The Duke's Motto: A Melodrama

by Justin H. McCarthy

Lagardere stooped and gathered a handful of grass, wiped his sword and sheathed it.

"Yes," he said, apostrophizing the dead body, "you shall serve a good cause now, Master Æsop, if you have never served a good cause yet."

He looked anxiously about him as he spoke to make sure that the solitude was still undisturbed. There was not a human being within sight on either bank of the river. This quiet, this isolation, were very welcome to his temper just then, for the purpose that had come into Lagardere’s mind at the commencement of the combat had matured, had ripened during its course into a feasible plan. It had its risks, but what did that matter in an enterprise that was all risk; and if it succeeded, as, thanks to its very daring, it might succeed, it promised a magnificent reward. That it involved the despoiling of a dead body in no way harassed Lagardere. He was never one to let himself be squeamish over trifles where a great cause was at stake, and, though much that was inevitable to the success of his scheme was repellent to him, he choked down his disgust and faced his duty with a smile. Quickly he dragged the body of his dead enemy into the shelter and seclusion of the orchard-trees. There, rolling Æsop on his face, he proceeded nimbly and dexterously to strip his clothes from his body. Soon the black coat, black vest, black breeches, black stockings, black boots, and black hat lay in a pile of sable raiment on the orchard grass. As he garnered his spoil, a little book dropped from the pocket of the black coat and lay upon the grass. Lagardere picked it up and opened it with a look of curiosity that speedily changed to one of aversion, for the book was a copy in Italian of the Luxurious Sonnets of Messer Pietro Arentino, which Lagardere, who knew Italian, found at a glance to be in no way to his taste, and the little book had pictures in it which pleased him still less. With a grunt of disgust at this strange proof of the dead man’s taste in literature, Lagardere stepped to the edge of the orchard, and, holding the volume in his finger and thumb, pitched it over the open space into the river, where it sank. Having thus easily got rid of the book, Lagardere began to cast about him for some way to dispose of the body.

The boats that lay alongside of the little landing-stage caught his eye. Lifting Master Æsop’s corpse from the ground, he trailed it to the crazy structure, and placed it in the oldest and most ramshackle of the two weather-worn vessels. After untying the rope that fastened the boat to its wharf, Lagardere caught up a boat-hook that lay hard by, and, raising it as if it were a spear, he drove it with all his strength against the bottom of the boat and knocked a ragged hole in its rotting timbers. Then, with a vigorous push, he sent the boat out upon the smooth, swift river.

The vigor of its impetus carried the boat nearly out to the middle of the stream before the river could take advantage of the leak. Then, in a few minutes, Lagardere saw the strangely burdened craft slowly sink and finally settle beneath the surface of the stream.

When the boat and its burden were out of sight, and the water ran as smoothly as if it were troubled with no such secret, Lagardere turned, and, gathering up the garments of his antagonist as a Homeric hero would have collected his fallen enemy’s armor, rolled them into as small a bundle as possible, and, putting them under his arm, made his way cautiously back to the Inn.

He gained its shelter unperceived. Unperceived and noiselessly he ascended the stairs which led to his room, and, opening the door, flung his bundle upon the ground. He then closed the door again, and, going a little farther down the corridor, knocked at an adjoining door, which immediately opened, and Gabrielle stood before him looking pale and anxious. Lagardere smiled cheerfully at her, and, taking from his coat the white rose which he had plucked in the garden, offered it to her.

The girl caught it and pressed it to her lips, and then asked, eagerly: "The man—where is the man? What has become of him?"

Lagardere affected an air of surprise, and then, with the manner of one who thought the matter of no importance, answered her: "You mean my friend in black who spoke to me just now?"

The girl nodded. "Yes," she said, "he seemed evil, he seemed dangerous."