Читать книгу A Fire of Driftwood - D. K. Broster - Страница 12

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Jean-Marie came back next morning, with his uncle’s musket and the intelligence that the Blues had been forced to draw off with considerable slaughter. His comrades in arms, however, were temporarily disbanded. Never communicative, and abashed perhaps by the presence of his leader—though the latter was still insensible—he had fallen, at the end of his brief recital, to polishing his own English musket, while Yves, sitting by the side of the great bed, appeared sunk in meditation. Through the open door of the lit clos could be seen the head and shoulders of l’Invincible, lying as if asleep; only the broad strip of linen round his brow suggested a slumber not entirely natural. And Yves was gazing wistfully at the clear lineaments which bore, even in unconsciousness, something of the disdainful and implacable determination which had gained for their owner his nom de guerre.

“Yes, I hope that the Blues do not know he was hit,” remarked Yves at last in a low voice. “It would encourage them too much.”

“You are sure that he will recover?” asked his nephew, glancing at the pillow.

“The saints,” said Yves solemnly, “did not send us a leader such as he to get knocked on the head as easily as that! ... And yet he was not always like this.... Who should know, if not I, his foster-father? When he was a boy, it was pleasure that he thought of always. Then he grew up to be a man, and wherever he went he left a broken heart behind him.”

“One conceives that easily,” said Jean-Marie.

“N’est-ce pas? But he grew tired of that.... It was strange.... Listen, and I will tell thee something. One day, before the rebels had pulled down our King’s Bastille—which accursed deed thou hast doubtless heard of, Jean-Marie—before all these troubles, M. le Comte was at Versailles, where was a great palace of the King, and the most beautiful gardens in the world. He was there, M. Hervé, with many fine ladies, and young gallants like himself, who did nothing but amuse themselves and make love all day long, and he the most careless and the handsomest of them all. Well, as they were sitting talking and laughing in these gardens a fortune-teller came along, and nothing would satisfy these great ladies and gentlemen but to have their fortunes told. So she told them this and told them that, how this one would be fortunate in love and I know not what, but Mr. Hervé was too indifferent to have his fate told, because in those days nothing seemed worth any trouble. But a lady, I think it was, insisted upon it; so the fortune-teller looked into M. Hervé’s palm, and all she said was: ‘Beware how you lie at the Inn of the Sword!’ ”

“And what pray would that mean?” asked Jean-Marie, ceasing his polishing.

“Ah, thou mayst well ask,” returned Yves, shaking his long grey locks. “Nobody there could guess, least of all M. Hervé. But they all laughed, and most of all M. Hervé, for he said: ‘I am never likely to lie there, my good woman. Do you think my hand looks as though it loved the touch of steel?’ And indeed it did not, in those days.”

“But,” objected Jean-Marie, knitting his brows, “the woman spoke of an inn; she meant to warn M. le Comte not to——”

“Jean-Marie,” said his uncle, “thou art little better than an imbecile! As if M. Hervé had thy dull wits! Dost thou not know that fortune-tellers often speak in riddles? It was no inn she meant, but that some day M. Hervé should change his whole life—and that was the strange thing, that she should know it. Tell me, thou who hast fought with him these twelve months, does he not lie every night of his life at the Inn of the Sword?”

Some glimmering of his elder’s meaning broke on the slower mind of Jean-Marie, and he nodded silently, thinking of nights under the stars, in the broom and the heather.

“And why has M. le Comte changed?” he demanded after a long pause.

“God willed it,” responded Yves simply and with conviction. He turned his head and looked at his foster-son; rose and bent over him a moment, then, sitting down again, drew out his rosary and began to tell his beads absorbedly, while Jean-Marie resumed his interminable polishing.