cried he, when he beheld the dead body. "Oh what would I have given to have been here when he was killed. Did he fall so at once--I beseech you tell me, did he fall thus?" and down he cast himself upon his back, in the attitude of the dead body.
If anything could have rendered so dreadful a sight as the corpse of the murderer with his blackened temples, clenched hands, and cold meaningless glare of eye, in any degree ridiculous, it would have been to see the little player cast upon the ground beside the vast bulk of the dead man, striving to imitate the position in which he lay; and every now and then raising his pert head from his mockery of death's stillness, and peeping over the corpse to see how the arm or the hand had fallen in dying.
I was in no mood, however, for such fooleries; my head ached violently from the blow I had received above the eye; my hands, especially the one that had intercepted the stab of the knife, gave me intolerable pain. I was fatigued also, and fevered with the struggle and the agitation, so that my corporeal sensations were not at all favourable to the wretched player's buffoonery, even had the scene been one that admitted of merriment.
Stirring him then rather rudely with my foot, I bade him rise and assist in carrying the body to the cottage. Up started the actor in a moment, and, taking the corpse by the feet, replied he was ready to do anything the manager bade him: one of the cottagers lent his aid, and we soon reached the cottage with our burden. Here all the women made a vast outcry at the sight of the dead body, but more still on beholding the state in which the assassin's efforts had left their young Count Louis, for I was now within the old domain of our own château.
I know not whether from the loss of blood, or the irritating pain of the wounds, but I certainly felt very faint, and probably my countenance showed how much I was suffering, for while the young Arnault and some others were examining the person of the dead man, and taking what papers and effects he had upon him, the player stepped forward, and offered to render me his assistance as a surgeon. Thinking that the devil of buffoonery still possessed him, I repulsed him somewhat rudely; but yet unrepelled, he laid his hand upon his heart, made me a low bow, and said, "Listen, noble youth, scion of an illustrious house, and you shall hear that which shall make you yield yourself to my hands, as willingly as Maladine gave herself up to Milsenio. Know then, before my superior genius prompted me to fit on the buskin, I trod the stage of life in a high-heeled shoe--not, indeed, the Cothurnus; far, far from it, for in those days, alas! though I was clothed in tragic black, and held the dagger and the bowl, I shed real blood behind the curtain, and inflicted my cruelties on the real flesh and blood."
"I begin somewhat to understand you," I replied; "but if you would have me attend to you seriously, my friend, you must drop that exalted style, and speak common sense in common language."
"Well, then, sir, I will," he answered, instantly changing his tone, and taking one which strangely blended in itself insignificance and sharpness, but which harmonized much better with his little eager countenance and twinkling black eyes, than his tumid, bombastic loudness had done. "What I mean is, that before I went on the stage, I studied under an apothecary. My disposition is not naturally cruel, and I was not hard-hearted enough to succeed in that profession. Now, though, with the devil's assistance and my master's skill, I aided in conveying many a worthy patient from their bed to their coffin, yet I think I remember some few simples which would allay the irritation of your wounds, and I will undertake for their innocuousness."
No surer aid was at hand, and therefore I willingly allowed the metamorphosed apothecary to bandage up my forehead with such applications as he thought fit, as well as to use his skill upon my hands; and certainly the ease which I derived from his assistance fully repaid the confidence I had placed in him.
In the meanwhile, the body of the murderer had been searched, and the various objects found upon him being brought to me, proved to consist of nothing more, besides the packet of papers which I had already taken, than a few pieces of gold, one or two licentious letters and songs, a pack of cards, some loaded dice, a missal, two short daggers, and a rosary, all articles very serviceable in one or other of his callings. One of the cottage-boys had by this time caught the horse which this very respectable person had ridden, and strapped upon it behind was found what at first appeared a cloak, but which proved, upon examination, to be a Capuchin's gown, confirming my opinion in regard to the owner's identity with the card-player at Luz.
When this examination was over, I prepared to mount my horse and proceed home, but before I went, I turned to gaze once more upon the lifeless form of my dead adversary; and in looking upon his clumsy limbs and obesity of body, I could not understand how he could have so easily overcome me, endowed, as I felt myself to be, with equal strength and far superior agility. The sudden surprise could alone have been the cause, and I resolved through my future life, to struggle for that presence of mind which in circumstances of danger and difficulty is a buckler worth all the armour of Achilles. After this, I bestowed a gold piece upon the player-apothecary for the ease he had given me, and bade him come over to the Château de l'Orme the next day for a farther reward, and then escaping as fast as I could from his hyperbolical thanks, I mounted, and, accompanied by Jean Baptiste, rode on towards my home.