II
"I think that your plan is quite admirable, my dear de Puisaye," said M. de Courson after a while, "and I, for one, can only give it my very hearty approval. In fact, you have thought everything out so well, that all my nephew and I can do is to obey implicitly. Now when do you think that you can be ready with your men?"
"When can you be ready with yours?" retorted de Puisaye.
"Oh, we are ready now. Laurent and I can assemble our company together any day you may decide. We can easily pass the word round and muster up at the Cerf-Volant woods outside Mortain on any night you think most suitable. It would not be safe to muster at Courson, and though Mortain is a good deal farther, it is much more lonely and, as you say, it would be best for us all to start out at one and the same time—shall we say, at eleven o'clock in the evening. You would then reach La Frontenay and Laurent get to Domfront almost simultaneously, bar accidents. Laurent and I can surprise the garrisons at dead of night before either of them can get wind of the affair, and thus obviate the possibility of their falling on you ere you on your side can reach La Frontenay."
"That being so," rejoined de Puisaye, "why not decide on the day after to-morrow? I shall have my four hundred men assembled at Mortain too, by that time, and we have given the man Leroux orders to present himself here on that day. We will—with her permission—entrust Madame la Marquise with the happy task of telling Leroux that he must arrange his coup for the same night, and be prepared for my arrival with my small contingent. Whilst he waits for me he must open up the stores and get out all the small arms that he can; then directly I arrive I can get what guns there are into position, and prepare for a regular siege if it is necessary. I cannot help wishing that the next morning may see us attacked in full force by de Maurel's work-people, for then, when Prigent and d'Aché come upon the scene, they would get the attacking party in the rear, and though insufficiently armed, they would, nevertheless, effect heavy slaughter, and gain an immediate and brilliant victory."
"How are we going to live until the day after to-morrow?" sighed Laurent.
"How, indeed?" was echoed by all the others in the room.
The very atmosphere seemed redolent of triumph, of exultation, of confidence in victory. The co-operation of the ex-convict and of two hundred of his kind had brought forth a situation which had endless possibilities in it. The general consensus of opinion was that failure was absolutely out of the question. Never, since the English agencies had withdrawn their active support, had the prospects of a successful Royalist rising been so rosy. De Puisaye was glowing with enthusiasm, Prigent had laid aside his solemnity, d'Aché ceased to ogle Fernande; even M. de Courson's pale cheeks were flushed. As for Madame—she was already present in thoughts at the first reception which Queen Marie-Joséphine-Louise would be holding at the Tuileries. As for Fernande, everyone was fortunately too much excited, too much engrossed in schemes and plans to pay much attention to her, or her silence and extraordinary aloofness from the all-absorbing topic of conversation could not have passed unperceived.
It was late in the afternoon before everything was said that had to be said, before every plan had been discussed, every argument worn threadbare. Then at last the council of war agreed to disperse, and Joseph de Puisaye and his two friends took final leave of Madame la Marquise and of Fernande, whilst M. de Courson went with them, in order to escort them as far as the boundary gates of the park.