It turned out to be truly nothing but the blazing soot in the chimney, accompanied by a great roaring, with flames coming out of the chimney’s mouth and sparks flying. The roofs being tiled, there was no real danger, but as Madame Riano said truly, the people in the Low Countries, knowing nothing of open fireplaces with 170 blazing fires, were in a state of wild alarm. Nevertheless, we could not sit still under the circumstances, but proposed to investigate. Francezka went with us. She was pale, but collected. The bishop was for going with us, being frightened, if ever I saw a man—he was a Netherlander and as ignorant of open fireplaces as the rest of his countrymen—but Madame Riano gibing at him for his pusillanimity, he resumed his cards with such composure as he could, and Madame Riano proposed they should play the game out together. We left them, therefore, seated at the table, Madame Riano quite unconcerned at the commotion, and the bishop, a little white about the chops, but standing to his game like a man.
Meanwhile, in our absence from the room, the excited and panic-stricken servants had, without any authority, opened a vast tank of water, which was on the top of the house, and a flood began to pour down the chimney of the little yellow room, where Madame Riano held her unwilling enemy. Quite unconscious of this, Count Saxe and the rest of us watched the fire burn itself out harmlessly enough; old Peter managed to quiet the frantic servants, and we returned to the yellow room. Then the sight that met our eyes can never be forgotten by any of us. The burning soot had tumbled down the chimney, and if the bishop and Madame Riano had left their play long enough there would have been no damage done to anything.
I do not believe Madame Riano was so absorbed in her game as not to know what was going on, but I am pretty sure she had in mind the punishment of the bishop. A strong odor of burning wood pervaded 171 the room; before the flood came down the chimney there had been many falling cinders, and these had set the wainscoting smoldering just behind the bishop’s chair. The floor had been flooded, and Madame Riano, her skirts tucked about her, had drawn up her feet to the seat of her chair and sat there as cool as any warrior on the eve of battle. The bishop’s feet were in the water. He held his cards tightly, but his eye roved around and lighted up when he saw us enter, Count Saxe and Francezka in the lead. Just as we came in the smoldering wainscoting blazed up brightly. Gaston Cheverny, with his hat, dipped up water enough to put out the blaze. The bishop started and turned half round, but was recalled by Madame Riano, saying in a voice of menace and of mockery:
“Come, your Grace. It is your play. Don’t be scared by a trifle like this. My faith, you would make but a poor figure in Scotland, where we never stop our game for such trifles as fire and flood.”
At that moment Regnard Cheverny earned the bishop’s undying good-will. Taking a jug of water from one of the distracted servants, who was still running about wildly in the corridor, he emptied it full upon the card table, on which a spark or two had dropped. The bishop, too, got a drenching—for which I saw gratitude writ large on his face.
“Madame,” he said, to his antagonist, “I, too, have but slight regard for fire and flood when it interrupts a game, but necessity and my rheumatics compel me to retire and change my garments.” Which he did, and appeared no more that night.
When the bishop had taken himself and his bedraggled 172 dignity off we burst involuntarily into laughter, Count Saxe and Francezka leading. Even the little parish priest joined us. Madame Riano scowled at our laughter, until Count Saxe, with his usual good judgment, told her we were laughing at the bishop, at which she screeched with delight.
I was not surprised next morning to find that the bishop was leaving earlier than he expected. He departed in the same state in which he arrived, but I was irresistibly reminded of a conquered enemy who has been accorded the honors of war.