Part 33 (1/2)
”You'll know when you see him.”
”With respect to your Grace, this is not enough to tell me.”
”You can't be told more, sir.”
”Then I won't go.”
He frowned and beat his gloves on his thigh impatiently.
”A gentleman, your Grace,” said I, ”must be trusted, or he cannot serve.”
He looked round the little cell and asked significantly,
”Is your state such as to ent.i.tle you to make conditions?”
”Only if your Grace has need of services which I can give or refuse,” I answered, bowing.
His irritation suddenly vanished, or seemed to vanish. He leant back in his chair and laughed.
”Yet all the time,” said he, ”you've guessed the gentleman! Isn't it so?
Come, Mr Dale, we understand one another. This service, if all goes well, is simple. But if you're interrupted in leaving the Castle, you must use your sword. Well, if you use your sword and don't prove victorious, you may be taken. If you're taken it will be best for us all that you shouldn't know the name of this gentleman, and best for him and for me that I should not have mentioned it.”
The little doubt I had harboured was gone. Buckingham and Monmouth were hand in hand. Buckingham's object was political, Monmouth was to find his reward in the prize that I was to rescue from the clutches of M. de Perrencourt and hand over to him at the hostelry in Deal. If success attended the attempt, I was to disappear; if it failed, my name and I were to be the s.h.i.+eld and bear the brunt. The reward was fifty guineas, and perhaps a serviceable grat.i.tude in the minds of two great men, provided I lived to enjoy the fruit of it.
”You'll accept this task?” asked the Duke.
The task was to thwart M. de Perrencourt and gratify the Duke of Monmouth. If I refused it, another might accept and accomplish it; if such a champion failed, M. de Perrencourt would triumph. If I accepted, I should accept in the fixed intention of playing traitor to one of my employers. I might serve Buckingham's turn, I should seek to thwart Monmouth.
”Who pays me fifty guineas?” I asked.
”Faith, I,” he answered with a shrug. ”Young Monmouth is enough his father's son to have his pockets always empty.”
On this excuse I settled my point of casuistry in an instant.
”Then I'll carry the lady away from the Castle,” I cried.
He started, leant forward, and looked hard in my face. ”What do you mean, what do you know?” he asked plainly enough, although silently. But I had cried out with an appearance of zeal and innocence that baffled his curiosity, and my guileless expression gave his suspicions no food.
Perhaps, too, he had no wish to enquire. There was little love between him and Monmouth, for he had been bitterly offended by the honours and precedence a.s.signed to the Duke; only a momentary coincidence of interest bound them together in this scheme. If the part that concerned Buckingham were accomplished, he would not break his heart on account of the lady not being ready for Monmouth at the hostelry of the Merry Mariners.
”I think, then, that we understand one another, Mr Dale?” said he, rising.
”Well enough, your Grace,” I answered with a bow, and I rapped on the door. The gaoler opened it.
”Mr Dale is free to go where he will within the Castle. You can return to your quarters,” said Buckingham.
The soldier marched off. Buckingham turned to me.
”Good fortune in your enterprise,” he said. ”And I give you joy on your liberty.”
The words were not out of his mouth when a lieutenant and two men appeared, approaching us at a rapid walk, nay, almost at a run. They made directly for us, the Duke and I both watching them. The officer's sword was drawn in his hand, their daggers were fixed in the muzzles of the soldiers' muskets.