"Monsieur," he said at last, "you are a poor spy—easily to be tricked. You will never make a living at the calling. The will that lady gave you was a duplicate, a copy. It was meant that you should have that—that it should fall into your stupid hands. And, had I not been robbed on the other side of the mountains, you would not have seen me here."
"It is so," the Princess said, striding up to where the chevalier stood; "it is so. You spy! you spy! you mouchard! if that worthless piece of paper in the red ball had been the real will, I would have perished in the burning house before letting it fall into your hands." Then, sinking her voice still lower, though not so low but that some of us could hear what she said, she went on: "Have a care for your future. The followers of Austria have still some power left, even at the Court of France. Your threat to let me burn on the roof was not unmeant. It will be remembered."
And now there is no more to tell, except that the Princess knew that Marcieu meant to take the real will from the Cardinal if he met him, and so it had been arranged that, through her, the paper which he would suppose was that real will was to fall into his hands, and[!-- [Pg 269] --] Alberoni would thus have been enabled to retain the original and escape with it out of France. She had preceded us to the foot of the mountains from Toulouse, meaning, when we came up, to let Marcieu obtain the red ball and thus be hoodwinked; and the accident of the fire at the inn only anticipated what she intended doing. The unexpected following of, and attack upon, the Cardinal, ere he quitted Spain and descended the Pyrenees into France, had, however, spoilt all their plans.
Here I should attempt that which most writers of narratives are in the habit of performing, namely, conclude by telling you what was the end of Ana de Carbajal's[!-- [Pg 270] --] adventure, of how she won and broke hearts and eventually made a brilliant match. That is what Monsieur Marivaux or the fair Scuderi would have done, as well as some of the writers in my own native land. But I refrain, because this strange meeting between me and the beautiful and adventurous Spanish lady was but the commencement of a long friendship that eventually ripened—However, no matter. Some day, when my hand is not weary and the spirit is upon me, I intend to write down more of the history of the high-bred young aristocrat who first appeared before me as a wandering stroller, and passed for "a girl called Damaris."
[!-- [Pg 271] --][A NEW ENGLAND RAID]
By E. F. POLLARD
Author of "Roger the Ranger," &c.