第35章

THE RISEN DEAD

It was close upon ten o'clock as we rode into the yard of the imposing Hotel de la Couronne at Grenade.

Castelroux engaged a private room on the first floor -- a handsome chamber overlooking the courtyard -and in answer to the inquiries that I made I was informed by the landlord that Monsieur de Marsac was not yet arrived.

"My assignation was 'before noon,' Monsieur de Castelroux," said I.

"With your permission, I would wait until noon."He made no difficulty. Two hours were of no account. We had all risen very early, and he was, himself, he said, entitled to some rest.

Whilst I stood by the window it came to pass than a very tall, indifferently apparelled gentleman issued from the hostelry and halted for some moments in conversation with the ostler below. He walked with an enfeebled step, and leaned heavily for support upon a stout cane. As he turned to reenter the inn I had a glimpse of a face woefully pale, about which, as about the man's whole figure, there was a something that was familiar - a something that puzzled me, and on which my mind was still dwelling when presently I sat down to breakfast with Castelroux.

It may have been a half-hour later, and, our meal being at an end, we were sitting talking - I growing impatient the while that this Monsieur de Marsac should keep me waiting so - when of a sudden the rattle of hoofs drew me once more to the window. A gentleman, riding very recklessly, had just dashed through the porte-cochere, and was in the act of pulling up his horse. He was a lean, active man, very richly dressed, and with a face that by its swarthiness of skin and the sable hue of beard and hair looked almost black.

"Ah, you are there!" he cried, with something between a snarl and a laugh, and addressing somebody within the shelter of the porch.

"Par la mort Dieu, I had hardly looked to find you!">From the recess of the doorway I heard a gasp of amazement and a cry of "Marsac! You here?"So this was the gentleman I was to see! A stable boy had taken his reins, and he leapt nimbly to the ground. Into my range of vision hobbled now the enfeebled gentleman whom earlier I had noticed.

"My dear Stanislas!" he cried, "I cannot tell you how rejoiced I am to see you!" and he approached Marsac with arms that were opened as if to embrace him.

The newcomer surveyed him a moment in wonder, with eyes grown dull.

Then abruptly raising his hand, he struck the fellow on the breast, and thrust him back so violently that but for the stable=boy's intervention he had of a certainty fallen. With a look of startled amazement on his haggard face, the invalid regarded his assailant.

As for Marsac, he stepped close up to him.

"What is this?" he cried harshly. "What is this make-believe feebleness? That you are pale, poltroon, I do not wonder! But why these tottering limbs? Why this assumption of weakness? Do you look to trick me by these signs?""Have you taken leave of your senses?" exclaimed the other, a note of responsive anger sounding in his voice. "Have you gone mad, Stanislas?""Abandon this pretence," was the contemptuous answer. "Two days ago at Lavedan, my friend, they informed me how complete was your recovery; from what they told us, it was easy to guess why you tarried there and left us without news of you. That was my reason, as you may have surmised, for writing to you. My sister has mourned you for dead - was mourning you for dead whilst you sat at the feet of your Roxalanne and made love to her among the roses of Lavedan.""Lavedan?" echoed the other slowly. Then, raising his voice:

"What the devil are you saying?" he blazed. "What do I know of Lavedan?"In a flash it had come to me who that enfeebled gentleman was.

Rodenard, the blunderer, had been at fault when he had said that Lesperon had expired. Clearly he could have no more than swooned;for here, in the flesh, was Lesperon himself, the man I had left for dead in that barn by Mirepoix.

How or where he had recovered were things that at the moment did not exercise my mind - nor have I since been at any pains to unravel the mystery of it; but there he was, and for the moment that fact was all-sufficing. What complications would come of his presence Heaven alone could foretell.

"Put an end to this play-acting!" roared the savage Marsac. "It will avail you nothing. My sister's tears may have weighed lightly with you, but you shall pay the price of them, and of the slight you have put upon her.""My God, Marsac!" cried the other, roused to an equal fierceness.

"Will you explain?"

"Aye," snarled Marsac, and his sword flashed from his scabbard,"I'll explain. As God lives, I'll explain - with this!" And he whirled his blade under the eyes of the invalid. "Come, my master, the comedy's played out. Cast aside that crutch and draw; draw, man, or, sangdieu, I'll run you through as you stand!"There was a commotion below. The landlord and a posse of his satellites - waiters, ostlers, and stableboys - rushed between them, and sought to restrain the bloodthirsty Marsac. But he shook them off as a bull shakes off a pack of dogs, and like an angry bull, too, did he stand his ground and bellow. In a moment his sweeping sword had cleared a circle about him. In its lightning dartings hither and thither at random, it had stung a waiter in the calf, and when the fellow saw the blood staining his hose, he added to the general din his shrieks that he was murdered.

Marsac swore and threatened in a breath, and a kitchen wench, from a point of vantage on the steps, called shame upon him and abused him roundly for a cowardly assassin to assail a poor sufferer who could hardly stand upright.