The rose of old St. Louis 29 – Dillon · Verses Across
Literature · Historical Fiction
The rose of old St. Louis 29Exit Le Chevalier
18
Literature · Historical Fiction
The rose of old St. Louis 29
Exit Le Chevalier
DillonEnglish
"The King of France with forty thousand men,
Went up a hill, and so came down agen."
Clothilde, Cæsar, and I had ridden late into the night before we had reached the little village on the Seine where my boatman, Gustave, was to tie up. But it was moonlight and we rode through a beautiful country dotted with royal châteaus,--the birthplaces of illustrious kings,--and I had my thoughts, and Clotilde and Cæsar had each other: for Cæsar was the first of her kind Clotilde had seen since coming to France, and much as she might enjoy the attentions of footmen in gorgeous liveries, after all they were only "white trash," and she loved best her own color. Clotilde was rapidly becoming consoled; and though she only spoke creole French, and Cæsar only English, save for the few words he had picked up since coming to Paris, they seemed to make themselves very well understood.
So the ride had not been so tedious as it might have been. And when we had found Gustave's boat tied to the bank and had routed up him and his wife, and delivered Clotilde into their care (and their admiration and awe of the black lady was wonderful to see), and Cæsar and I had hunted up a fairly comfortable inn and had two or three hours of sleep, we were all quite ready to start on again.
Feeling that Clotilde was a sacred trust, I was anxious both for her safety and for her welfare, and thus it was that the early morning found me following the windings of the Seine by a little bridle-path on its banks, hardly twenty feet from Gustave's boat dropping down with the tide. Gustave's wife was in the forward part of the boat, preparing breakfast for the three, and the savory odor of her bacon and coffee was borne by the breeze straight to my nostrils on the high bank above her. Gustave himself was in the stern of the boat, lazily managing the steering-oar and waiting for his breakfast, and incidentally grinning from ear to ear at Cæsar, riding a pace behind me and casting longing glances at the thatched roof of the little boat's cabin, whence issued in rich negro tones the creole love-song Yorke had sung to Clotilde on the Ohio boat:
"Every springtime
All the lovers
Change their sweethearts;
Let change who will,
I keep mine."
I had straitly charged Clotilde that she must keep herself closely concealed within the cabin, but I had said nothing to her about also keeping quiet. Now I was idly thinking that perhaps I had better give her instructions upon that point also, when down the stony road some three feet higher than the bridle-path, and separated from it by a bank of turf, came the thunder of hoofs. I glanced up quickly. A little party of horsemen, five or six in number, were dashing down the road toward us, and in the lead was the Chevalier Le Moyne! At sight of us they drew rein, and the chevalier, looking down on me (for the first time in his life), brought his hat to his saddle-bow with a flourish.
"Good morning, Monsieur. I hear you are off for America."
"Good morning," I answered coolly, merely touching my own hat. "You have heard correctly"; and I wished with all my heart that I had had time to tell Clotilde to keep still, for up from the boat below, louder and clearer than ever, it seemed to me, came the refrain of her foolish song:
"Tous les printemps,
Tous les amants
Changent de maîtresses;
Qu'ils changent qui voudront,
Pour moi, je garde la mienne."
The chevalier was listening pointedly.
"An old song, Monsieur, that I have often heard in St. Louis. And the voice, too, I think is familiar. It is the black maid of the Comtesse de Baloit, is it not? Perhaps her mistress is with her; if so, our quest is at an end."
"What do you mean, Monsieur le Chevalier!" I exclaimed, affecting virtuous indignation, and feeling a little of it, too, for I liked not the chevalier's manner.
"You have heard, I suppose," he answered, with a light sneer, "that the comtesse has disappeared from Paris. At almost the same moment it was announced that monsieur had started for America, and some of the comtesse's friends thought it not impossible that they had gone together. From the warbling of that nightingale yonder I judge they were not far wrong."
Not until this moment had it occurred to me that any one would connect the flight of the comtesse with my departure, and I hardly knew whether I was more ragingly angry at the thought or secretly glad. There was no question as to my state of mind toward the chevalier. That he should speak in such a light and sneering tone of any lady, but most of all that he should so speak of the loveliest lady on earth, was not to be borne. Yet I was glad, for some reasons, that such a mistaken surmise had arisen: it would throw pursuit off the track until Pelagie was well on her way to the German frontier, and the truth would come out later and my lady not suffer in her reputation (which indeed I could not have endured).
So instead of giving free vent to the anger that raged in my heart, as I longed to do, I thought it wise to dally with the chevalier and keep him as long as possible on the wrong scent, for every moment of delay to the chevalier was setting mademoiselle farther on her way.
"Your news, Monsieur," I said, "is most astonishing, but your insinuations also most insulting to a lady whose honor and reputation shall ever be my dearest care."
Now the chevalier was five to one (for I could not count upon Cæsar for fighting, as I might have counted upon Yorke). I do not say that that fact made the chevalier more bold or less careful in his manner, but I certainly think that had we been man to man he would not have answered as he did.
"Your virtuous indignation is pretty to see, Monsieur," he answered; "but I have the warrant of the republic to search whatever domains I may suspect of harboring the comtesse, and I think I will use my rights on yonder boat, where I see the face of her maid at the window."
I glanced quickly at the boat. Sure enough, in the little square of glass that formed the window of the cabin was framed Clotilde's black face. And her nose (already broad enough) being flattened against the glass, and her eyes rolling wildly with curiosity and fear as she gazed at the party of armed horsemen on the bank, she made a ludicrous picture indeed. I would have liked to laugh heartily but that it was my rôle to display chagrin and anxiety rather than a careless levity.
"Monsieur," I said seriously, "you are quite right: that is Clotilde, the maid of Mademoiselle la Comtesse. I was requested last evening to take her back to America and return her to her friends in St. Louis. It will always be my greatest pleasure to render the comtesse any service within my power, and I did not stop to question why she wished to get rid of her maid."
"Your explanation is most plausible, Monsieur,"--the chevalier's tone was intentionally insulting, and, but that I had mademoiselle's interests more at heart than my own sensitive self-esteem, would have been hard to brook,--"but since I hold a warrant of search, if Monsieur permits, I will do myself the honor of visiting his boat."
Now I cared not at all whether the chevalier visited the boat or not, knowing well he would not find the comtesse there. My only anxiety was to temporize as long as possible and keep him still suspicious of my complicity with mademoiselle's flight, that she might profit by his delay in discovering the true scent. So I answered sternly:
"Monsieur, that boat is for the time being United States territory. You step upon its planks without my consent at your peril. I will at once report the matter to our minister at Paris, Mr. Livingston, and if a war between the United States and France is the result, you will have to give an account to the First Consul of your acts which caused that war."
I was not enough of a diplomat to know whether I was speaking within my rights or not, but I trusted to the chevalier being no better informed than I, and at the best I was but speaking against time. The effect of my speech was all that I could have desired. The chevalier looked immediately crestfallen, and turned to consult with his comrades. For full five minutes (I could have wished it ten times five) they carried on a conference that at times appeared to be heated, though always low-toned. Then the chevalier turned to me again, and his manner was no longer insulting, but of such respect as is due one gentleman from another.
"Monsieur," he said, "perhaps I have no right to demand that I be allowed to search a boat belonging to an American gentleman, but if Monsieur will permit me to do so he will oblige me greatly, and it will be the means of clearing him at once of suspicions that may have unjustly accrued to him."
There was no wisdom in delaying longer.
"Since Monsieur puts it in that way," I said, "I can have no object in refusing his request. I shall have to ask you, however, that you wait a few minutes until I step aboard and warn Gustave and his wife of the purpose of your visit, lest they be unnecessarily alarmed."
The chevalier showed that he liked not the last part of my speech. He no doubt thought that my purpose in going aboard first was to find a secure hiding-place for the comtesse. However, he had no alternative but to acquiesce. My real purpose was to warn Gustave and his wife that on no account were they to betray at what hour or where Clotilde had come aboard. She was to have come aboard at Paris at four o'clock the day before; and they, having no inkling of the true state of the case, but suspecting, I believe, some intrigue between the "dark lady" and her lovers, sympathetically promised implicit obedience. With Clotilde I was even more strenuous. Her story must agree with Gustave's: she had boarded the boat in Paris at four of the afternoon; but especially was she to know nothing of her mistress's plans--why or where she had gone. With her I appealed to her love for her mistress, and warned her that the comtesse's liberty, possibly her life, might depend upon her discretion. With the others a promise of liberal rewards if they proved true, and dire threats should they betray me, I believed secured their fidelity.
I had had Gustave tie the boat to the bank before boarding it myself; I now invited the chevalier and his friends to come aboard. Leaving two of their comrades to hold their horses, the three others climbed down the bank and hastened to comply with my invitation. As they did so I saw Cæsar dismount, tie his own horse and mine securely to two saplings, and clamber up the bank beside the horsemen. I thought his motive was probably to take advantage of this opportunity to stretch his legs, and perhaps also to indulge his curiosity with a nearer view of the French gentlemen, and I saw no reason to interfere--especially as the two gentlemen, young blades whom I knew by sight, not only offered no objections, but began at once to amuse themselves with his clownish manners and outlandish speech.
Of course the chevalier's quest was futile, as also was his examination of his three witnesses. They all stuck to their text,--the embarkation of Clotilde at four o'clock on the afternoon previous in Paris,--and Clotilde was as stupid as heart could desire, professing absolute ignorance of her mistress's plans, and knowing only that she herself was being sent home to America because she was homesick; and with a negress's love of gratuitous insult when she thinks she is safe in offering it, she added in her creole dialect:
"De Lord knows, I's sick o' white trash anyhow. I's mighty glad to be gittin' back to a country ob ladies and gen'lemen."
The chevalier's two companions laughed, but the chevalier looked perplexed.
"Monsieur," he said, with an air of exaggerated deference, "I have discovered nothing on your boat, either by search or by examination of the witnesses, that can implicate you in any way with the flight of the Comtesse de Baloit. But will you permit me to ask you one important question? How does it happen that you are not riding Fatima, and that you are riding the horse which answers exactly to the description of the one the comtesse was riding when she disappeared?" and the chevalier could not quite keep the tone of triumph out of his voice as he propounded his question. I had been expecting it, and I was prepared for it. I should have been much disappointed if he had not asked it.
"Monsieur," I answered, "Fatima met with a serious accident just after leaving Paris. I was obliged to leave her in the hands of a veterinary surgeon on the outskirts of St. Denis, who has also a small farm connected with his establishment for the care of sick horses. He promised me to take the best of care of her and to return her to me in America as soon as she was sufficiently recovered. I bought this horse from a dealer to whom the surgeon directed me. I cannot say whether it resembles the horse on which the Comtesse de Baloit left Paris; I did not see the comtesse when she left Paris."
Which was the only truth in my statement; but I did not for a moment consider that I had told a lie, but only that I had employed a ruse, perfectly permissible in war, to throw the enemy off the track. He snatched at the bait.
"Will Monsieur give me the address of that horse-dealer?"
"With pleasure, as nearly as I am able," and thereupon I described minutely a place in St. Denis that never existed. But St. Denis was only four miles this side of Paris, and should the chevalier go all the way back to find out from the mythical horse-dealer where he had procured my horse, much valuable time would be lost and mademoiselle would, I hoped, be beyond all risk of being overtaken.
By one little artifice and another we had already managed to delay them for a good three quarters of an hour, and now, by an apparently happy accident, as long a delay again was promised. A great noise of shouting and trampling of horses' hoofs arose on the bank above us.
We looked up and saw the five horses plunging frantically, with the two Frenchmen uttering excited cries as they tried to hold them, and Cæsar doing his share in trying to hold the horses and more than his share in making a noise. As we looked, one of the horses broke away and started up the road toward Paris. The two Frenchmen dashed wildly in pursuit, each man leading a horse with him, and Cæsar running on behind gesticulating madly, and bellowing at the top of his lungs.
I had taken advantage of the excitement of the fracas to slip from the post the rope that held us to the bank. We glided gently away down the river, with no one (unless it might have been Gustave, but he said nothing) noticing that we were moving until we were many yards below our mooring-place. The anger of the chevalier and his friends when they discovered it knew no bounds. Gustave was full of apologies for his carelessness, as he called it; I was dignified.
"Gustave," I said severely, "make a mooring as quickly as possible, that Monsieur le Chevalier and his friends may rejoin their horses."
Gustave made all haste apparently, but without doubt he fumbled, and we were some two or three hundred yards farther down the river before we were finally tied to the bank.
"Good-by, Messieurs," I said politely as the three hastened to leap ashore. "I trust you will have no difficulty in recovering your horses."
They stayed not upon the order of their going, as Mr. Shakspere says, but scrambled up the bank and on to the hot and stony road, and the sun, now well up in the sky, beating strongly on their backs, they started at a round pace toward Paris, their horses by this time out of sight around a distant bend in the road.
Cæsar had given up the pursuit and returned to where he had tied our horses. I signaled to him to bring them down the river, and mounting his and leading mine, he was soon at our mooring-place.
Riding down the soft turf of the shady bridle-path a few minutes later, I heard Cæsar chuckling behind me. I turned in my saddle:
"What is it, Cæsar?"
"I done it, Marsa!"
"Did what, Cæsar?"
"Done mek dat hoss run away. I put a burr un'er his girth. Den when he plunged I cotched de bridle and let him loose. He, he, he! Hi, hi, hi!" and Cæsar rolled in his saddle in convulsions of mirth, while the shore echoed to his guffaws.
I looked at him in astonishment for a moment. Then he had planned it all: tying the two horses, clambering up to the road, making himself the jest of the two Frenchmen, and all the time the burr concealed in his hand, no doubt, waiting his chance.
"Cæsar, you are a general!" I said. "Yorke could not have done better." And then, his mirth being contagious, I threw back my head and laughed as long and as loud as he.
I turned in my saddle once more and looked up the road. Through the hot sun plodded the three figures: the chevalier with bent head and, I doubted not, with gnashing teeth. I waved my hand toward him and called, though he could neither see nor hear:
"Good-by, Chevalier Le Moyne; this cancels a few debts!"
