The Hero of the People: A Historical Romance of Love, Liberty and Loyalty

“Oh, if the count promises, it is as good as done,” said the lady.

“You see, sir, what one gains by scrupulously keeping one’s promises. One day when the lady was in the same quandary as yourself, I mean the police were hunting after her, I offered her an asylum in my residence. The lady hesitated, fearing that I was no Joseph – unless so christened. I gave her my word to respect her, and this is true, eh?”

“I swear it, on my little Toussaint,” said Oliva-Nicole.

“So you believe that I will pay the sum mentioned on the day when the King shall have been abducted or Marquis Favras arrested, to say nothing of my serving the running knot strangling him a while ago. For this affair, at all events, there shall be no halter or gibbet, for I cannot bind myself any farther. You understand: The man who is born to be – ahem!”

“My lord, it is as if the courts had awarded us the money,” said the woman.

“Well, my beauty,” said Cagliostro, putting the ten gold pieces on the table in a row, “just imbue the captain with this belief of yours.”

He waved his hand for the gambler to confer with his partner. Their parley lasted only five minutes, but it was most lively. Meanwhile Cagliostro looked at the cards and the one by which tally was kept.

“I know the run,” he observed, “it is that invented by John Law who floated the Mississippi Bubble. I lost a million on it.”

This remark seemed to give fresh activity to the dialogue of Beausire and his light-o-love. At last Beausire was decided; he came forward to offer his hand to Cagliostro like a horse-dealer about to strike a bargain. But the other frowned.

“Captain, between gentlemen the parole suffices. Give me yours.”

“On the faith of Beausire, it shall be done.”

“That is enough for me,” said the other, drawing out a diamond-studded watch on which was a portrait of Frederick the Great. “It is now a quarter to nine. At nine precisely you are expected under the Royale Place arcades, near Sully House. Take these ten pieces, pocket them, put on your coat and buckle on your sword – and do not keep them waiting.”

“Where am I to see your lordship next?” inquired Beausire, obeying the instructions, without asking reiteration.

“In St. Jean’s Cemetery, if you please. When we have such deadly matters to discuss the company of the dead is better than the living. Come when you are free; the first to arrive waits for the other. I have now to chat with the lady.”

The captain stood on one foot.

“Be easy; I did not make bold when she was a single woman; I have the more reason to respect her since she is a mother of a family. Be off, captain.”

Beausire threw a glance at his wife, by courtesy, at all events, tenderly hugged little Toussaint, saluted the patron with respect mixed with disquiet, and left the house just as Notre Dame clock bell was striking the three-quarters after eight.

CHAPTER XXV

DOWN AMONG THE DEAD

IT was nearly midnight when a man hesitatingly walked up to the iron gateway of St. Jean’s burying-ground, in Croix Blanche Street.

As midnight boomed, he saw a spectre cross the grounds under the yews and cypresses, and, approaching the grating, turn a key harshly in the gatelock to show that, if he were a ghost and had the leave to quit his grave, he also had that to go beyond the cemetery altogether.

“Do you not recognize me, Captain B.?” queried the jesting voice of Cagliostro, “or did you forget our appointment?”

“I am glad it is you,” said the man in the French Guards sergeant dress, breathing as if his heart were relieved of great weight. “These devilish streets are so dark and deserted that I do not know but it is better to run up against any body than not to meet a soul.”

“Pshaw,” returned the magician, “the idea of your fearing any thing at any hour of the day or night! You will never make me believe that of a man like you who would go anywhere with a sword by his side. However, step on this side of the railings, and you will be tranquil, my dear Captain Beausire, for you will meet no one but me.”

Beausire acted on the invitation, and the key grated again in the lock, to fasten the gate behind him.

“Keep to this little path,” continued Cagliostro, “and at twenty paces you will come upon a little broken altar, on the steps of which we can nicely manage our little business.”

“Where the mischief do you see any path?” he grumbled, after starting with a good will. “I meet nothing but nettles tearing my ankles and grass up to my knees.”

“I own that this cemetery is as badly kept as any I know of; but it is not astonishing, for here are buried only the condemned prisoners executed in the City, and no one plants flowers for such poor fellows. Still we have some undeniable celebrities here, my dear Beausire. If it were daylight I would show you where lies Bouteville Montmorency, decapitated for having fought a duel; the Knight of Rohan who suffered the same fate for conspiring against the Government; Count Horn broken on the wheel for murdering a Jew; Damiens who tried to kill Louis XVI., and lots more. Oh, you are wrong to defame St. Jean’s; it is badly kept but it well keeps its famous ones.”

Beausire followed the guide so closely that he locked steps with him like a soldier in the second rank with the predecessor so that when the latter stopped suddenly he ran up against him.

“Ah! this is a fresh one; the grave of your comrade Fleurdepine, one of the murderers of François the Assemblymen’s baker, who was hanged a week ago by sentence at the Chatelet; this ought to interest you, as he was, like you, a corporal, a sergeant by his own promotion, and a crimp – I mean a recruiter.”

The hearer’s teeth chattered; the thistles he walked among seemed so many skeleton fingers stretched up to trip him, and make him understand that this is the place where he would have his everlasting sleep.

“Well, we have arrived,” said the cicerone, stopping at a mound of ruins.

Sitting down on a stone he pointed out another to his companion, as if placed for a conversation. It was time, for the ex-soldier’s knees were knocking together so that he fell rather than sat on the elevation.

“Now that we are comfortable for a chat,” went on the magician, “let us know what went on under the Royale Place arches. The meeting must have been interesting?”

“To tell the truth, count, I am so upset that I really believe you will get a clearer account by questioning me.”

“Be it so, I am easy going, and the shape of news little matters provided I get it. How many of you met at the arches?”

“Six, including myself.”

“I wonder if they were the persons I conjecture to be there? Primo, you, no doubt.”

Beausire groaned as though he wished there could be doubt on that head.

“You do me much honor in commencing by me, for there were very great grandees compared with me.”

“My dear boy, I follow the Gospel: ‘The first shall be last.’ If the first are to be last, why, the last will naturally lead. So I begin with you, according to Scripture. Then there would be your comrade Tourcaty, an old recruiting officer who is charged to raise the Brabant Legion?”

“Yes, we had Tourcaty.”

“Then, there would be that sound royalist Marquie, once sergeant in the French Guards, now sub-lieutenant in a regiment of the centre line. Favras, of course? the Masked Man? Any particulars to furnish about the Masked Man?”

The traitor looked at the inquirer so fixedly that his eyes seemed to kindle in the dark.

“Why, is it not – “ but he stopped as if fearing to commit a sacrilege if he went farther.

“What’s this? have you a knot in your tongue? Take care of being tongue-tied. Knots in the tongue lead to knots round the neck, and as they are slip ones, they are the worst kind.”

“Well, is it not the King’s b-b-brother?” stammered the other.

“Nonsense, my dear Beausire, it is conceivable that Favras, who wants it believed that he clasps hands with a royal prince in the plot, should give out that the Mask hides the King’s brother, Provence, but you and your mate, Tourcaty, recruiting-sergeants, are men used to measure men by their height in inches and lines, and it is not likely you would be cheated that way.”

“No, it is not likely,” agreed the soldier.

“The King’s brother is five feet three and seven lines,” pursued the magician, “while the Masked Man is nearly five feet six.”