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Updated: June 8, 2025
It seemed to me that a sufficient number of days had now passed to tire the patience of Barbemouche, and that I might now visit my chateau for the short time necessary. Nevertheless, it was with great caution that I approached the neighborhood in which all my life, until my departure for Paris, had been passed. At each bend of the road, I stopped and listened before going on.
"The opinion of a dead lackey does not amount to much," gutturally observed Barbemouche. Doubtless I should have felt the point of his rapier between my shoulders but that he waited on the will of De Berquin. His tone showed that he really had the high regard for his looks that De Berquin's words had implied.
Just as they did so, there rode up, from the south, a merry-looking young cavalier followed by two mounted servants. This newcomer gaily hailed the ill-looking leader of the troop from the north with the words: "Ah, M. Barbemouche, whither bound, with your back towards Paris?" "For Anjou, M. de Berquin," growled the leader. "What!" said the other, with a grin.
Blaise, disdaining to use steel against an unarmed antagonist, contented himself with dodging the blow and dragging Barbemouche to a place where an opening in the courtyard wall overlooked a steep, rocky descent which was for some distance without vegetation. Here the two men grappled.
But I had no sooner shown my back to M. de Berquin, than I found myself face to face with the scowling Barbemouche, who stood motionless, the point of his sword not many inches from my breast. I stood still and reflected. "You lack a weapon," said M. de Berquin, humorously. "I shall presently give you mine, point first."
I saw that I had at least awakened his interest in the idea that I might be worth using alive. "I will tell you," I answered, "if you will first ask this unpleasant person behind me to step aside." "Unpleasant person!" repeated Barbemouche, astonished at my audacity. "You dog, do you speak in such terms of a gentleman?" So he was under the delusion also that he possessed gentility.
He had never heard of me, as he said, nor I of him; yet he was to know much of me at a time to come, was the Vicomte de Berquin; and so was Barbemouche, the scowling man who was now riding towards Anjou in search of me. When one is pursued, one's best course is to pursue the pursuer.
"The man on whom you left this mark," and Blaise pointed to his own forehead, "in Paris on St. Bartholomew's night thirteen years ago." "Then I did not kill you?" muttered Barbemouche, glaring fiercely at Blaise. "God had further use for me," said Blaise. De Berquin and I both stepped aside, perceiving that here was a matter in which neither of us was concerned.
As I was still facing Barbemouche, I imagined the point of the Vicomte's sword entering my back, and I will confess that I shivered. "And I mine," growled Barbemouche. "Though you are a lackey and I a gentleman, yet, by the grandmother of Beelzebub, I am glad to see you!" "Indeed!" said I, whose only hope was to gain time for thought. "This is a heartier welcome than a stranger might expect."
Very soon De Berquin strode in through the gateway, followed by the burly Barbemouche. Both looked wayworn and fatigued. "Monsieur de la Tournoire," said De Berquin, saluting me with fine grace and a pleasant air, he never lost the ways of a gallant gentleman, "I have come here to do you a service." So! thought I, does he really intend to seek my confidence and try to betray me, after all?
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