said, ”but by a window. The door is locked, because they who own the place still hope for a tenant, which is a forlorn hope. The house grows more rotten every day, water rats make a retreat of it, and some mischievous person has said it is haunted by a horrible ghost.”
”You are that mischievous person, I suppose.”
”Why think so ill of me?” chuckled the dwarf. ”When I don't wish to leave the city by the gates, this is the way I go.”
He led the way to a room at the top of the house.
”From the roof we scramble onto the city wall, which is low here, and rough, for the river washes its base. Sometimes, I just drop into the water, and swim, but under a low arch there is an old boat, which we will use to-night. Have you money in your purse, friend Roger?”
”A little.”
”You may want more. I came provided. Here is gold,” he said, taking a small leathern bag from the folds of his blouse. ”Put it away carefully. You can repay me another time. Remain a priest, it may serve you to get audience with Mademoiselle more easily, but although priest without, you must be soldier within.”
The dwarf went to a corner of the room, and, wrenching up a board, knelt down, and thrust his long arm into the opening, from which he drew out a sword and a revolver.
”Strap this under your robe,” he said, handing Herrick the sword, ”and put the revolver where you may come at it easily. And listen, friend Roger. You must come at Mademoiselle de Liancourt as your wits serve you; tell her what I have told you. She will not easily believe the tale, but you must convince her; and for the rest, circ.u.mstances must guide you.”
”Do you not come with me then?”
”A little way to show you the road, then I return to plot in the city.
Were I a straight man as you are, I might not have come for you to-night. That's a dark saying--I wonder if you can read its meaning?”
”I cannot, friend Jean.”
”Well, you'll want all your wits for your enterprise; it's a pity to waste them on riddles. But remember this, friend Roger: when I was made in this queer shape, an ordinary heart was put into me, and there was no strange twist given to my feelings. We are not so very different, you and I, after all. Come, we waste precious time.”
There was no great difficulty in scrambling onto the wall from the roof of the house, and, bidding Herrick wait, the dwarf climbed down the face of the wall almost as easily as the rough stones of it had been steps. Working his way along a narrow stone course, or ledge, which was near the bottom, he reached an iron ring let into the wall, and, supporting himself by this, managed to drag out a small, flat-bottomed boat from beneath a nearly submerged archway.