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Updated: July 16, 2025
The mountebank was curious, the mountebank's doxy was kind; both applauded lustily the boy's resolve to march to Paris, cost what it might cost, and make his fortune there. The end of the curiosity and the kindness and the applause was that the little Lagardere found himself at once the apprentice and the adopted son of the mountebank, with his fortune as far off as the stars.
Æsop looked at him with raised eyebrows and a wicked grin. "Why banish the lady? She might find my tale entertaining." At an imperative signal from Lagardere, Gabrielle entered the Inn. Lagardere then advanced towards Æsop, who watched him with folded arms and his familiar malevolent smile. When they were quite close, Æsop greeted Lagardere: "So the rat has come to the trap at last.
There must be people within call even in this sleepy neighborhood." Lagardere still smiled, and the smile was still provocative. "But if you raise your voice I shall be reluctantly compelled to stab you where you stand. Ah, coward, can you only fight in the dark when you are nine to one?" Æsop gave his hilt a hitch. "You will serve my master's turn as well dead as alive.
The leading shadow seemed to be peering into the darkness in front of him. "I told them to place a sentinel," he said to his companion; and as he spoke he caught sight of Lagardere, who must have looked as shadowy to him as he looked to Lagardere, and he pointed as he added: "Yes, there is some one there, monseigneur."
Lagardere changed his phrase: "Then you come of a bad house, and deserve to be hanged!" In a second the little marquis dropped his daffing manner. "If you were a gentleman, sir," he cried, "and had a right to the sword you presume to carry, I would make you back your words!" Lagardere smiled ironically.
His twitching mouth whispered one word, but that word was "Lagardere!" and that word was repeated on the lips of every man and woman that watched him.
Stretching out his arm, he extended the sword between Gonzague and the parchment and touched with its point the signature that was still wet upon its surface. In a terrible voice he cried: "Lagardere, who always keeps his tryst! I am here!" For a moment that seemed sempiternal a kind of horrible silence reigned over the room. It was hard to understand what had happened.
The landlord was kept busy enough attending to those passers-by in the early part of the day, and, now that the stream had ceased and custom slackened, he was glad enough to take his ease in-doors and leave his garden to its loneliness. When, therefore, Lagardere and Æsop entered the garden they found it as quiet and as uninhabited as any pair of swordsmen could desire.
"Well," said Lagardere, "what do you think of it?" Æsop, the irrepressible, thrust in his opinion. "Never was secret thrust invented that cannot be parried." Lagardere looked at him somewhat contemptuously. "So I thought till I crossed swords with Nevers. Now I think differently." Cocardasse whistled. "The devil you do," he commented.
The boy answered him, decisively: "They shall be." Lagardere patted him on the back. "Good lad," he said, and the boy darted from his side and disappeared into the darkness. Lagardere turned to the duke. "There is no chance of escaping now without a scuffle," he said; "we must fight it out as well as we can.
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