"I?"
"Yes, you!"
For an instant there was a pause of astonishment. Then to my surprise the captain laughed--laughed loudly. "Very heroic!" he said. "Quite magnificent, M. le Chevalier-errant. But you see, unfortunately, you come too late!"
"Too late!" I said incredulously.
"Yes, too late," he replied, with a mocking smile. And the lieutenant grinned too. "You see the man has just confessed. We have only been giving him an extra touch or two, to impress his memory, and save us the trouble of tying him up again."
"I don't believe it," I said bluntly--but I felt the check, and fell to earth. "The man cannot speak."
"No, but he has managed to tell us that he will guide us to the place we want," the captain answered drily. "The whip, if it cannot find a man a tongue, can find him wits. What is more, I think, he will keep his word," he continued, with a hideous smile. "For I warn him that if he does not, all your heroics shall not save him! He is a rebel dog, and known to us of old, and I will flay his back to the bones--ay, until we can see his heart beating through his ribs--but I will have what I want--in your teeth, too, you d--d meddler."
"Steady, steady!" I said, somewhat sobered. I saw that he was telling me the truth. "He is going to take you to M. de Cocheforêt's hiding-place, is he?"
"Yes, he is!" the captain retorted offensively. "Have you any objection to make to that, Master Spy?"
"None," I replied. "But I shall go with you. And if you live three months, I shall kill you for that name--behind the barracks at Auch, M. le Capitaine."
He changed colour, but he answered me boldly enough. "I don't know that you will go with us. That is as we please," he continued, with a snarl.
"I have the Cardinal's orders," I said sternly.
"The Cardinal?" he exclaimed, stung to fury by this repetition of the name. "The Cardinal be--"
But the lieutenant laid his hands on his lips, and stopped him. "Hush!" he said. Then more quietly, "Your pardon, M. le Capitaine. Shall I give orders to the men to fall in?"
The captain nodded sullenly.
"Take him down!" the lieutenant ordered, in his harsh, monotonous voice. "Throw his blouse over him, and tie his hands. And do you two, Paul and Lebrun, guard him. Michel, bring the whip, or he may forget how it tastes. Sergeant, choose four good men and dismiss the rest to their quarters."
"Shall we need the horses?" the sergeant asked.
"I don't know," the captain answered peevishly. "What does the rogue say?"
The lieutenant stepped up to him. "Listen!" he said grimly. "Nod if you mean yes, and shake your head if you mean no. And have a care you answer truly. Is it more than a mile to this place? The place you know of?"
They had loosened the poor wretch's fastenings, and covered his back. He stood leaning against the wall, his mouth still panting, the sweat running down his hollow cheeks; his sunken eyes were closed; a quiver now and again ran through his frame. The lieutenant repeated his question, and, getting no answer, looked round for orders. The captain met the look, and crying savagely, "Answer, will you, you mute!" struck the half-swooning miserable across the back with his switch. The effect was magical. Covered, as his shoulders were, the man sprang erect with a shriek of pain, raising his chin, and hollowing his back; and in that attitude stood an instant with starting eyes, gasping for breath. Then he sank back against the wall, moving his mouth spasmodically. His face was the colour of lead.
"Diable! I think we have gone too far with him!" the captain muttered.
"Bring some wine!" the lieutenant replied. "Quick with it!"
I looked on, burning with indignation, and wondering besides what would come of this. If the man took them to the place, and they succeeded in seizing, Cocheforêt, there was an end of the matter as far as I was concerned. It was off my shoulders, and I might leave the village when I pleased; nor was it likely--since he would have his man, though not through me--that the Cardinal would refuse me an amnesty. On the whole, I thought that I would prefer that things should take that course; and assuming the issue, I began to wonder whether in that event it would be necessary that Madame should know the truth. I had a kind of a vision of a reformed Berault, dead to play and purging himself at a distance from Zaton's, winning, perhaps, a name In the Italian war, and finally--but, pshaw! I was a fool.
However, be that as it might, it was essential that I should see the arrest made; and I waited patiently while they revived the tortured man, and made their dispositions. These took some time; so that the sun was down, and it was growing dusk, when we marched out, Clon going first, supported by his two guards, the captain and I following,--abreast, and eyeing one another suspiciously,--the lieutenant, with the sergeant and five troopers, bringing up the rear. Clon moved slowly, moaning from time to time, and but for the aid given him by the two men with him, must have sunk down again and again.
He went out between two houses close to the inn, and struck a narrow track, scarcely discernible, which ran behind other houses, and then plunged into the thickest part of the wood. A single person, traversing the covert, might have made such a track; or pigs, or children. But it was the first idea that occurred to us, and it put us all on the alert. The captain carried a cocked pistol, I held my sword drawn, and kept a watchful eye on him; and the deeper the dusk fell in the wood, the more cautiously we went, until at last we came out with a sort of jump into a wider and lighter path.
I looked up and down it, and saw before me a wooden bridge, and an open meadow, lying cold and grey in the twilight; and I stood in astonishment. It was the old path to the Château! I shivered at the thought that he was going to take us there, to the house--to Mademoiselle!
The captain also recognised the place, and swore aloud. But the dumb man went on unheeding, until he reached the wooden bridge. There he paused as if in doubt, and looked towards the dark outline of the building, which was just visible, one faint light twinkling sadly in the west wing. As the captain and I pressed up behind him, he raised his hands and seemed to wring them towards the house.
"Have a care!" the captain growled. "Play me no tricks, or--" But he did not finish the sentence; for Clon turned back from the bridge, and, entering the wood on the left hand, began to ascend the bank of the stream. We had not gone a hundred yards before the ground grew rough, and the undergrowth thick; and yet through all ran a kind of path which enabled us to advance, dark as it was growing. Very soon the bank on which we moved began to rise above the water, and grew steep and rugged. We turned a shoulder, where the stream swept round a curve, and saw we were in the mouth of a small ravine, dark and steep-walled. The water brawled along the bottom, over boulders and through chasms. In front, the slope on which we stood shaped itself into a low cliff; but half-way between its summit and the water, a ledge, or narrow terrace, running along the face, was dimly visible.
"Ten to one, a cave!" the captain muttered. "It is a likely place."
"And an ugly one!" I sneered. "Which one to ten might safely hold for hours!"
"If the ten had no pistols--yes!" he answered viciously. "But you see we have. Is he going that way?"
He was. "Lieutenant," Larolle said, turning and speaking in a low voice, though the chafing of the stream below us covered ordinary sounds, "shall we light the lanthorns, or press on while there is still a glimmering of day?"
"On, I should say, M. le Capitaine," the lieutenant answered. "Prick him in the back if he falters. I will warrant he has a tender place or two!" the brute added, with a chuckle.
The captain gave the word, and we moved forward; it being very evident now that the cliff-path was our destination. It was possible for the eye to follow the track all the way to it through rough stones and brushwood; and though Clon climbed feebly and with many groans, two minutes saw us step on to it. It did not turn out to be the perilous place it looked at a distance. The ledge, grassy and terrace-like, sloped slightly