"If such be the case?" exclaimed the other, starting up with a new and violent passion: "if such be the case? I tell thee it is, man! Why came you here? What do you want with me? Beware how you urge a desperate man! What seek you? What offer you? Do you come to give me revenge? If me no ifs, Sir Prevot; come you to give revenge?"
"I do!" replied the Prevot, who had been waiting till the other had run out his hasty exclamations; "I do, Master Ganay, if you can recover your cool tranquillity, and argue some difficult points with me, not forgetting the calm policy with which, I have heard, that you can bend some of your young and inexperienced comrades to your purpose. But recollect yourself--but be determined, collected, and shrewd, and you shall have revenge----As I am a living man!" he added, seeing the druggist's eyes fix upon him with a look of stern inquiry.
"Then I am calm!" answered the old man; "as calm as the dead. I seek but that one thing--revenge! Thou sayest true, Sir Prevot; I have been moved, far too much moved. I, who am wont to stir the minds of others, while I keep my own as tranquil as a still lake, I should not have yielded to such mad despair, but should only have thought how I might repay the mighty debts I owe to some below the moon. Pardon me, and forget what you have seen; but you have never lost a child: you have never seen your only one given to the butchers. But I am calm, as I said, quite calm; and I will be calmer still. Ho, boy! without there!" and rising from the table, he threw open the door, and rang a small silver hand bell which stood beside him, in answer to the tones of which, the boy who had before presented himself, re-appeared.
"Bring me," said the druggist, "that small box of the precious juice of the Thebaid, which the Venetian merchants sent me, so pure and unadulterated. Let us be silent till it comes," he added, speaking to the Prevot; "it will soon quiet all but the settled purpose. I marvel that I thought not of its virtues before."
The boy returned speedily, bringing a small box of sanders wood, in which, wrapped in innumerable covers, to preserve its virtues, was a quantity of pure opium, from the mass of which the druggist pinched off a small portion, and swallowed it, much to the surprise of Maillotin du Bac, who held all drugs in sovereign abhorrence. However violent might be his passions, Ganay, by the influence of a powerful mind, had acquired such complete command over them, in all ordinary circumstances, that seldom, if ever, had they cast off his control in the course of life. On the present occasion, indeed, despair and mental agony had conquered all for a time; but, even before he had swallowed the opium, he had recovered his rule; and, speedily, as that great narcotic began to exercise its soothing influence upon the irritated fibres of his corporeal frame, the mind acquired still greater ascendency, and he felt no little shame and contempt for himself, on account of the weak burst of frenzied violence to which he had given way in the presence of the Prevot.
He was too politic, however, when he had regained his self-command, to show that he did contemn the feelings to which he had given way; and he at once prepared to play with Maillotin du Bac the same shrewd and artificial part which he had laid down as the general rule of his behaviour towards mankind.
The two were fairly matched; for the Prevot was one of those, in whom, a sort of natural instinct, as well as the continual habit of observation, leads to the clear perception of other men's motives, especially where they strive to conceal themselves amongst the dark and tortuous paths of policy. He was, certainly, sometimes wrong in his calculations, but was not often so; and, in the present instance, by placing himself exactly in the situation of the druggist, and conceiving what would have been his own feelings under such circumstances, with a little allowance for the difference of character, he arrived at a very correct conclusion, in regard to the designs and the wishes of his companion, as well as to the obstacles which might impede them from acting together.
One great difficulty, indeed, would have lain in his way on almost any other occasion; for so accustomed was he both to see others attempt to deceive him, and to deceive others himself in return, that he could scarcely deal straight-forwardly with any one. As he was now perfectly sincere, however, in his desire of aiding the druggist's revenge, or rather of accomplishing his own through that of Ganay, he could afford to be candid on the present occasion. All that obstructed their cordial co-operation arose in those doubts and fears of each other, which all villains, however bold, must naturally feel on leaguing themselves together for an evil purpose; and such doubts and fears were undoubtedly felt strongly by the Prevot and his companion.
Nevertheless, these difficulties were to be got over. The jealousies and suspicions were soon very frankly avowed; for as each--though with certain modifications--considered cunning or shrewdness as the height of human wisdom, and, consequently, of human virtue, vanity itself naturally taught them to display rather than to conceal the prudent circumspection, with which they guarded against any danger from each other.
We cannot here detail the whole conversation that ensued; but, in the first instance, the druggist made himself master of all the circumstances which acted as incentives to revenge, in the mind of Maillotin du Bac, against the Lord of Imbercourt, before he committed himself further. By many a keen question, he induced him to unveil, step by step, the manner in which, through many years, that nobleman had thwarted his designs, and incurred his displeasure; how he had cut him off from reward and honour, where he had striven for it by dishonourable means; how he had defended the innocent against his persecution; how he had sternly overturned many of his best laid schemes, and exposed some of his most subtle contrivances, from a period long before, up to the day on which his testimony had freed Albert Maurice from the effects of the Prevot's vindictive hatred. Had there been one defect in the chain--had not the motive for vengeance been clear and evident--the doubts of the druggist might have remained unshaken, and he might have conceived that Maillotin du Bac had visited him as a spy, with the design of betraying the schemes of vengeance which his incautious indignation might breathe, to the ears of those who had refused mercy to his child. But the Prevot, appreciating and revering his suspicions, recapitulated every event with cool, bitter exactness, and dwelt upon the various circumstances with a precision that showed how deeply they were impressed upon his memory. He added, too, a slight glimpse of interested motives, by showing how Imbercourt had stood in the way of his advancement, and how he might be profited in his own office if that nobleman were removed, by any means, from the councils of Burgundy.