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Moreover, had I made detours, or skirted cities, Barbemouche might have gone ahead by the main road and lain in wait further south for my coming up, for Frolichard, the peasant, had heard me tell the woodman my destination.
The burly rascal saluted the mounted gentleman, saying, in a coarse, strident voice: "At your service, M. le Vicomte de Berquin." "Know your place, Barbemouche!" was the quick reply. "I am talking with a gentleman." Then I remembered the morning after my flight from Paris, seven years before.
Admirable self-assurance! I was about to answer, when Barbemouche put in; "So you, whom it was in my power to kill a hundred times over that night, are the very Tournoire whom I chased from one end of France to the other eight years ago?" And he looked me over with a frank curiosity. "Yes," I said, with a smile, "after you had destroyed the home of my fathers. And at last you have found me."
But, how long she might postpone the final confession of surrender, it must come at last, for the surrender itself was already made. Her heart was mine. What mattered it now though the governor had come to Clochonne solely in quest of me? What though he knew my hiding-place, discovered by the persistent De Berquin, and its location by him communicated through Barbemouche?
So, as a last resource, I would save my life by disclosing myself; but I would defer this disclosure until the last possible instant. De Berquin and Barbemouche were evidently in for amusing themselves awhile at my expense. They would prolong matters for their own pleasure and my own further humiliation. Meanwhile, an unexpected means of eluding them might arise.
Who is it that has given the Duke of Guise so great a desire for his company?" "The Sieur de la Tournoire," replied Barbemouche. "Have you met him on the road?" "I have never heard of him, before," said the young cavalier, indifferently; and he rode on northward, while Barbemouche and his men silently took the opposite direction.
Meanwhile, Barbemouche had gone to the door and cautiously opened it, no one having barred it after my departure from the kitchen. I could hear the sound of Blaise's superb snoring, mingled with the less resonant efforts of the old couple. Barbemouche surveyed as much of the kitchen as the moonlight disclosed to him. Then he quietly shut the door and turned to his fellows. "It is well," he said.
Both showed the marks of reverses and hard drinking. Barbemouche's sword was, manifestly, no longer in the pay of the Duke of Guise, but was ready to serve the first bidder. Barbemouche shrugged his shoulders at De Berquin's reproof, and led his three sorry-looking companions to a bench in front of the inn, where they searched their pockets for coin before venturing to cross the threshold.
Looking back, soon, we saw that the other pursuers, on coming up to their dead comrades, had chosen first to look after the belongings of the latter rather than to avenge their deaths. And while Barbemouche and his men, of whom there were now six, tarried over the dead bodies, we made such good speed that at last we were out of sight of them.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen," cried the fat rascal, reproachfully, "would you spoil this affair and rob me of my share of the pay? God knows we are all gentlemen, and rascals, too!" "Very well," said Barbemouche, relieved by his brief explosion of wrath, "this matter can wait."
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