Albert Maurice mused for a moment over the confession of this strange creed, and its illustration, and then demanded--"What did the old lord say concerning me?"
The druggist repeated his former words; and his young companion again mused for a brief space. Then suddenly bringing back the conversation to the matter in which it arose, he repeated--"Ganay, you have deceived me; and not for my interest, but for your own revenge. You have worked your will; and I trust that you are now sated. Better for us both to labour together as far as may be, than stand in the very outset face to face as foes. Are you contented with the blood already shed?"
"There must be one more!" said the druggist, resolutely.
"And who do you aim at now?" demanded the young citizen, with no small loathing and horror towards his companion; but yet with a conviction that, by some means, he would accomplish his purpose.
"It matters not," replied Ganay; "but set your mind at ease. The man to whom I point is less an enemy to myself than an enemy to the state; and I give you my promise that I will practise nought against his life but with your consent. So guilty is he, and so convinced shall you be of his guilt, that your own hand shall sign the warrant for his death. But, oh! Albert Maurice, if you believe that the blood shed last night is all that must be shed to effect the purposes you seek, sadly, sadly do you deceive yourself. Prepare to bid it flow like water, or betake you to a monastery! Ambition joined to faint-hearted pity, is like a tame lion at a show, led about by a woman."
"But there is such a thing as patriotism," rejoined Albert Maurice--yet he named the virtue but faintly, compared with the tone in which he would have mentioned it three days before.
"Ay," said the druggist; "patriotism! The first step to ambition--but that stage is past."
Well did Ganay know that there exists no means of persuading a human being to any course of action, so powerful as by convincing him it is inevitable. To do so, however, there must be probability as a basis; and Ganay had watched too closely the most minute turns of his companion's behaviour during many months, not to divine the spark of ambition lying half smothered at the bottom of his heart. Nor had the effect of Mary of Burgundy's eyes upon the colour and the voice of Albert Maurice been lost upon the keen spirit that followed him; and he fancied he beheld an easy method of bending him to his own purpose. He saw, indeed, that, if either by love, or any other means, he succeeded in fanning that spark of ambition into a flame, he must leave him to run his course without a struggle, or a hope to deprive him of the prize; nay, that he must aid him with his whole cunning to raise up a new authority in the land, on the basis of that which they were about to overthrow. But Ganay was not ambitious of aught but avarice and revenge; and he soon perceived that these two master passions of his soul must be gratified by Albert Maurice in his ascent to power.
As he rode on, he spoke long of their future prospects. He cast away, at once, the enthusiastic cant he had at one time assumed towards him, of patriotism and the entire abnegation of self; and, in order to habituate his mind fully to the dreams of ambition, he spoke of them as things already determined and to be. But still, to smooth the transition, he failed not to point out the mighty benefits that a ruler with a truly liberal heart might confer upon his people--it mattered not what he was called--governor, lord, duke, prince, or king. As for a pure republic, the land was not yet in a state fit for it, he said: but what a boon--a mighty boon--might not that man grant to the whole world, who, starting up from amongst the people, were to rule them for their own happiness alone, and to show to other monarchs the immense advantages of such a sway!
"But if you speak of this land," replied Albert Maurice, in whose heart he had discovered the unfortified spot--"but if you speak of this land, how can any man so start up, without tearing her inheritance from the gentlest, the noblest of beings?"