“And not a moment to be lost,” added a deep, low voice, as the figure of a tall man, wrapped in a travelling cloak, darkened the doorway. “Leave us, Pierre; this is the gentleman, I suppose?”
“Yes, sir,” said the landlord. “Should you need a light, I 'll bring one.”
“Thank you, friend; we can dispense with any, save what the moon affords us.”
As the door closed on the retiring figure of the host, the stranger took his place beside me on the bed, and in a low voice thus began:—
“I only know, sir, that you have the full confidence of one of my stanchest and best friends, who tells me that you are willing to incur great risk, provided you gain the chance of reaching your native land. That chance—nay, I will call it that certainty—lies in my power; and, in return for the assistance, are you willing to do me a service?”
“I served the Emperor, sir; ask me not anything unworthy of one who wore his epaulette. Aught else, if it be but honorable and fair, I 'll do.”
“I have no leisure for casuistry, nor is it my humor, sir,” replied he angrily. “Neither do I seek any wondrous devotion at your hands. The service is an easy one: costs nothing at the present; involves nothing for the future.”
“The slight value you place upon it may detract but little from my objection,” said I.
“Sacré ciel!” exclaimed he, in a louder voice, as he sprang from the bed and clasped his hands before him. “Is it to be ever thus? Is every step we take to be marred by some unlooked for casualty? Is the stamp of fear and vacillation to be on every act of our lives? This abbé, the creature we have made, the man whose fortune is our handiwork, could render but one service to our cause; and he fails us in our need. And now, you—”
“Beware, sir, how you speak to one who has never been accustomed to hear his name slightingly used nor his honor impugned. With your cause, whatever it be, I have no sympathy. Remember that; and remember, also, we are strangers to each other.”