Part 27 (1/2)
”Well done, our champion! I will finish your work”; and rus.h.i.+ng at the prostrate man, over whom the seconds were bending, he pushed them aside, and was on the point of driving the weapon into his body.
Lecour threw himself forward and struck up the steel with his own.
”Coward!” he shouted, preparing for further defence of his late antagonist, while the astonishment of Grancey and his fellow-second at the apparition held them momentarily helpless.
”I am no coward, but the Instrument of Vengeance. His blood has slain mine. The scales of heaven are nice to a hair. Let me kill him!” and the stranger's sword glittered again in a sudden movement. But this time Grancey seized him, and his colleague a.s.sisted in overcoming the man's struggles.
”It is a madman,” said the surgeon, his hands occupied with his bandages; ”keep him safe till I can finish this work.”
”A madman, yes!” shouted Philibert; ”and who made me mad? It was one of this man's race of murderers and traitors. Justice will only sleep when he too dies by the sword, like my father, whom they slew. Let me strike!
let me kill him! or, if you will not let me kill him, I will depart, for the hour of Justice it seems is not yet.”
”Depart quickly then,” sternly said the surgeon, taking advantage of the turn in his mood, and at the words the seconds released the maniac.
Philibert ran again into the woods and disappeared.
”There is too much loss of blood--too much,” the surgeon remarked gravely.
Lecour, wondering and agitated, divined, while the others were occupied, the ident.i.ty of the visitant.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE LETTRE DE CACHET
Lecour had succeeded for a time in baffling the forces arrayed against him.
The next turn was made by de Lotbiniere, who entered in his journal his intention of now speaking to the following persons, in their order--
The Minister, Repentigny, The Chevalier de Villerai, Vaudreuil, The Genealogist of France, The Prince de Poix, The Marechale de Noailles, The Baroness de la Roche Vernay.
He went to the first on the list and obtained an interview in private with his chief secretary, from which he issued with a large sealed envelope, which contained a handsome parchment in blank, signed ”Louis.”
It was a _lettre de cachet_, one of those warrants by which a man might, without warning to his friends or any charge laid, be arrested and imprisoned in one of those fortresses whose walls were so many living graves. He took it to the lodgings of Repentigny.
”Pierre, I am on the campaign against your namesake!” exclaimed he.
”Then you have heard the latest news?”
”Not if it is fresh to-day.”
”An hour old. There has been a second duel between our Louis and Lecour.
What a pity!”
”A pity? it is an infernal outrage! Another duel? Oh, my G.o.d!”
”Lecour became impatient----”
”_Impatient_, forsooth!”