He was going to make some kind of reply when a burst of voices, in dread, with atrocious peals of laughter and a great swaying of the gathering, driving Gilbert closer to the vehicle, announced that he would be needed in defense of the Queen by speech or action. It was the two head-carriers, who, after having made Leonard barb and curl the hair, wanted to have the fun of presenting them to Marie Antoinette—as other roughs, or perhaps the same—had presented the dead heads of sons to their fathers.
The crowd yelled with horror and fell away as these ghastly things came up.
“In heaven’s name, do not look to the right,” cried Gilbert.
The Queen was no woman to obey such an injunction without a peep to see the reason. So her first movement was to turn her gaze in the forbidden direction and she uttered a scream of fright. But, all of a sudden, as she tore her sight from this horrible spectacle as if they were Gorgon heads, they became fixed as though they met another view even more awful, from which she could not detach it.
This Medusa’s head was the stranger’s who had been drinking and chatting with Locksmith Gamain in the wine-store: with folded arms, he was leaning against a tree.
The Queen’s hand left the window cushion, and resting on Gilbert’s shoulder, he felt her clench her nails into its flesh. He turned to see her pale, with fixed eyes and quivering, blanched lips.
He would have ascribed the emotion to the two death’s heads but for her not looking at either. The gaze was in another direction, traveling visually in which he descried the object and he emitted a cry of amaze.
“Cagliostro!” both uttered at the same time.
The man at the tree clearly saw the Queen, but all he did was beckon for Gilbert to come to him.
At this point of time the carriages started on once more. By a natural and mechanical impulse the Queen gave Gilbert an outward push to prevent his being run over by the wheel. It looked as though she urged him towards the summoner. Anyhow, he was not sufficiently master of himself not to obey the mandate. Motionless, he let the party proceed; then, following the mock gunsmith who merely looked back to be sure he was followed, he entered behind him a little lane going uphill to Bellevue, where they disappeared behind a wall at the same time as the procession went out of sight in a declivity of the hills, as though plunging into an abyss.