"You have kept your word in coming back," said the cardinal; "but I did not expect you so soon."
"That was because your Eminence did not know all the circumstances," answered the young man, with that mixture of frankness and respect which is always well pleasing to the great.
Richelieu raised what was then called a perspective glass—a very feeble sort of telescope—to his eye, and gazed toward Rochelle, the long lines of which were becoming more distinct every moment. Edward was silent, seeing that the mind of the great minister was fully occupied; and no one spoke a word for nearly ten minutes. Then occurred one of those phenomena by no means uncommon, and easily accounted for in these days, but to which the superstition of old times lent a significance they do not now possess. Away out to the east the sun began to rise, somewhat pale and sickly in look, and with a whitish glare around him; while in the west, rising over the sea, appeared another sun, exactly of the same aspect and keeping as it ascended the same height in the sky.
"Two suns in the same heaven!" exclaimed Richelieu, with an accent of surprise.
"Yes, your Eminence," replied Edward. "But one is much brighter than the other, and its light will last after the other has gone out."
Richelieu turned suddenly round and gazed in his face with an inquiring look, as if he thought there might be something beneath his words more significant than the words themselves; then, bowing his head with a well-pleased smile, he said, "True, true! one is fading already."
Whether Edward had spoken to his thoughts or not must be always a mystery; but it is certain that minds of great fire and eagerness, even without much fancy, will snatch at images supplied by external nature to figure forth without danger thoughts, dreams, purposes in their own hearts which they dare not utter. The parable is always a resource of ambition, and often a resource of love. Certain it is, too, that there were at that time two suns in the sky of France, and that one was already fading into an obscurity becoming darker and more dark till the faint figure of the dying monarch was hardly seen or felt, while the other was destined to go on increasing in splendor and power till it set forever. Here the comparison may be supposed to halt; for some may say that the real sun was fading while the false one was increasing in splendor. But that depends, after all, upon how men appreciate greatness,—whether genius or birth be the real sun.
However that may be, it is certain that Louis XIII. was at all events endowed with military genius; but even in the splendor of that most dazzling—to the eyes of men—of human gifts, his rays were paling before the superior endowments of his minister. Sickness, weariness, disgust, despondency—we know not well what—had already induced him to withdraw from the siege of Rochelle, and to leave Richelieu to carry on the operations with a force, an energy, a talent, which would have won fame for the most distinguished general or engineer. The cardinal might well, therefore, apply the words of Edward Langdale to himself, feeling them a compliment which, like the misty light of a summer's day, was the more warm because it was in some degree indefinite. Richelieu did not wish to have it otherwise, and, without further words, turned his eyes once more upon the scene before them. A small battery opened its fire upon the walls of the devoted town as they sat there and gazed; but nobody could see whether it produced any effect or not. Richelieu, at all events, paid little attention to it, and only murmured to himself, "Waste of saltpetre!" Shortly after, he sent off two gentlemen on horseback with messages written in pencil on small scraps of paper, and then turned to gaze again. Some five minutes after, a man on horseback came back, galloping up from the rear, and gave him some information in a low voice. For a short space his brow contracted as if with anger; but the emotion lasted evidently only a moment, and the next instant he smiled almost gayly, and he said, aloud, "Well, one may have too many rats in a rat-trap. Monsieur Langdale, come hither."
Edward rode close up, and the cardinal asked, "Do you know any thing of the Duc de Rohan?"
"No, your Eminence," replied Edward; "I have not seen or heard of him for nearly nine months."