The old Marquis had acted with dazzling promptitude. His personal escort had consisted of a troop of loyalist cavalry7 from the King's household guard and it had not yet returned to Paris. He could depend absolutely upon these men. They had none of them been soldiers of the grand armies of the Emperor. They had been recruited in loyal and long-suffering Vendée. He placed them under the command of St. Laurent, of whose conduct he highly approved, being in ignorance of the offer of secrecy8 made by that young soldier, Lestoype being too fine a man to attempt to better his case by bringing the Lieutenant9 into disgrace. This detachment had searched the Major's quarters thoroughly10. They had found them, of course, deserted11.
Captain Grenier, being forthwith summoned to headquarters, had stated truthfully that Marteau had taken the Eagle and gone and thereafter the assembly had dispersed13. He declared upon his word of honor that he had no knowledge where he had gone or what he had done with the Eagle. The Marquis had a complete description of Marteau drawn14 up and sent to every gate in the walled town. The guard was ordered to permit nobody and nothing to pass without the severest scrutiny15 and the closest search or inspection16. The Governor made preparations for public proclamation on the morrow, offering a large reward for the fugitive's apprehension17 dead or alive, and also an additional reward for information that would lead to the discovery of the missing Eagle.
Promising18 himself to deal with the matter even more thoroughly in the morning, he had at last dismissed his subordinates and retired. If Marteau was within the city walls—and it was impossible to see how he could have got out of the town without a pass after twelve o'clock at night—he would find him if he had to search every house in the town. The spirit of the old man was high and aflame. To be so braved, to have his command the scene of such an outbreak of disloyalty and treason to the King was more than he could bear with equanimity19.
There was another regiment20 in the town that had formerly21 been known as the Seventh-of-the-Line, commanded by Colonel Labédoyère, and there were detachments of artillery22. The Eagle of the Seventh had never been sent to the War Office in Paris. It, too, had disappeared. But that had been months before the Marquis' time, and he had no responsibility for that. Colonel Labédoyère was more than suspected of lukewarmness, but as he was a young man of great influence, high social standing23 and much personal popularity no steps had as yet been taken against him. The Marquis determined24 to have it out with him also at the first convenient season, and unless he could be assured of his absolute devotion to King Louis, he would report to the Minister of War the necessity of the Colonel's removal.
The old man was fully12 alive to the Napoleonic sentiment among the soldiers, a sentiment which arose from a variety of motives25. In the first place, war was the trade of most of the soldiers. They lived on it, thrived by it, delighted in it. The permanence of the monarchy26 meant peace. There would be little chance for advancement28 and none at all for plunder29. Self-interest predisposed every old soldier to continue an imperialist.
In the second place, the finances of France were naturally in a most disordered condition. The pay of officers and men was greatly in arrears30; promises made had not been kept, and there was much heart-felt dissatisfaction on that account. The pay of a soldier is in no sense an adequate compensation for the risks he runs, the perils31 to which he voluntarily and willingly subjects himself, but it is a universal experience that although his pay is in no degree commensurate, yet the soldier whose pay is withheld32 instantly becomes insubordinate and mutinous33, however high or patriotic34 the motives back of his enlistment35.
Again the officers had, most of them, been degraded in rank. Many of them had been retired on pittances36 which were not paid. Those who were lucky enough to be retained in active service were superseded37 by superannuated38, often incompetent39 old officers of the old royal army before the revolution, or by young scions40 of nobility with no knowledge or fitness to command veterans, to whom the gross-bodied, uninspiring, gouty old King did not appeal. Again, the regimental names and associations had been changed and the old territorial41 or royal and princely designations had been reëstablished; the Napoleonic victories had been erased42 from the battle-flags; the Eagles had been taken away.
The plain people of France were more or less apathetic43 toward Emperor or King. France had been drained of its best for so long that it craved44 rest and peace and time to recuperate45 above everything else. It had been sated with glory and was alike indifferent to victory or defeat. But the army was a seething46 mass of discontent. It had nothing to gain by the continuance of present conditions and everything to lose. It was a body of soldiers-of-fortune held in control temporarily by circumstances but ready to break the leash47 and respond instantly to the call of the greatest soldier-of-fortune of all.
And while all this is true it must also be admitted that there were many officers and men like Marteau who were profoundly humiliated48 and distressed49 over conditions in France and who, passionately50 wrapped up in and devoted51 to the Emperor, had spurned52 commissions and dignities and preferments. If they were obscure men they remained in France unnoticed; if they were great men they had expatriated themselves and sought seclusion53 and safety in other countries, oftentimes at great personal sacrifice of property, ease and comfort.
The King, who was by no means lacking in shrewdness and wit, and his chief advisers54 in Paris, did not fail to realize something of this, but keen-sighted men like the Marquis d'Aumenier, away from the person of the monarch27, realized it much more fully, although even he had not the least idea of the wide extent and depth of this feeling. But the old man knew instinctively55 that he must control things in Grenoble at least with an iron hand and that no temporizing56 was possible. The return of Marteau, who was a man of parts and power, he admitted—he recalled how well he had borne himself before the little group in the drawing-room!—followed by the midnight gathering57, the joy of the veterans, their worship almost of the Eagle, enlightened him. He would put down sedition58 with an iron hand, he swore to himself. The King had committed this important place to him. It was, in a certain sense, a frontier city if the impossible happened. Well, the King should find that he had not reposed59 trust in the Marquis for nothing.
So the old man thought as he lay sleepless60 during the night. He was not the only one who lay sleepless during the night. Laure d'Aumenier sought rest and oblivion in vain. She had been more moved by Marteau's conduct and bearing and presence in the old Château d'Aumenier, a year ago, than she had been willing to admit until she thought him dead. The Marteaux had always been a good-looking, self-respecting people. Madame Marteau, his mother, had been an unusual woman who had, it was said, married beneath her when she became the wife of old Jean Marteau, although she never in her long married life thought of it in that way. The present Jean Marteau was as handsome and distinguished61 looking a man as there was in France. The delicacy62 and refinement63 of his bearing and appearance did not connote weakness either, as she could testify.
The young woman owed her life and honor to the young soldier. But long before that chance meeting they had been companions in childhood, intimate companions, too. The boy had been her servitor, but he had been more. He had been her protector and friend. In her memory she could recall incident after incident when he had helped her, shielded her. Never once had he failed to show anything but devotion absolute and unbounded toward her.
The proposition of marriage he had made in the old hall, which she had laughed to scorn, had by no means escaped her memory. She had dwelt upon it, she had even speculated upon the possibility of an acceptance of his proposal. Why not? She knew no man more gentle at heart, more gallant64 in soul, more noble in spirit than he. That, too, she had turned over and over in her mind.
She admired Frank Yeovil. He was a likable man, frank by nature as well as name and brave, sunny in disposition65 and ardently66 devoted to her. When the betrothal67 had been made at her uncle's urgent insistence68 that she accept Captain Yeovil's suit, it had been a great match for her, for the d'Aumeniers were impoverished69 exiles, while the Yeovils were a rich family and of a line almost as long as her own. It had been easy enough to plight70 her troth to the young Englishman at first, but since she had seen Marteau, she realized that it would not be easy to keep that engagement. Fortunately, Captain Yeovil had been on service in Spain and the South of France with the Duke of Wellington's army, and only a few weeks before had he joined her uncle and herself in Paris on leave of absence. He had pressed her to name the day but she had temporized71 and avoided the issue; not for any definite reason but because as the time drew near she became less and less willing to be the Englishman's wife.
Marteau had been reported killed at Arcis. Perhaps that report had done more to enlighten her to the true state of her affections than anything else. Her pride of birth, her rank and station would never have permitted her, it may be, to dwell upon a living Marteau as a possible husband, but since he was dead there could be no harm in dreams of that kind; and in her grief she had indulged herself in them to the full. It had been a shock to her, of course, but not so great a shock as it would have been if an engagement had subsisted72 between the two, or she had permitted herself to think that she could ever look favorably on the proposition he had made to her. Nevertheless, it had been a great sorrow. There were some alleviations to the situation, however. Since it had become impossible, since she believed Marteau dead, she could indulge her grief and her mind could dwell upon those attractions which had influenced her so powerfully.
The period was one of intense anxiety and excitement. The old Marquis had lived much alone. He was not versed73 in woman's ways. Her agitation74 and grief passed unnoticed. By degrees she got control of herself. Since it was not to be Marteau it might as well be young Yeovil. The whole episode with which the French officer was concerned she viewed from a point of detachment as a romantic dream. His arrival had rudely shattered that dream and awakened75 her to the reality of the situation. She loved him.
For Laure d'Aumenier to marry Marteau was impossible. The Marquis would never consent. He was her legal guardian76, the head of her race. Marriage without his consent was unthinkable. Loving Marteau she would fain not marry Yeovil; yet her troth being plighted77 in the most public manner and with her consent, the Marquis would force her to keep her word. She knew exactly the pressure that would be brought to bear upon her. Although she had lost some of the pride of her ancestors, she could see the situation from their point of view. There was a deadlock78 before her and there appeared to be no way of breaking it.
It was a wild night outside. The rain beat upon the casement79 windows of the old castle. The tempest without seemed fit accompaniment to the tempest within, thought the woman.
A long time she lay thinking, planning, hoping, praying; alike unavailingly. Toward morning, utterly80 exhausted81 by the violence of her emotions, the scene she had gone through—and it had been a torture to stand and receive the townspeople after the departure of Marteau—she fell at last into a troubled sleep.
She was awakened by a slight sound, as of a light footstep. She enjoyed the faculty82 of awakening83 with full command of her senses at once. She parted the curtains of the bed. With her eyes wide open, holding her breath, she listened. She heard soft movements. There was someone in the room!
Laure d'Aumenier, as has been said, had been trained to self-reliance. She could wield84 a sword expertly and was an accurate shot with a firearm. She could ride with any woman in England. She had, in full, the intrepidity85 and courage of her ancestors. Her prowess, so strange and so unusual in that day in a woman, had been a subject of disapproval86 on the part of her uncle, but Sir Gervaise Yeovil and his son had viewed it with delight. Frank Yeovil had brought her from Spain a beautiful Toledo blade and a pair of Spanish dueling87 pistols, light, easily handled and of deadly accuracy. The blade hung from a peg88 in the wall by the head of her bed. The pistols lay in a case on the table upon which her lighted bedroom candle stood. They were charged and ready for use.
Throwing back the cover without a sound, presently she stepped through the hangings and out on the floor. A loose wrapper lay at the foot of the bed, which was a tall old four-poster, heavily curtained. Whoever was in the room was on the other side of the bed, near the wall. The curtains hung between.
She was as light as a bird in her movements. She drew the bed-gown nearer, thrust her feet into heelless slippers89, placed convenient for her morning rising by her maid, opened the box of pistols, lifted one of them, examining it on the instant to see that it was ready for use, slipped on the wrapper, stepped toward the foot of the bed and waited.
The beat of the rain, the shriek90 of the wind, the roar of the thunder filled the room with sound, but the woman had good ears and they were well trained. She could hear someone softly moving. Sometimes, in lulls91 in the storm, she thought she could detect heavy breathing.
The natural impulse of the ordinary woman would have been to scream or if not that, having gained the floor, to rush to the door, or if not that to pull the bell cord and summon help. But Laure d'Aumenier was not an ordinary woman. She knew that any sound would bring aid and rescue at once. There would be plenty of time to scream, to pull the bell or to do whatever was necessary later. And something, she could not tell what, something she could not recognize, impelled92 her to take the course she did; to wait, armed.
But the wait began to tell on her sensibilities. The sound of somebody or something moving mysteriously to-and-fro behind the curtains over against the wall at the other end of the room began to work on her nerves. It takes an iron steadiness, a passive capacity for endurance which is quite different from woman's more or less emotional courage, to wait under circumstances like that.
Just when she had reached the limit of her endurance and was persuaded that she could stand no more, her attention was attracted by a slight click as of a lock or catch, a movement as of something heavy, as of a drawer or door, and then the footsteps turned and came toward the window. The moment of action had arrived and with it came the return of her wavering courage.
To reach the window the intruder must pass by the foot of the bed where she stood. Now the light was on the table at the head of the bed and the table was far enough from the bed to shine past her into the room. The moving figure suddenly came into view. It was a man, shrouded93 in a heavy cloak. He did not glance toward the bed. His eyes were fixed94 on the window. His astonishment, therefore, was overwhelming when he suddenly found himself looking into the barrel of a pistol and confronted by a woman.
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1
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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baron
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| n.男爵；(商业界等)巨头，大王 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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perturbing
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| v.使（某人）烦恼，不安( perturb的现在分词 ) | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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concealment
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| n.隐藏, 掩盖，隐瞒 | |
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cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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9
lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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10
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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13
dispersed
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| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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18
promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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equanimity
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| n.沉着，镇定 | |
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regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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21
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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artillery
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| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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24
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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26
monarchy
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| n.君主，最高统治者；君主政体，君主国 | |
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monarch
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| n.帝王，君主，最高统治者 | |
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28
advancement
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| n.前进，促进，提升 | |
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29
plunder
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| vt.劫掠财物，掠夺；n.劫掠物，赃物；劫掠 | |
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30
arrears
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| n.到期未付之债，拖欠的款项；待做的工作 | |
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31
perils
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| 极大危险( peril的名词复数 )； 危险的事（或环境） | |
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32
withheld
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| withhold过去式及过去分词 | |
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mutinous
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| adj.叛变的，反抗的；adv.反抗地，叛变地；n.反抗，叛变 | |
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34
patriotic
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| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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35
enlistment
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| n.应征入伍，获得，取得 | |
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36
pittances
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| n.少量( pittance的名词复数 )；少许；微薄的工资；少量的收入 | |
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37
superseded
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| [医]被代替的，废弃的 | |
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superannuated
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| adj.老朽的，退休的；v.因落后于时代而废除，勒令退学 | |
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incompetent
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| adj.无能力的，不能胜任的 | |
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scions
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| n.接穗，幼枝( scion的名词复数 )；（尤指富家）子孙 | |
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territorial
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| adj.领土的，领地的 | |
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42
erased
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| v.擦掉( erase的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；清除 | |
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apathetic
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| adj.冷漠的，无动于衷的 | |
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craved
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| 渴望，热望( crave的过去式 )； 恳求，请求 | |
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recuperate
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| v.恢复 | |
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seething
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| 沸腾的，火热的 | |
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47
leash
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| n.牵狗的皮带，束缚；v.用皮带系住 | |
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48
humiliated
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| 感到羞愧的 | |
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distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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50
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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51
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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52
spurned
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| v.一脚踢开，拒绝接受( spurn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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53
seclusion
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| n.隐遁，隔离 | |
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54
advisers
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| 顾问，劝告者( adviser的名词复数 )； （指导大学新生学科问题等的）指导教授 | |
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55
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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56
temporizing
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| v.敷衍( temporize的现在分词 )；拖延；顺应时势；暂时同意 | |
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57
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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sedition
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| n.煽动叛乱 | |
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59
reposed
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| v.将（手臂等）靠在某人（某物）上( repose的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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60
sleepless
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| adj.不睡眠的，睡不著的，不休息的 | |
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61
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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62
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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63
refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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ardently
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| adv.热心地，热烈地 | |
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67
betrothal
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| n. 婚约, 订婚 | |
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68
insistence
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| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
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69
impoverished
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| adj.穷困的，无力的，用尽了的v.使（某人）贫穷( impoverish的过去式和过去分词 )；使（某物）贫瘠或恶化 | |
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70
plight
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| n.困境，境况，誓约，艰难；vt.宣誓，保证，约定 | |
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71
temporized
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| v.敷衍( temporize的过去式和过去分词 )；拖延；顺应时势；暂时同意 | |
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72
subsisted
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| v.（靠很少的钱或食物）维持生活，生存下去( subsist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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73
versed
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| adj. 精通，熟练 | |
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74
agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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76
guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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77
plighted
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| vt.保证，约定（plight的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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78
deadlock
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| n.僵局，僵持 | |
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79
casement
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| n.竖铰链窗；窗扉 | |
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80
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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81
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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82
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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83
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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84
wield
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| vt.行使，运用，支配；挥，使用(武器等) | |
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85
intrepidity
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| n.大胆，刚勇；大胆的行为 | |
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86
disapproval
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| n.反对，不赞成 | |
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87
dueling
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| n. 决斗, 抗争(=duelling) 动词duel的现在分词形式 | |
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88
peg
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| n.木栓，木钉；vt.用木钉钉，用短桩固定 | |
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slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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90
shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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91
lulls
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| n.间歇期（lull的复数形式）vt.使镇静，使安静（lull的第三人称单数形式） | |
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92
impelled
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| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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93
shrouded
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| v.隐瞒( shroud的过去式和过去分词 )；保密 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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