The Long Night - Stanley Weyman (free novel 24 .txt) 📗

either this minute or at all unless you tell me what is in the letters, and how you come to know about them."

Should he tell her? He fancied that he had no choice. "Messer Blondel the Syndic wants the letters," he answered sullenly. And, urged farther by her expression of disbelief, he told the astonished girl the story which Blondel had told him. The fact that he believed it went far with her; why, for the rest, doubt a story so extraordinary that it seemed to bear the stamp of truth?

"And that is all?" she said when he came to the end.

"Is it not enough?"

"It may be enough," she replied, her resolute manner in strange contrast with his cowardly haste. "Only there is a thing not clear. If the Syndic knows what is in the letters, why does he not seize them and Basterga with them--the traitor with the proof of his treason?"

"Because he is afraid of the Grand Duke," Louis cried. "If he seize Basterga and miss the proof of his treason, what then?"

"Then he is not sure that the letters are there?" Anne replied keenly.

"He is not sure that they would be there when he came to seize them," Louis answered. "Basterga might have a dozen confederates in the house ready at a sign to destroy the letters."

She nodded.

"And that is what they will make us out to be," he continued, his voice sinking as his fears returned upon him. "The Syndic threatened as much; and such things have happened a hundred times. I tell you, if we do not do something, we shall suffer with him. But do it, and he is in your power! And if he has any hold on you, it is gone!"

The blood surged to her face. Hold upon her? Ah! Rage--or was it hope?--lightened in her eyes and transformed her face. She was thinking, he guessed, of the hundred insults she had undergone at Basterga's hands, of the shame-compelling taunts to which she had been forced to listen, of the loathed touch she had been forced to bear. If there was aught in her mind beyond this, any motive deeper or more divine, he did not perceive it; enough, that he saw that she wavered, and he pressed her.

"You will be free," he cried passionately. "Freed from him! Freed from fear of him! Say you will do it! Say that you will do it," he continued fervently, and he made as if he would kneel before her. "Do it, and I swear that never shall a word to displease you pass my lips."

With a glance of scorn that pierced even his selfishness, "Swear only," she said, "that you have told me the truth! I ask no more."

"I swear it on my salvation!"

She drew a deep breath.

"I will do it," she said. "The steel box which is chained to the wall?"

"Yes, yes," he panted, "you cannot mistake it. The key----"

"I know where he keeps it."

She said no more, but turned, and regarding his thanks as little as if they had been the wind passing by her, she opened the door, crossed the living-room, and vanished up the staircase. He followed her as far as the foot of the stairs, and there stood listening and shifting his feet and biting his nails in an agony of suspense. She had not deigned to bid him watch for Basterga's coming, but he did so; his eyes on the outer door, through which the scholar must enter, and his tongue and feet in readiness to warn her or save himself, according as the pressure of danger directed the one or the other step.

Meanwhile his ears were on the stretch to catch what she did. He heard her try the door of the room. It was locked. He heard her shake it. Then he guessed that she fetched a key, for after an interval, which seemed an age, he caught the grating of the wards in the lock. After that, she was quiet so long, that but for the apprehensions of Basterga's coming, which weighed on his coward soul, he must have gone up in sheer jealousy so see what she was doing.

Not that he distrusted her. Even while he waited, and while the thing hung in the balance, he smiled to think how cleverly he had contrived it. On the side of the authorities he would gain favour by delivering the letters: on the other side, if Basterga retained power to harm, it was not he who had taken the letters, nor he who would be exposed to the first blast of vengeance--but the girl. The blame for her, the credit for him! From the nettle danger his wits had plucked the flower safety. But for his fears he could have chuckled; and then he heard her leave the room, and relock the door. With a gasp of relief, he retired a pace or two, and waited, his eyes fixed on the doorway through which she must enter.

She was long in coming, and when she came his hand, extended to receive the letters, fell by his side, the whispered question died on his lips. Her face told him that she had failed. It might have told him also that she had built far more on the attempt than she had let him perceive. But what was that to him? It was enough for him that she had not the letters. He could have torn her with his hands. "Where are they? Where are they?" he cried, advancing upon her. "You have not got them?"

"Got them?" And then she straightened herself, and with a passionate glance at the door, "No! And he has not come in time to take me in the act, it seems. As I have no doubt you planned, you villain! That I might be more and deeper in his power!"

"No! No!" he cried, recoiling. "I never thought of it!"

"Yes, yes!" she retorted.

He wrung his hands. How was he to make her understand? "I swear," he cried, and he fell on his knees with uplifted hands. "I swear on my knees I thought of no such thing. The tale I told you was true! True, every word of it! And the letters----"

"There are no letters!" she said.

"In the box?"

"None."

He sprang to his feet. He shook his fist at her in low ignoble rage. "You lie!" he cried. "You have not looked. You have played with me. You have gone into the room and come out again, but you have not looked, you have not dared to look."

"I have looked," she answered quietly. "In the box that is chained to the wall. There are no papers in it. There is nothing in it except a small phial."

"A phial?"

"Of some golden liquid."

"That is all?"

"All!"

Louis Gentilis stared at her, open-mouthed. Had the Syndic deceived him? Or had some one deceived the Syndic?


CHAPTER XII.

THE CUP AND THE LIP.

Blondel could not hide the agitation he felt as he listened to his unexpected visitors, and saw whither their errand tended. Fabri, who was leader of the deputation of three who had come upon him without warning, discerned this; much more Baudichon and Petitot, whose eyes were on the watch for the least sign of weakness. And Blondel was conscious that they saw it, and on that account strove the more to mask his feelings under a show of decision. "I have little doubt that I shall have news within the hour," he said. "Before night, I must have news." And nodding with the air of a man who knew much which he could not impart, he leant back in the old abbot's chair.

But Fabri had not come for that, nor was he to be satisfied with that; and, after a pause, "Yes," he replied, "I know. That may be so. But you see, Messer Blondel, this affair is not quite where it was yesterday, or we should not have come to you to-day. The King of France--I am sure we are much indebted to him--does not write on light occasions, and his warning is explicit. From Paris, then, we get the same story as from Turin. And this being so, and the King's tale agreeing with our agent's----"

"He does not mention Basterga!" Blondel objected. He repented the moment he had said it.

"By name, no. But he says----"

"Enough for any one with eyes!" Petitot exclaimed.

"He says," Fabri repeated, requesting the other by a gesture to be silent, "that the Grand Duke's emissary is a Paduan expelled from Venice or from Genoa. That is near enough. And I confess, were I in your place, Messer Blondel----"

"With your responsibilities," Petitot muttered through closed teeth.

"I should want to know--more about him." This from Baudichon.

Fabri nodded assent. "I think so," he said. "I really think so. In fact, I may go farther and say that were I in your place, Messer Blondel, I should seize him to-day."

"Ay, within the hour!"

"This minute!" said Baudichon, last of the three. And all three, their ultimatum delivered, looked at Blondel, a challenge in their eyes. If he stood out longer, if he still declined to take the step which prudence demanded, the step on which they were all agreed, they would know that there was something behind, something of which he had not told them.

Blondel read the look, and it perturbed him. But not to the point of sapping the resolution which he had formed at the Council Table, and to which, once formed, he clung with the obstinacy of an obstinate man. The _remedium_ first; afterwards what they would, but the _remedium_ first. He was not going to risk life, warm life, the vista of sunny unending to-morrows, of springs and summers and the melting of snows, for a craze, a scare, an imaginary danger! Why at that very minute the lad whom he had commissioned to seize the thing might be on the way with it. At any minute a step might sound on the threshold, and herald the promise of life. And then--then they might deal with Basterga as they pleased. Then they might hang the Paduan high as Haman, if they pleased. But until then--his mind was made up.

"I do not agree with you," he said, his underlip thrust out, his head trembling a little.

"You will not arrest him?"

"No, I shall not arrest him," he replied, hardening himself to meet their protestant and indignant eyes. "Nor would you," he continued with bravado, "in my place. If you knew as much as I do."

"But if you know," Baudichon said, "I would like to know also."

"The responsibility is mine." Blondel swayed himself from side to side in his chair as he said it. "The responsibility is mine, and I am willing to bear it. It is the old difference of policy between us," he continued, addressing Petitot. "You are willing to grasp at every petty advantage, I am willing----"

"To risk much to gain much," Petitot exclaimed.

"To take some risk to gain a real advantage," Blondel retorted, correcting him with an eye to Fabri; whom alone, as the one impartial hearer, he feared. "For to what does the course which you are so eager to take amount? You seize Basterga: later, you will release him at the Grand Duke's request. What are we the better? What is gained?"

"Safety."

"No, on the