to appear mean in her eyes. All else that had happened to him seemed of little account beside this. The moment his eyes had rested upon her there had sprung a desire in his soul to serve her. In that service he felt himself capable of much, yet she despised him. A little touch of sympathy had shown in her face for a moment when he handed her the whip, but it had no power to obliterate the contempt. That was her true feeling toward him, the other was but the passing pity which a woman may have even for a coward.
The carillon had sounded several times, and the direction of the moon ray had changed, leaving the floor of the cell in darkness; but buried in thought Herrick took no notice of the little rushes of music, nor was he conscious of the deepening gloom around him until a sudden shadow seemed to flit through the chamber, and a new stealthy sound startled him. Instinctively he drew back to the wall, that whatever enemy might be near should have to face him and not be able to take him unawares. Once to-night already he had been seized from behind.
Standing on the outside ledge of the window, holding on to the bars and peering into the cell, was a figure that might well startle the bravest. The opening could not be more than four feet in height, yet it was sufficient to allow this figure to stand upright. Head, feet, and hands were at least normal in size, those of a full-grown and powerful man, the body was that of a child, though its curiously twisted form might have abnormal strength in it. His hair was long, and a thick, stubbly beard and whiskers completely surrounded his face. He was ugly in the extreme, and even Herrick was pleased to think that solid bars were between them.
For full five minutes the dwarf stood there, uttering no sound, but moving his head from side to side, trying to pierce the darkness, and once or twice he leant backward at arm's length to look down on the outside below him. Then he took hold of one bar with both hands, and, lifting it out of its socket, laid it carefully along the window-ledge. From the breast of the loose smock-like garment he wore he took a length of rope, knotted one end round one of the bars, and let the other end fall into the cell. For a moment he waited and listened; then, with the agility of a gorilla, he swung himself down, and stood on the floor of the cell, the rope still in his hand, as though he were prepared to spring upward to safety again at the first sign of danger.
"Who are you, and what do you want?" said Herrick suddenly.
The dwarf turned quickly toward him.
"Hush! It's only friend Jean."
"I have no such friend."
"You do not know it, but yes, from this moment you have. See here, my knife; watch, I fling it across the floor! Take it, it is for your protection – to show my good faith. I have no other weapon. Now, let's come close and look at each other."
The knife, a formidable blade, came skimming across the stone flags to Herrick's feet. He picked it up, and walked into the centre of the cell to meet his strange visitor.
"You must bend down to let me be sure that you are the man," said the dwarf.
"You have seen me before, then?"
"To-night when she rode across the court-yard to look at you. Ah, yes, you are the man. You were so quiet I thought they had put you elsewhere. Did I frighten you?"
"Well, you startled me, friend Jean."
The dwarf laughed a little, low chuckle, and, silently clapping his hands, stood on one foot and scratched the calf of his leg with the other.
"Ah! So I startled you, friend Spy."
"Stop! Not that word."
"I must needs call you by some name. Give me another."
"Roger Herrick."
"Friend Roger, good. It comes to my tongue easily. Let's sit, and I'll tell you who I am." And doubling his legs under him he sank cross-legged onto the floor.
"I will lean by the wall, Jean, I find it easier," said Herrick.
"Ah, there are compensations, after all, for a man like me. To know Vayenne is to know me; you can't help it. They call me an innocent; you know what that means?"
"Yes."
"But not all it means, I warrant," chuckled the dwarf. "I get pity; I am not supposed to do things like other men. Who cares where I go? In the castle, in the church, in a house where there's feasting – anywhere – I don't count. Who cares if I listen? It's only Jean; in at one ear, out at the other. No one looks to me for work, they'd sooner pay me for playing the fool, and I let 'em, I let 'em." And somewhere in his strange, loose garments he made the coins jingle. "So I go in and out as I will. If I curled up to sleep on the rug at the Duke's door they'd hardly trouble to disturb me, I count for such a little. Generally I sleep in the church."
"In the church?"
"Ay; in the porch. They call me the dwarf of St. Etienne. Listen! there's its music." And he remained silent with uplifted finger until the ripple of the carillon had died away into the night. "I'm a little fellow to have so large a church to myself, as I often do at nights; and, friend Roger, I see things in St. Etienne when the moonlight sends faint, colored beams through the painted windows. There are legends and superstitions about St. Etienne, and people are superstitious about me, too. They believe I know things, and so I do, but not of the sort they fancy."
A strange little madman, Herrick thought, yet one with a method surely, as the unbarred window showed.
"An innocent, that's what they call me," the dwarf went on, as though he answered his companion's thought, "and though I am no more one than you are, it suits my purpose. My wisdom would get any other man into trouble."
"That loose bar, for instance," said Herrick, pointing to the window.
"Yes; but I never thought of the use I should one day put it to. It is well to have more than one hole to creep into, and few would expect to find a man lodging in the South Tower of his own free will."
"I hear it has an evil reputation," said Herrick.
"Ay; the grave's anteroom. So I chose it as a hiding-place. There are times when I like to sleep here, to be alone and think of all I hear and see. I was many nights loosening that bar."
"And why have you come to-night – to sleep here?"
"No; to plot with friend Roger," the dwarf answered promptly. "The Duke died to-night; you know that? Out of his death will come trouble for many – for the woman you saw in the court-yard a little while since. Ah! That moves you. She is beautiful, friend Roger."
"Who is she?"
"Mademoiselle Christine de Liancourt, and might be ruler in Montvilliers, but that the law denies it to a woman. There are many who would overthrow that law if she would let them, but she will make no sign. The Duke is dead; his son must reign in his stead. This son is a poor sort of fellow, a lover of books instead of a man of affairs."
"The pale scholar of Passey," said Herrick.
"How learnt you that catch phrase?" asked the dwarf sharply.
"I overheard it to-night."
"Yes; they call him that," Jean went on slowly, "and in truth he may make us a poor Duke, but Mademoiselle de Liancourt thinks otherwise. Count Felix – maybe you overheard him mentioned to-night?"
"I did. He would be Duke, and the old Duke wished it so."
"You have great knowledge for a casual traveller in Vayenne, friend Roger," said the dwarf with some suspicion, "but you shall explain it to me presently. Count Felix would be Duke; more, would wed with Christine de Liancourt, and she loves not either of these ideas. To-night she rides to Passey to carry news of the Duke's death to his son, and to bring him to Vayenne."
"A strange office for a woman to perform; stranger still that Count Felix should let her go and jeopardize his schemes," Herrick said.
"She has influence with the scholar, who has no desire to be a Duke, that is why she was determined to go. Count Felix thought it wise not to thwart her, since he would stand well in her favor, but he has arranged that an accident shall prevent the scholar ever reaching Vayenne. The escort will be attacked, and it is arranged shall be beaten, and no effort will suffice to save the life of the scholar. It is cleverly conceived, eh, friend Roger? A man who can