The Red Cockade

"Now you have had your say, perhaps you will let me have mine," the Captain said, with acerbity, taking advantage of the hearing thus gained for him. "It is very well for you, M. l'Avoué, and you, Monsieur-I have forgotten your name-you are not fighting men, and my difficulty does not affect you. But there are half a dozen at this table who are placed as I am, and they understand. You may organise; but if your officers are carried off every morning, you will not go far."

"How carried off?" the lawyer cried, puffing out his thin cheeks. "Members of the Committee of-"

"How?" M. le Capitaine rejoined, cutting him short without ceremony-"by the prick of a small sword! You do not understand; but, for some of us, we cannot go three paces from this door without risk of an insult and a challenge."

"That is true!" the two gentlemen at the foot of the table cried with one voice.

"It is true, and more," the Captain continued, warming as he spoke. "It is no chance work, but a plan. It is their plan for curbing us. I have seen three men in the streets to-day, who, I can swear, are fencing-masters in fine clothes."

"Assassins!" the lawyer cried pompously.

"That is all very well," Hugues said more soberly. "You can call them what you please. But what is to be done? If we cannot move abroad without a challenge and a duel, we are helpless. You will have all your leaders picked off."

"The people will avenge you!" the lawyer said, with a grand air.

M. le Capitaine shrugged his shoulders. "Thank you for nothing," he said.

Father Benôit interposed. "At present," he said anxiously, "I think that there is only one thing to be done. You have said, M. le Capitaine, that some of the committee are not fighting men. Why, I would ask, should any fight, and play into our opponents' hands?"

"Par Dieu! I think that you are right!" Hugues answered frankly. And he looked round as if to collect opinions. "Why should we? I am sure that I do not wish to fight. I have given my proofs."

There was a short pause, during which we looked at one another doubtfully. "Well, why not?" the Captain said at last. "This is not play, but business. We are no longer gentlemen at large, but soldiers under discipline."

"Yes," I said stiffly, for I found all looking at me. "But it is difficult, M. le Capitaine, for men of honour to divest themselves of certain ideas. If we are not to protect ourselves from insult, we sink to the level of beasts."

"Have no fear, M. le Vicomte!" Buton cried abruptly. "The people will not suffer it!"

"No, no; the people will not suffer it!" one or two echoed; and for a moment the room rang with cries of indignation.

"Well, at any rate," the Captain said at last, "all are now warned. And if, after this, they fight lightly, they do it with full knowledge that they are playing their adversaries' game. I hope all understand that. For my part," he continued, shrugging his shoulders with a dry laugh, "they may cane me; I shall not fight them! I am no fool!"

CHAPTER XII.

THE DUEL

I have said already how all this weighed me down; with what misgivings I looked along the table, from the pale, pinched features of the lawyer to the smug grin of the grocer, or Buton's coarse face; with what sinkings of heart I found myself on a sudden the equal of these men, addressed now with rude abruptness, and now with servility; last, but not least, with what despondency I listened to the wrangling which followed, and which it needed all the exertions of the Captain to control. Fortunately, the sitting did not last long. After half an hour of debate and conversation, during which I did what I could to aid the few who knew anything of business, the meeting broke up; and while some went out on various missions, others remained to deal with such affairs as arose. I was one of those appointed to stay, and I drew Father Benôit into a corner, and, hiding for a moment the feeling of despair which possessed me, I asked him if any further outbreaks had occurred in the country round.

"No," he answered, secretly pressing my hand. "We have done so much good, I think." Then, in a different tone, which showed how clearly he read my mind, he continued, under his breath, "Ah! M. le Vicomte, let us only keep the peace! Let us do what lies to our hands. Let us protect the innocent, and then, no matter what happens. Alas, I foresee more than I predicted. More than I dreamed of is in peril. Let us only cling to-"

He stopped, and turned, startled by the noisy entrance of the Captain; who came in so abruptly that those who remained at the table sprang to their feet. M. Hugues' face was flushed, his eyes were gleaming with anger. The lawyer, who stood nearest to the door, turned a shade paler, and stammered out a question. But the Captain passed by him with a glance of contempt, and came straight to me. "M. le Vicomte," he said out loud, blurting out his words in haste, "you are a gentleman. You will understand me. I want your help."

I stared at him. "Willingly," I said. "But what is the matter?"

"I have been insulted!" he answered, his moustaches curling.

"How?"

"In the street! And by one of those puppies! But I will teach him manners! I am a soldier, sir, and I-"

"But, stay, M. le Capitaine," I said, really taken aback. "I understood that there was to be no fighting. And that you in particular-"

"Tut! tut!"

"Would be caned before you would go out."

"Sacré Nom!" he cried, "what of that? Do you think that I am not a gentleman because I have served in America instead of in France?"

"No," I said, scarcely able to restrain a smile. "But it is playing into their hands. So you said yourself, a minute ago, and-"

"Will you help me, or will you not, sir?" he retorted angrily. And then, as the lawyer tried to intervene, "Be silent, you!" he continued, turning on him so violently that the scrivener jumped back a pace. "What do you know of these things? You miserable pettifogger! you-"

"Softly, softly, M. le Capitaine," I said, startled by this outbreak, and by the prospect of further brawling which it disclosed. "M. l'Avoué is doing merely his duty in remonstrating. He is in the right, and-

"I have nothing to do with him! And for you-you will not assist me?"

"I did not say that."

"Then, if you will, I crave your services at once! At once," he said more calmly; but he still kept his shoulder to the lawyer. "I have appointed a meeting behind the Cathedral. If you will honour me, I must ask you to do so immediately."

I saw that it was useless to say more; that he had made up his mind; and for answer I took up my hat. In a moment we were moving towards the door. The lawyer, the grocer, half a dozen cried out on us, and would have stopped us. But Father Benôit remained silent, and I went on down the stairs, and out of the house. Outside it was easy to see that the quarrel and insult had had spectators; a gloomy crowd, not compact, but made up of watching groups, filled all the sunny open part of the square. The pavement, on the other hand, along which we had to pass to go to the Cathedral, had for its only occupants a score or more of gentlemen, who, wearing white cockades, walked up and down in threes and fours. The crowd eyed them silently; they affected to see nothing of the crowd. Instead, they talked and smiled carelessly, and with half-opened eyes; swung their canes, and saluted one another, and now and then stopped to exchange a word or a pinch of snuff. They wore an air of insolence, ill-hidden, which the silent, almost cowed looks of the multitude, as it watched them askance, seemed to justify.

We had to run the gauntlet of these; and my face burned with shame, as we passed. Many of the men, whom I met now, I had met two days before at Madame St. Alais', where they had seen me put on the white cockade; they saw me now in the opposite camp, they knew nothing of my reasons, and I read in their averted eyes and curling lips what they thought of the change. Others-and they looked at me insolently, and scarcely gave me room to pass-were strangers, wearing military swords, and the cross of St. Louis.

Fortunately the passage was as short as it was painful. We passed under the north wall of the Cathedral, and through a little door into a garden, where lime trees tempered the glare of the sun, and the town, with its crowd and noise, seemed to be in a moment left behind. On the right rose the walls of the apse and the heavy eastern domes of the Cathedral; in front rose the ramparts; on the left an old, half-ruined tower of the fourteenth century lifted a frowning ivy-covered head. In the shadow, at its foot, on a piece of smooth sward, a group of four persons were standing waiting for us.

One was M. de St. Alais, one was Louis; the others were strangers. A sudden thought filled me with horror. "Whom are you going to fight?" I muttered.

"M. de St. Alais," the Captain answered, in the same tone. And then, being within earshot of the others, I could say no more. They stepped forward, and saluted us.

"M. le Vicomte?" Louis said. He was grave and stern. I scarcely knew him.

I assented mechanically, and we stepped aside from the others. "This is not a case that admits of intervention, I believe?" he said, bowing.

"I suppose not," I answered huskily.

In truth, I could scarcely speak for horror. I was waking slowly to the consciousness of the dilemma in which I had placed myself. Were St. Alais to fall by the Captain's sword, what would his sister say to me, what would she think of me, how would she ever touch my hand? And yet could I wish ill to my own principal? Could I do so in honour, even if something sturdy and practical, something of plain gallantry in the man, whom I was here to second, had not already and insensibly won my heart?

Yet one of the two must fall. The great clock above my head, slowly telling out the hour of noon, beat the truth into my brain. For a moment I grew dizzy; the sun dazzled me, the trees reeled before me, the garden swam. The murmur of the crowd outside filled my ears. Then out of the mist Louis' voice, unnaturally steady, gripped my attention, and my brain grew clear again.

"Have you any objection to this spot?" he said. "The grass is dry, and not slippery. They will fight in shadow, and the light is good."

"It will do," I muttered.

"Perhaps you will examine it? There is, I think, no trip or fault."

I affected to do so. "I find none," I said hoarsely.

"Then we had better place our men?"