Part 8 (1/2)

The man and myself were alone together to maintain the fight which, having once entered, and being roused to the mood of contest, I had no thought of discontinuing now that Mlle. d'Arency was out of immediate danger. It had reached a place at which it could be terminated only by the disarming, the death, or the disabling of one of us.

I gradually acquired the power of knowing all my opponent's movements, despite the darkness. I supposed that he was equipped with dagger as well as with sword, but as he made no move to draw the shorter weapon, I did not have recourse to mine. Though I would not take an advantage over him, even in the circ.u.mstances, yet I was not willing to be at a disadvantage.

Therefore, as he was not enc.u.mbered with cloak or mantle, I employed a breathing moment to tear off my own cloak and throw it aside, not choosing to use it on my left arm as a s.h.i.+eld unless he had been similarly guarded.

So we lunged and parried in the darkness, making no sound but by our heavy breathing and an occasional e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n and the tramping of our feet, the knocking of our bodies against unseen pieces of furniture, and the clas.h.i.+ng of our blades when they met. Each of us fenced cautiously at times, and at times took chances recklessly.

Finally, in falling back, he came to a sudden stop against a table, and the collision disturbed for an instant his control over his body. In that instant I felt a soft resistance encounter my sword and yield to it. At once, with a feeling of revulsion, I drew my sword out of the casing that his flesh had provided, and stood back. Something wet and warm sprinkled my face. The man gave a low moan and staggered sideways over towards the window. Then he plunged forward on his face. I stooped beside him and turned him over on his back, wetting my gloves with the blood that gushed from his wound and soaked his doublet. At that moment a splash of moonlight appeared on the floor, taking the shape of the window. His head and shoulders lay in this illumined s.p.a.ce. I sprang back in horror, crying out his name:

”De Noyard! My G.o.d, it is you!”

”Yes, monsieur,” he gasped, ”it is De Noyard. I have been trapped. I ought to have suspected.”

”But I do not understand, monsieur. Surely you could not have attacked Mlle. d'Arency?”

”Attacked her! I came here by her appointment!”

”But her cry for help?”

”It took me by complete surprise. There was a knock on the door--”

”Yes,--mine. I, too, came by her appointment!”

”Mademoiselle instantly put out the light and began to scream. I thought that the knock frightened her; then that she was mad. I followed to calm her. You entered; you know the rest.”

”But what does it mean?”

”Can you not see?” he said, with growing faintness. ”We have been tricked,--I, by her pretense of love and by this appointment, to my death; you, by a similar appointment and her screams, to make yourself my slayer. I ought to have known! she belongs to Catherine, to the Queen-mother. Alas, monsieur! easily fooled is he who loves a woman!”

Then I remembered what De Rilly had told me,--that De Noyard's counsels to the Duke of Guise were an obstacle to Catherine's design of conciliating that powerful leader, who aspired to the throne on which her son was seated.

”No, no, monsieur!” I cried, unwilling to admit Mlle. d'Arency capable of such a trick, or myself capable of being so duped. ”It cannot be that; if they had desired your death, they would have hired a.s.sa.s.sins to waylay you.”

Yet I knew that he was right. The strange request that Mlle. d'Arency had made of me in the church was now explained.

A kind of smile appeared, for a moment, on De Noyard's face, struggling with his expression of weakness and pain.

”Who would go to the expense of hiring a.s.sa.s.sins,” he said, ”when honest gentlemen can be tricked into doing the work for nothing? Moreover, when you hire a.s.sa.s.sins, you take the risk of their selling your secret to the enemy. They are apt to leave traces, too, and the secret instigator of a deed may defeat its object by being found out.”

”Then I have to thank G.o.d that you are not dead. You will recover, monsieur.”

”I fear not, my son. I do not know how much blood I lose at every word I speak. _Parbleu_! you have the art of making a mighty hole with that toy of yours, monsieur!”

This man, so grave and severe in the usual affairs of life, could take on a tone of pleasantry while enduring pain and facing death.

”Monsieur,” I cried, in great distress, ”you must not die. I will save you. I shall go for a surgeon. Oh, my G.o.d, monsieur, tell me what to do to save your life!”

”You will find my lackeys, two of them, at the cabaret at the next corner. It is closed, but knock hard and call for Jacques. Send him to me, and the other for a surgeon.”

De Noyard was manifestly growing weaker, and he spoke with great difficulty. Not daring to trust to any knowledge of my own as to immediate or temporary treatment of his wound, I made the greatest haste to follow his directions. I ran out of the chamber, down the stairs, and out to the street, finding the doors neither locked nor barred, and meeting no human being. Mlle. d'Arency and her companion had silently disappeared.