The End.
The king, pale with anxiety, and shuddering at the slightest noise, employed himself in conjecturing, with the experience of a practised man, the time that it would take for the antagonists to meet and that the combat would last.
“Now,” he murmured first, “they are crossing the Rue St. Antoine — now they are entering the field — now they have begun.” And at these words, the poor king, trembling, began to pray.
Rising again in a few minutes, he cried:
“If Quelus only remembers the thrust I taught him! As for Schomberg, he is so cool that he ought to kill Ribeirac; Maugiron, also, should be more than a match for Livarot. But D’Epernon, he is lost; fortunately he is the one of the four whom I love least. But if Bussy, the terrible Bussy, after killing him, falls on the others! Ah, my poor friends!”
“Sire!” said Crillon, at the door.
“What! already?”
“Sire, I have no news but that the Duc d’Anjou begs to speak to your majesty.”
“What for?”
“He says that the moment has come for him to tell you what service he rendered your majesty, and that what he has to tell you will calm a part of your fears.”
“Well, let him come.”
At this moment they heard a voice crying, “I must speak to the king at once!”
The king recognized the voice, and opened the door.
“Here, St. Luc!” cried he. “What is it? But, mon Dieu! what is the matter? Are they dead?”
Indeed, St. Luc, pale, without hat or sword, and spotted with blood, rushed into the king’s room.
“Sire!” cried he, “vengeance! I ask for vengeance!”
“My poor St. Luc, what is it? You seem in despair.”
“Sire, one of your subjects, the bravest, noblest, has been murdered this night — traitorously murdered!”
“Of whom do you speak?”
“Sire, you do not love him, I know; but he was faithful, and, if need were, would have shed all his blood for your majesty, else he would not have been my friend.”
“Ah!” said the king, who began to understand; and something like a gleam of joy passed over his face.
“Vengeance, sire, for M. de Bussy!”
“M. de Bussy?”
“Yes, M. de Bussy, whom twenty assassins poniarded last night. He killed fourteen of them.”
“M. de Bussy dead?”
“Yes, sire.”
“Then he does not fight this morning?”
St. Luc cast a reproachful glance on the king, who turned away his head, and, in doing so, saw Crillon still standing at the door. He signed to him to bring in the duke.
“No, sire, he will not fight,” said St. Luc; “and that is why I ask, not for vengeance — I was wrong to call it so — but for justice. I love my king, and am, above all things, jealous of his honor, and I think that it is a deplorable service which they have rendered to your majesty by killing M. de Bussy.”
The Duc d’Anjou had just entered, and St. Luc’s words had enlightened the king as to the service his brother had boasted of having rendered him.
“Do you know what they will say?” continued St. Luc. “They will say, if your friends conquer, that it is because they first murdered Bussy.”
“And who will dare to say that?”
“Pardieu! everyone,” said Crillon.
“No, monsieur, they shall not say that,” replied the king, “for you shall point out the assassin.”
“I will name him, sire, to clear your majesty from so heinous an accusation,” said St. Luc.
“Well! do it.”
The Duc d’Anjou stood quietly by.
“Sire,” continued St. Luc, “last night they laid a snare for Bussy, while he visited a woman who loved him; the husband, warned by a traitor, came to his house with a troop of assassins; they were everywhere — in the street — in the courtyard, even in the garden.”
In spite of his power over himself, the duke grew pale at these last words.
“Bussy fought like a lion, sire, but numbers overwhelmed him, and —”
“And he was killed,” interrupted the king, “and justly; I will certainly not revenge an adulterer.”
“Sire, I have not finished my tale. The unhappy man, after having defended himself for more than half an hour in the room, after having triumphed over his enemies, escaped, bleeding, wounded, and mutilated: he only wanted some one to lend him a saving hand, which I would have done had ............