La Dame de Monsoreau (73 page)

The duke approached the lamp.

Yes, he was right; a piece of paper was wrapped around the stone, and kept in its place by a silken cord knotted repeatedly.

The paper had naturally deadened the hardness of the flint; otherwise, the contusion felt by the prince would have been of a far more painful character.

To break the silk, unroll the paper, and read what was written on it, was the work of a moment.

" A letter," he murmured, looking stealthily around him.

And he read:

" Are you tired of keeping your room ? Would you like the open air and freedom ? Enter the little room in which the Queen of Navarre concealed your poor friend, M. de la Mole. Open the closet, and if you draw out the lowest shelf you will find a double bottom ; in this double bottom there is a silk ladder. Fasten it with your own hands to the balcony. Two stout arms will hold the ladder firm at the bottom of the fosse. A horse, fleet as the wind, will carry you to a safe place.

" A friend."

" A friend !" cried the prince, " a friend ! Oh ! I did not know a friend was left me. Who can this friend be who thinks of me now ? "

And the duke reflected for a moment, but he could not recall any friend to mind, and ran to look through the window. He saw nobody.

" What if it were a snare ? " muttered the prince, in whom the first feeling awakened was always fear.

" But the first thing to find out," he added, " is whether this closet has a double bottom, and whether the double bottom contains a ladder."

The duke, then, leaving the lamp where it stood, and determined, for greater safety, to trust only to the evidence of his hands, directed his steps toward that cabinet he had so often entered once with beating heart, when he expected to find within it the Queen of Navarre, radiant in her dazzling beauty.

This time also, it must be confessed, the duke's heart beat violently.

He opened the closet, groping with his hands, examined all the shelves, and came at last to the bottom one. After pressing on it in several places without result, he pressed on one of the sides, and then the plank stood up.

As soon as he plunged his hand into the cavity it came in contact with the silk ladder.

Fleeing like a thief with his booty, the duke carried his treasure into his bedroom.

It struck ' ten. The duke at once thought of the visit paid him every hour. He hastened to conceal the ladder under the cushion of an armchair and sat on top of it.

The ladder had been so artistically constructed that it fitted easily into the narrow space where the duke buried it.

He was not too soon. Before five minutes, Maugiron in his dressing-go wii made his appearance, with a sword under his left arm and a taper in his right hand.

All the time he was entering he kept up a conversation with his friends.

" The bear is furious," cried a voice ; " just a moment ago he was smashing everything to pieces j take care he does not devour you, Maugiron."

" The insolent scoundrel ! " murmured the duke.

" I believe your highness did me the honor to address me," said Maugiron, in his most impertinent manner.

The prince was very near giving expression to his rage, but, after reflecting that a quarrel would waste a good deal of time and, perhaps, prevent his escape, he curbed his fury, and wheeled round his chair, so as to turn his back on the young man.

Maugiron, following the usual course, approached the bed, examined the sheets, and saw that the window curtains were undisturbed. He perceived quickly that a pane of glass was broken, but concluded it was the work of the prince, who must have smashed it in his anger.

" Hello, Maugiron," cried Schomberg, " are you eaten already that you do not speak ? Can't you give a groan, at least, that we may know what has happened and avenge you ? »

The duke cracked the joints of his ringers in his impatience.

u Oh, no," answered Maugiron, " on the contrary, my bear is very gentle, and quite tame."

The duke smiled silently in the darkness.

As for Maugiron, he passed out without even saluting the prince, a politeness certainly due to so puissant a lord, and then double-locked the door.

The prince made no observation, but when the key no longer grated in the lock, he murmured:

" Gentlemen, beware! The bear is a very sharp-witted beast!"

CHAPTER LII.

VENTRE SAINT-GRIS.

WHEN the Due d'Anjou was alone, and knew that he would not be disturbed for at least an hour, he drew his ladder from underneath the cushion, partially unrolled it, examined every knot, and all with the utmost care.

"The ladder," said he, "'is all right and is not offered me as a contrivance for getting my ribs broken."

Then he unrolled the remainder of it and counted thirty-eight rungs fifteen inches apart.

" Well and good ! " he thought, " the length is sufficient; nothing to be feared in that respect."

After this, he reflected for a moment.

" Ah ! " said he, " now that I think of it, what if it were those infernal minions who sent me this ladder ? I wonld fasten it to the balcony, they would not interfere, and, just after I began my descent, they would come and cut the cords ; is that the snare, I wonder ? "

And he became thoughtful again.

" But no," he said, " that is not possible ; they are not so silly as to imagine I should descend without first barricading the door, and, the door once barricaded, they would know I should have time to escape before they burst it in.

" It is the very thing I should do/' he thought, looking round him, " the very thing I would do if I decided 011 fleeing.

" And, moreover, how could they imagine I had discovered this ladder in the closet of the Queen of Navarre ? Who, except my sister Marguerite, could have any idea of its existence ?

" But then," he continued, " who is the friend ? The note is signed : ' A friend.' What friend of the Due d'Anjou is acquainted with the secret bottoms in the closets of my apartments and my sister's ? "

And having propounded and, as he believed, victoriously solved this problem, the duke read the letter a second time to see if he could recognize the handwriting. Then a thought suddenly struck him.

" Bussy ! " he cried.

Yes, in very truth, was it not Bussy ? Bussy, adored by so many great ladies, Bussy, who seemed such a hero to the Queen of Navarre that, as she acknowledges in her memoirs, she uttered cries of terror every time he fought a duel; Bussy the circumspect, Bussy, an adept in the science of closets. Was not Bussy the only friend among all his friends upon whom the Due d'Anjou could really rely ? Was not Bussy, in all probability, then, the sender of this note ? And yet —

The prince felt more and more puzzled at the idea of his former favorite's intervention.

But still, everything combined to persuade him that Bussy was the author of the letter. The duke was not aware of all the reasons that gentleman had for disliking him, as he was ignorant of his love for Diane de Meridor. It is true he had a faint suspicion of his follower's passion. Loving Diane himself, he suspected that Bussy could hardly have seen this

beautiful woman without loving her also. But this slight suspicion was effaced by other considerations. Moreover, Bussy was so loyal-hearted that he could not remain idle at a time when his master was in fetters, and, in addition to this, he was the kind of person to be seduced by the spice of adventure in such an expedition; he had determined, then, to avenge the duke in his own way, that is to say, by restoring him to liberty. The prince could no longer have a doubt; it was Bussy who had written the letter ; it was Bussy who was waiting for him.

To become, if possible, a little more sure of the fact, he approached the window.

He saw in the fog that rose from the river three indistinct oblong forms, which, he thought, must be horses, and two figures, not unlike posts and apparently fixed firmly in the sand of the beach, which must surely be two men.

Yes, two men, undoubtedly: Bussy and his trusty Le Hau-douin.

" The temptation is too great to be withstood," murmured the duke, " and the snare, if snare there be, is too artistically planned to make me ashamed of myself if I be caught in it."

Francois next looked through the hole in the lock of the door opening on the drawing-room ; his four guards were there : two were asleep, and the two others were playing at chess on Chicot's chessboard.

He extinguished the light.

Then he opened the window and leaned out over the balcony.

Jhe gulf whose depth he tried to fathom was rendered more appalling by the darkness that covered it.

He recoiled.

But air and space have such an irresistible attraction for a prisoner that Francois, on returning to his room, felt as if he were stifling.

So strong was the emotion he experienced that something like a disgust for life and an indifference to death passed through his mind.

The prince was amazed, and imagined he was becoming courageous.

Then, taking advantage of this moment of excitement, he seized the silk ladder and fastened it to his balcony by the hooks placed at one end of it for the purpose. Next, he entered his room and barricaded the door as thoroughly as he was able to do, and, sure now that it would take his guards at least ten

A TERROR HE COULD NOT RESIST HELD FRANCOIS IN ITS CLUTCHES.

minutes to vanquish the obstacle he had just created, that is to say, more time than he needed to reach the last rung in his ladder, he returned to the window.

He tried to make out, a second time, the outlines of the men and horses in the distance, but he was unable to distinguish any object.

" I don't know," he murmured, " but this would be safer. To escape alone is far better than to escape in company with your best-known friend, and infinitely better than to escape with an unknown friend."

At this moment the darkness was complete, and the first growlings of the storm that was approaching during the last hour began to rumble in the heavens. A big cloud with silvery fringes stretched from one side of the river to the other ; it resembled an elephant at rest, its crupper supported by the palace, its proboscis, irregularly curved, passing over the Tour de Nesle and vanishing in the southern extremity of the city. A flash of lightning rent for a moment this immense cloud, and the prince thought he could perceive the persons he had vainly sought for on the beach in the fosse beneath him.

A horse neighed. There could be no doubt now. They were waiting for him.

The duke shook the ladder to test the solidity of the fastening; then he climbed over the balustrade and placed a foot on the first round.

It would be impossible to describe the terrible anguish that at this moment wrung the heart of the prisoner, placed as he was between the solitary support of a frail silken strand and the deadly menaces of his brother.

But, as he stood there, it seemed to him that the ladder instead of oscillating, as he had expected, stiffened, on the contrary, and that the second round met his other foot, without the ladder appearing to make the rotatory movement naturally to be expected in such circumstances.

Was a friend or an enemy holding the bottom of the ladder ? Would open, friendly arms receive him when he reached the last round, or arms bearing hostile weapons ?

A terror he could not resist held Francois in its clutches; his left hand still rested on the balcony, he made a movement as if he would return.

It looked as if the invisible person who awaited the prince at the foot of the wall divined everything that was passing

through his heart; for, at that very moment, there was a slight pull at the ladder, repeated softly and regularly ; it was a sort of silken invitation reaching even to the feet of the duke.

" From the way they are folding the ladder," he thought, " they evidently do not want me to fall. Now or never is the time for courage."

And he continued his descent; the two supports of the rungs of the ladder were as rigid as if they were sticks. Fran-qois noticed that his rescuers were careful to keep the rungs away from the wall, so as to give him a better footing.

Thereupon, Francois shot downward like an arrow, making hardly any use of the rungs, but gliding along with his hands, and tearing his cloak in his rapid descent.

Suddenly, instead of touching the earth, which he felt instinctively to be close to his feet, he was caught in the arms of a man, who whispered these three words in his ear :

" You are saved ! "

Then he was carried to the opposite side of the fosse and hurried along a road from which masses of earth and stone sloped down on either side. At length, a man seized him by the collar and drew him up to the crest of the ditch, and, after aiding the companion of Francois in the same way, ran to the river. The horses were in the place where the duke had first seen them.