I still had my hand on the trap when a touch on the shoulder caused me to turn,and in a moment apprised me of the imminence of a new peril;a peril of such a kind that,summoning all my resolution,I could scarcely hope to cope with it.Henry was at my elbow.He had taken of his mask,and a single glance at his countenance warned me that that had happened of which I had already felt some fear.The glitter of intense excitement shone in his eyes.His face,darkly-flushed and wet with sweat,betrayed overmastering emotion,while his teeth,tight clenched in the effort to restrain the fit of trembling which possessed him,showed between his lips like those of a corpse.The novelty of the danger which menaced him,the absence of his gentlemen,and of all the familiar faces and surroundings without which he never moved,the hour,the mean house,and his isolation among strangers,had proved too much for nerves long weakened by his course of living,and for a courage,proved indeed in the field,but unequal to a sudden stress.Though he still strove to preserve his dignity,it was alarmingly plain to my eyes that he was on the point of losing,if he had not already lost,all self-command.
'Open!'he muttered between his teeth,pointing impatiently to the trap with the hand with which he had already touched me.
'Open,I say,sir!'
I stared at him,startled and confounded.'But your Majesty,'Iventured to stammer,'forgets that I have not yet--'
'Open,I say!'he repeated passionately.'Do you hear me,sir?
I desire that this door be opened.'His lean hand shook as with the palsy,so that the gems on it twinkled in the light and rattled as he spoke.
I looked helplessly from him to the women and back again,seeing in a flash all.the dangers which might follow from the discovery of his presence there--dangers which I had not before formulated to myself,but which seemed in a moment to range themselves with the utmost clearness before my eyes.At the same time I saw what seemed to me to be a way of escape;and emboldened by the one and the other,I kept my hand on the trap and strove to parley with him.
'Nay,but,sire,'I said hurriedly,yet still with as much deference as I could command,'I beg you to permit me first to repeat what I have seen.M.de Bruhl is without,and I counted six men whom I believe to be his following.They are ruffians ripe for any crime;and I implore your Majesty rather to submit to a short imprisonment--'
I paused struck dumb on that word,confounded by the passion which lightened in the king's face.My ill-chosen expression had indeed applied the spark to his wrath.Predisposed to suspicion by a hundred treacheries,he forgot the perils outside in the one idea which on the instant possessed his mind;that I would confine his person,and had brought him hither for no other purpose.He glared round him with eyes full of rage and fear,and his trembling lips breathed rather than spoke the word 'Imprison?'
Unluckily,a trifling occurrence added at this moment to his disorder,and converted it into frenzy.Someone outside fell heavily against the door;this,causing madame to utter a low shriek,seemed to shatter the last remnant of the king's self-control.Stamping his foot on the floor,he cried to me with the utmost wildness to open the door--by which I had hitherto kept my place.
But,wrongly or rightly,I was still determined to put off opening it;and I raised my hands with the intention of making a last appeal to him.He misread the gesture,and retreating a step,with the greatest suddenness whipped out his sword,and in a moment had the point at my breast,and his wrist drawn back to thrust.
It has always been my belief that he would not have dealt the blow,but that the mere touch of the hilt,awaking the courage which he undoubtedly possessed,and which did not desert him in his last moments,would have recalled him to himself.But the opportunity was not given him,for while the blade yet quivered,and I stood motionless,controlling myself by an effort,my knee half bent and my eyes on his,Mademoiselle de la Vire sprang forward at his back,and with a loud scream clutched his elbow.
The king,surprised,and ignorant who held him,flung up his point wildly,and striking the lamp above his head with his blade,shattered it in an instant,bringing down the pottery with a crash and reducing the room to darkness;while the screams of the women,and the knowledge that we had a madman among us,peopled,the blackness with a hundred horrors.
Fearing above all for mademoiselle,I made my way as soon as Icould recover my wits to the embers of the fire,and regardless of the king's sword,which I had a vague idea was darting about in the darkness,I searched for and found a half-burnt stick,which I blew into a blaze.With this,still keeping my back to the room,I contrived to light a taper that I had noticed standing by the hearth;and then,and then only,I turned to see what I had to confront.
Mademoiselle de la Vire stood in a corner,half-fierce,half-terrified,and wholly flushed.She had her hand wrapped up in a 'kerchief already stained with blood;and from this I gathered that the king in his frenzy had wounded her slightly.Standing before her mistress,with her hair bristling,like a wild-cat's fur,and her arms akimbo,was Fanchette,her harsh face and square form instinct with fury and defiance.Madame de Bruhl and Simon cowered against the wall not far from them;and in a chair,into which he had apparently just thrown himself,sat the king,huddled up and collapsed,the point of his sword trailing on the ground beside him,and his nerveless hand scarce retaining force to grip the pommel.
In a moment I made up my mind what to do,and going to him in silence,I laid my pistols,sword,and dagger on a stool by his side.Then I knelt.
