Saunders prevailed in the matter of the gold, and it was only a five-franc piece that Matteo carried away from the gate of Gobelet. Hugh Deventer and Alida came out to see off the man who had caused such a disturbance in the peace of the quiet villa. Matteo gazed at Alida with the look of a wild beast before whose cage passes a fine-skinned plump gazelle.
He was full to the lips with rage, bitterness, and all uncharitableness. Gobelet he had seen, but owing to the machinations of that enemy of mankind, Saunders, only the great paved kitchen in which the menservants and maidservants passed to and fro, all gazing at him with inquisitive and contemptuous eyes. Ah, if only he could make them smart for that, those full-fed minions whose broken meats had been set down to him, Matteo of Arquà. Not but that these were good, yes, and the wine was excellent. It might be worth while, when he should decide to turn honest, to find some such place, perhaps as porter or lodge-keeper against his old age.
So after ringing the piece of a hundred sous on a stone, Matteo gave himself to meditation as he descended to his boat. The house was rich. There were many servants, and access to the money-bags along the wall would be impossible to him.
But there were others who would think but little of the task. If only he were at Arquà, he knew of as pretty a gang as ever donned masks—honest, too, in their way, men who would not cheat the indicator of good business out of his lawful share.
But here Matteo le Gaucher must think things over. It was vain for him to give away a valuable secret without some guarantee of gain. So Matteo crept back and took to his bed, where he turned the matter over and turned it over, till he began to despair of ever finding a way of bettering his condition without having to work. The touch of the five-franc piece in his pocket, gained by a little dissimulation, had disgusted him with the culture of cauliflower and early potato.
Next morning he scamped his work, fell athwart the bluff bows of Arcadius, and so found himself with a broken bone and a wounded wrist in the hospital of La Grâce at Aramon.
Here he fell in the way of ex-notary's clerk Chanot, whose practice in his uncle's office soon wormed Matteo's whole confidence from him—that is, save on one point which he kept obstinately to himself.
It had long been a question with the Committee of Public Safety where Keller had disappeared to. It was not believed that he had remained long in the Château. A boat had been seen in mid-stream—the sound of voices heard by watchers on the bridge. He might have been less seriously wounded than they supposed, and at Arles, Aix, or even Marseilles he might be seeking help from old-fashioned revolutionaries like himself.
The Committee of Public Safety had for some time abandoned all pretence of government. The little red newspaper had stopped. The shops were put under weekly contributions in return for permission to open their doors. No maids or wives came any more to the Aramon markets, and though provisions continued to arrive, they were brought in by farmers who came in bands and well armed.
The "government" sat no more in the seats of the mighty, but lounged and swung their legs from the tables, openly and shamelessly discussing the next coup à faire, houses to dismantle, or rich men to hold to ransom or doom to death. They smoked and deliberated, an oath at every word.