Up started Louise in an agony of indignation, and forth she poured upon the Gros St. Nicolas a torrent of vituperation for jesting upon such a subject. But on his part he only shrugged his shoulders, and declared that he did not jest at all. “Mon Dieu!” said he, “it is very unreasonable to suppose that Monsieur Marteville, who is as big as five men, should be contented with one wife. Besides, it is très agréable to have a wife in every province; I always do so myself.”
The thunder of Louise’s ire, now increased in a seven-fold degree, was turned instantly upon her dearly-beloved husband. Her eyes flashed, and her cheek flamed, and approaching him, where he sat laughing at the whole business, she demanded that he should exculpate himself from this charge of pentigamy, with a tone and manner that made the Norman, who had drunk quite enough, laugh still more. With an unheard-of exertion of self-command, Louise kept her fingers from his face; but she burst forth into reproaches so bitter and stinging, that Marteville’s mirth was soon converted into rage, and he looked at her with a glance which would quickly have taught those who knew him well not to urge him farther. But Louise went on, and wound up by declaring, that she would live with him no longer—that she would quit him that very moment, and finding her way to Monsieur Chavigni, would tell him all—adding, that she would soon send the Guard to ferret out that nest of ruffians, and that she hoped to see him hanging at the head of them. With this expression of her intentions, Louise darted out of the vault; but the Norman, who, speechless with rage, had sat listening to her with his teeth clenched, and his nether lip quivering with suppressed passion, started suddenly up, cast the settle from him with such force that it was dashed to pieces against the wall, and strode after her with the awful cloud of determined wrath settled upon his brow.
The mirth of the robbers, who knew the ungovernable nature of their companion’s passions, was now over, and each looked in the face of the other with silent expectation. After a space, there was the murmur of angry voices heard for a moment at the farther end of the passage; then a loud piercing shriek rang through the vault; and then all was silence. A momentary sensation of horror ran through the bosoms of even the ferocious men whose habits rendered them familiar with almost every species of bloodshed. But this was new and strange amongst them, and they waited the return of the Norman with feelings near akin to awe.
At length, after some time, he came, with a firm step and unblenching brow, but with a haggard wildness in his eye which seemed to tell that remorse was busy with his heart. However, he sat him down without any allusion to the past, and draining off a cup of wine, strove laboriously after merriment. But it was in vain; the mirth of the whole party was evidently forced; and Marteville soon took up another strain, which accorded better with the feelings of the moment. He spoke to them of the dispersion of the band, which had taken place since he left them; announced his intention of joining them again; and drawing forth a purse containing about a thousand livres, he poured them forth upon the table, declaring them to be his first offering to the treasury.
This magnificent donation, which came in aid of their finances at a moment when such a recruit was very necessary, called forth loud shouts of applause from the freemen of the forest; and the Gros St. Nicolas starting up, addressed the company much to the following effect: “Messieurs—every one knows that I am St. Nicolas, and no one will deny that I am surrounded by a number of goodly clerks. But although in my saintly character I will give up my clerical superiority to nobody; yet it appears to me, that our society requires some lay commander; therefore I, your bishop, do propose to you to elect and choose the Sieur Marteville, here present, to be our king, and captain in the wars, in room of the Sieur Pierrepont Le Blanc, who, having abdicated without cause, was committed to the custody of the great receiver-general—the earth, by warrant of cold iron and pistol-balls. What say ye, Messieurs, shall he be elected?”
A shout of approbation was the reply; and Marteville, having been duly elected, took the oaths, and received the homage of his new subjects. He then entered into a variety of plans for increasing the band, concentrating its operations, and once more rendering it that formidable body, which it had been in former times. All this met with the highest approbation; but the Captain showing the most marked dislike to remaining in the forest which they at present tenanted, and producing a variety of reasons for moving their quarters to Languedoc, where the neighbourhood of the court and the army offered greater facilities both for recruiting their numbers and their purses, it was agreed that they should disperse the next morning, and re-assemble as soon as possible, at a certain spot well known to the whole party, about forty leagues distant from Lyons.
This was happily effected; and the Norman, on presenting himself at the rendezvous, had the pleasure of introducing to the band two new associates, whom he had found the means of converting on the road.
Although abandoning himself heart and soul to the pleasures of his resumed profession, our friend Marteville was not forgetful of the reward he expected from Chavigni; and as his official duties prevented his being himself the bearer of the paper he had obtained, he despatched it to Narbonne, where the Statesman now was, by his faithful subject Callot, with orders to demand ten thousand crowns of Monsieur de Chavigni, as a reward for having discovered it, adding also an elaborate epistle to the same effect.
The Norman never for a moment entertained a suspicion that the paper he sent was any thing but the identical treaty with Spain, which the conspirators had been heard to mention; and he doubted not that the Statesman would willingly pay such a sum for so precious a document. But the embassy of Monsieur Callot did not prove so fortunate as had been anticipated. Presenting himself to Chavigni, with as much importance of aspect as the ambassador from Siam, he tendered his credentials, and demanded the reward, at a moment when the Statesman was irritated by a thousand anxieties and dangers.
Making no ceremony with the fine blue and yellow wax, Chavigni, having read the Norman’s epistle, soon found his way into the inside of the other packet, and beheld in the midst of a thousand signs and figures, unintelligible to any but a professed astrologer, a prophetic scroll containing some doggrel verses, which may be thus rendered into English:—