III
The pale rays of a wintry moon came creeping in through the narrow casement-window. A lovely night had succeeded the drenching rain of awhile ago. Messire lay quite still upon his bed, but when Jehan crept close up to him he saw that his eyes were wide open.
'What's the matter, Jehan?' Gilles asked, when he saw his faithful henchman standing before him, booted and fully dressed.
'I can't sl-sl-sl-sleep,' replied Jehan unblushingly, 's-s-so I'll g-g-g-go now.'
'At once?'
Jehan nodded.
'Can you get your horse at this hour?'
Jehan nodded again.
'You have your safe-conduct?—the letter?'
More vigorous nods from Jehan.
'Take what money you want from there.' And Gilles with a jerk of the head indicated the valise which contained his effects.
Jehan knelt on the floor beside the valise and turned over his master's belongings. He took a small purse containing some gold, which he slipped into the pocket of his breeches; then he selected a fresh doublet, hose and mantle for Messire to wear and carefully folded and put away the tattered garments which had suffered so much damage during the fight. Oh! Maître Jehan was a tidy valet when he gave his mind to such trivial matters, and just now his mind was sorely exercised over Messire's future plight when he would be deprived of the services of so efficient a henchman.
Messire watched all his doings with much amusement.
''Tis not the first time that I shall be servantless, my good man,' he said lightly. 'And of a truth I have been too much pampered in that way of late. I still know how to dress myself and how to clean my boots—Aye!' he added, catching Jehan's look of reproach, 'and how to tend to these silly scratches which the very unskilful blades of M. de Landas and his friends did inflict upon my body.'
With a gesture of genuine affection he put out his hand, and good old Jehan took it in both his rough brown ones. When Gilles withdrew his hand again he noticed that there was a warm, wet spot upon it, whilst Jehan turned away very quickly, wiping his nose with the sleeve of his doublet.
But not another word was spoken by either of these two men—master and servant, friends and comrades—who understood one another to the last secret thought and the innermost heartbeat.
A moment or two later, Jehan had blown out the candle and was gone, and Gilles, lying on the narrow paillasse, wide awake, listened while he could hear his faithful servant's heavy footstep stumping along the corridor and down the stairs.
The wintry moon shed a weird, cold light into the narrow room, upon his valise, the elegant doublet which Jehan had so carefully laid out, the bottle of sedative, the fresh bandages, the pots of salve laid close to his hands. A heavy sigh rose involuntarily to his lips. Life appeared very difficult and very complicated just then. It had been so extraordinarily simple before: fighting for the most part, starving often, no cares, no worries, no thought for the morrow; then the axe finally laid to the root of life, somewhere on a battlefield, when Destiny had worked her will with the soldier of fortune.
But now——! And there was faithful Jehan, dragged too, and innocently, into this adventure, involved in an episode which might find the gallows for its conclusion. Gilles, listening, could hear his henchman's raucous stutter, rousing the echoes of the squalid little hostelry. Anon there was much scuffling and shuffling, doors opening and shutting, calls from Jehan and calls from Julien; then for awhile only distant and confused sounds of people stirring. Ten minutes or a quarter of an hour later the tramp of a horse's hoofs upon the cobblestones, more calls and some shouting, a good deal of clatter, the final banging of a heavy door—then nothing more.
And Gilles turned over, trying to get to sleep. In his hand he held, tightly clutched, a small, white, sweet-scented rag—a tiny ball of damp cambric; and ever and anon he raised that ball to his lips ... or to his eyes. But he could not get to sleep.