



Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer





UNDER THE RED ROBE

By Stanley J. Weyman



Transcriber's Note:

In this Etext, text in italics has been written in capital letters.

Many French words in the text have accents, etc. which have been
omitted.




CONTENTS

     CHAPTER I.              AT ZATON'S

     CHAPTER II.             AT THE GREEN PILLAR

     CHAPTER III.            THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD

     CHAPTER IV.             MADAM AND MADEMOISELLE

     CHAPTER V.              REVENGE

     CHAPTER VI.             UNDER THE PIC DU MIDI

     CHAPTER VII.            A MASTER STROKE

     CHAPTER VIII.           A MASTER STROKE--Continued

     CHAPTER IX.             THE QUESTION

     CHAPTER X.              CLON

     CHAPTER XI.             THE ARREST

     CHAPTER XII.            THE ROAD TO PARIS

     CHAPTER XIII.           AT THE FINGER-POST

     CHAPTER XIV.            ST MARTIN'S EVE

     CHAPTER XV.             ST MARTIN'S SUMMER




UNDER THE RED ROBE



CHAPTER I. AT ZATON'S

'Marked cards!'

There were a score round us when the fool, little knowing the man with
whom he had to deal, and as little how to lose like a gentleman, flung
the words in my teeth. He thought, I'll be sworn, that I should storm
and swear and ruffle it like any common cock of the hackle. But that was
never Gil de Berault's way. For a few seconds after he had spoken I
did not even look at him. I passed my eye instead--smiling, BIEN
ENTENDU--round the ring of waiting faces, saw that there was no one
except De Pombal I had cause to fear; and then at last I rose and looked
at the fool with the grim face I have known impose on older and wiser
men.

'Marked cards, M. l'Anglais?' I said, with a chilling sneer. 'They are
used, I am told, to trap players--not unbirched schoolboys.'

'Yet I say that they are marked!' he replied hotly, in his queer foreign
jargon. 'In my last hand I had nothing. You doubled the stakes. Bah,
sir, you knew! You have swindled me!'

'Monsieur is easy to swindle--when he plays with a mirror behind him,' I
answered tartly.

At that there was a great roar of laughter, which might have been
heard in the street, and which brought to the table everyone in the
eating-house whom his voice had not already attracted. But I did not
relax my face. I waited until all was quiet again, and then waving aside
two or three who stood between us and the entrance, I pointed gravely to
the door.

'There is a little space behind the church of St Jacques, M.
l'Etranger,' I said, putting on my hat and taking my cloak on my arm.
'Doubtless you will accompany me thither?'

He snatched up his hat, his face burning with shame and rage.

'With pleasure!' he blurted out. 'To the devil, if you like!'

I thought the matter arranged, when the Marquis laid his hand on the
young fellow's arm and checked him.

'This must not be,' he said, turning from him to me with his grand,
fine-gentleman's air. 'You know me, M. de Berault. This matter has gone
far enough.'

'Too far! M. de Pombal,' I answered bitterly. 'Still, if you wish to
take your friend's place, I shall raise no objection.'

'Chut, man!' he retorted, shrugging his shoulders negligently. 'I
know you, and I do not fight with men of your stamp. Nor need this
gentleman.'

'Undoubtedly,' I replied, bowing low, 'if he prefers to be caned in the
streets.'

That stung the Marquis.

'Have a care! have a care!' he cried hotly. 'You go too far, M.
Berault.'

'De Berault, if you please,' I objected, eyeing him sternly. 'My family
has borne the DE as long as yours, M. de Pombal.'

He could not deny that, and he answered, 'As you please;' at the same
time restraining his friend by a gesture. 'But none the less,' he
continued, 'take my advice. The Cardinal has forbidden duelling, and
this time he means it! You have been in trouble once and gone free.
A second time it may fare worse with you. Let this gentleman go,
therefore, M. de Berault. Besides--why, shame upon you, man!' he
exclaimed hotly; 'he is but a lad!'

Two or three who stood behind me applauded that, But I turned and they
met my eye; and they were as mum as mice.

'His age is his own concern,' I said grimly. 'He was old enough a while
ago to insult me.'

'And I will prove my words!' the lad cried, exploding at last. He had
spirit enough, and the Marquis had had hard work to restrain him so
long. 'You do me no service, M. de Pombal,' he continued, pettishly
shaking off his friend's hand. 'By your leave, this gentleman and I will
settle this matter.'

'That is better,' I said, nodding drily, while the Marquis stood aside,
frowning and baffled. 'Permit me to lead the way.'

Zaton's eating-house stands scarcely a hundred paces from St Jacques la
Boucherie, and half the company went thither with us. The evening was
wet, the light in the streets was waning, the streets themselves were
dirty and slippery. There were few passers in the Rue St Antoine; and
our party, which earlier in the day must have attracted notice and a
crowd, crossed unmarked, and entered without interruption the paved
triangle which lies immediately behind the church. I saw in the distance
one of the Cardinal's guard loitering in front of the scaffolding round
the new Hotel Richelieu; and the sight of the uniform gave me pause for
a moment. But it was too late to repent.

The Englishman began at once to strip off his clothes. I closed mine
to the throat, for the air was chilly. At that moment, while we stood
preparing, and most of the company seemed a little inclined to stand off
from me, I felt a hand on my arm, and turning, saw the dwarfish tailor
at whose house, in the Rue Savonnerie, I lodged at the time. The
fellow's presence was unwelcome, to say the least of it; and though for
want of better company I had sometimes encouraged him to be free with
me at home, I took that to be no reason why I should be plagued with
him before gentlemen. I shook him off, therefore, hoping by a frown to
silence him.

He was not to be so easily put down, however, and perforce I had to
speak to him.

'Afterwards, afterwards,' I said hurriedly. 'I am engaged now.

'For God's sake, don't, sir!' the poor fool cried, clinging to my
sleeve. 'Don't do it! You will bring a curse on the house. He is but a
lad, and--'

'You, too!' I exclaimed, losing patience. 'Be silent, you scum! What do
you know about gentlemen's quarrels? Leave me; do you hear?'

'But the Cardinal!' he cried in a quavering voice. 'The Cardinal, M. de
Berault! The last man you killed is not forgotten yet. This time he will
be sure to--'

'Leave me, do you hear?' I hissed. The fellow's impudence passed all
bounds. It was as bad as his croaking. 'Begone!' I added. 'I suppose you
are afraid that he will kill me, and you will lose your money.'

Frison fell back at that almost as if I had struck him, and I turned
to my adversary, who had been awaiting my motions with impatience. God
knows he did look young as he stood with his head bare and his fair hair
drooping over his smooth woman's forehead--a mere lad fresh from the
college of Burgundy, if they have such a thing in England. I felt a
sudden chill as I looked at him: a qualm, a tremor, a presentiment. What
was it the little tailor had said? That I should--but there, he did not
know. What did he know of such things? If I let this pass I must kill a
man a day, or leave Paris and the eating-house, and starve.

'A thousand pardons,' I said gravely, as I drew and took my place. 'A
dun. I am sorry that the poor devil caught me so inopportunely. Now
however, I am at your service.'

He saluted and we crossed swords and began. But from the first I had
no doubt what the result would be. The slippery stones and fading
light gave him, it is true, some chance, some advantage, more than he
deserved; but I had no sooner felt his blade than I knew that he was no
swordsman. Possibly he had taken half-a-dozen lessons in rapier art,
and practised what he learned with an Englishman as heavy and awkward
as himself. But that was all. He made a few wild clumsy rushes, parrying
widely. When I had foiled these, the danger was over, and I held him at
my mercy.

I played with him a little while, watching the sweat gather on his brow
and the shadow of the church tower fall deeper and darker, like the
shadow of doom, on his face. Not out of cruelty--God knows I have never
erred in that direction!--but because, for the first time in my life,
I felt a strange reluctance to strike the blow. The curls clung to his
forehead; his breath came and went in gasps; I heard the men behind me
and one or two of them drop an oath; and then I slipped--slipped, and
was down in a moment on my right side, my elbow striking the pavement so
sharply that the arm grew numb to the wrist.

He held off. I heard a dozen voices cry, 'Now! now you have him!' But he
held off. He stood back and waited with his breast heaving and his point
lowered, until I had risen and stood again on my guard.

'Enough! enough!' a rough voice behind me cried. 'Don't hurt the man
after that.'

'On guard, sir!' I answered coldly--for he seemed to waver, and be in
doubt. 'It was an accident. It shall not avail you again.'

Several voices cried 'Shame!' and one, 'You coward!' But the Englishman
stepped forward, a fixed look in his blue eyes. He took his place
without a word. I read in his drawn white face that he had made up his
mind to the worst, and his courage so won my admiration that I would
gladly and thankfully have set one of the lookers-on--any of the
lookers-on--in his place; but that could not be. So I thought of Zaton's
closed to me, of Pombal's insult, of the sneers and slights I had long
kept at the sword's point; and, pressing him suddenly in a heat of
affected anger, I thrust strongly over his guard, which had grown
feeble, and ran him through the chest.

When I saw him lying, laid out on the stones with his eyes half shut,
and his face glimmering white in the dusk--not that I saw him thus long,
for there were a dozen kneeling round him in a twinkling--I felt an
unwonted pang. It passed, however, in a moment. For I found myself
confronted by a ring of angry faces--of men who, keeping at a distance,
hissed and cursed and threatened me, calling me Black Death and the
like.

They were mostly canaille, who had gathered during the fight, and had
viewed all that passed from the farther side of the railings. While
some snarled and raged at me like wolves, calling me 'Butcher!' and
'Cut-throat!' or cried out that Berault was at his trade again, others
threatened me with the vengeance of the Cardinal, flung the edict in my
teeth, and said with glee that the guard were coming--they would see me
hanged yet.

'His blood is on your head!' one cried furiously. 'He will be dead in an
hour. And you will swing for him! Hurrah!'

'Begone,' I said.

'Ay, to Montfaucon,' he answered, mocking me.

'No; to your kennel!' I replied, with a look which sent him a yard
backwards, though the railings were between us. And I wiped my blade
carefully, standing a little apart. For--well, I could understand it--it
was one of those moments when a man is not popular. Those who had come
with me from the eating-house eyed me askance, and turned their backs
when I drew nearer; and those who had joined us and obtained admission
