The Knight of Malta

The ascension of the Bohemian was so rapid, and done so cleverly, that it excited the admiration of the guests.

The baron, laughingly seizing one of his long black locks of hair, said to him: “You climb too well to travel in the main road; it is my opinion, fellow, that windows are your doors, and roofs serve you as a place to promenade. Come in the house, boy; Laramée will give you something to drink.”

With a light bound the Bohemian jumped over the railing of the balcony, and entered the gallery, which served as dining-room on important occasions, where he found the remains of the abundant dinner of which the baron’s guests had just partaken.

The recorder remained in the court with his escort, not knowing upon what course to resolve.

He looked at the unlucky door with a vague disquietude, while the old gentleman and his friends betrayed some impatience as they waited for the end of this scene.

Finally, Master Isnard, wishing to get out of an embarrassing position, turned to the baron and said, with a solemn air:

“I call to witness the people who accompany me if anything unbecoming happens to me, and you will answer, sir, for any dangerous and secret ambuscade which could hurt the dignity of the law or of justice, or our honourable person.”

“Eh, Manjour! what are you crowing about? Nobody here wishes to interfere with your office; my arms and my artillery are there: enter, examine, and count; the key is in the door!”

“Yes, yes, go in, the key is in the door,” repeated the chorus of guests, with a sneer which seemed a sinister omen to the recorder. Exasperated beyond measure, but keeping himself at a respectful distance from the door, the recorder said to his scribe:

“Clerk, go and open this door; let us make an end of – ”

“But, Master Isnard – ”

“Obey, clerk, obey,” said the recorder, still drawing back.

The poor scribe showed the register which he held in one hand, and the pen that he held in the other.

“My hands are not free. I must be ready to draw up an official report. If some sorcery bursts out of that door, ought I not, on the very instant, enter it upon my verbal process?”

These reasons appeared to make some impression on the recorder.

“Little John, open that door,” said he to the lackey.

“Oh, master, I dare not,” replied Little John, getting behind the recorder.

“Do you hear me, you wretch?”

“Yes, sir, but I dare not; there is some sorcery there.”

“But, on my oath, if you – ”

“If the salvation of my soul depended on it, sir, I would not open it,” said Little John, in a resolute tone.

“Come, come!” said the recorder, overcome with vexation, as he addressed the halberdiers, “it will be said, my brave fellows, that you alone acted as men in this stupid affair! Open that door, and put an end to this ridiculous scene.”

The two guards retreated a step, and one of them said:

“Listen, Master Isnard, we are here to give you assistance as far as we are able, if any one rebels against your orders, but no one forbids you to enter. The key is in the door; enter alone, if you wish to do so.”

“What, an old pandour like you afraid!”

The halberdier shook his head, and said:

“Listen, Master Isnard, halberds and swords are worth nothing here; what we need is a priest with his stole, and a holy water sprinkler in his hand.”

“Michael is right, Master Isnard,” said the other guard; “it is my opinion that we will have to do what was done to exorcise the dolphins that infested the coast last year.”

“If that dog of a Bohemian had not run away like a coward,” said the recorder, stamping his foot with rage, “he might have opened the door.”

Then, happening to turn his head, the recorder discovered several men and women standing at the windows of Maison-Forte; they were partially hidden by the basement, but were looking curiously into the court.

More from self-esteem than courage, Master Isnard, seeing that he was observed by so many persons, walked deliberately to the door, and put his hand on the key.

At that moment his heart failed him.

He heard in the magazine a rumbling noise and extraordinary excitement, which he had not detected before.

The sounds were harsh, with nothing human in them.

A magic charm seemed to fasten the recorder’s hand to the key in the door.

“Come, recorder, my boy, go on! there you are! go on!” cried one of the guests, clapping his hands.

“I wager he is as warm as if it were the month of August, although the wind is blowing from the north,” said another.

“Give him time to invoke his patron and make a vow,” said a third.

“His patron is St. Coward,” said the lord of Signerol; “no doubt he is making a vow never to brave another danger if he delivers him from this one.”

Pushed to extremity by these jeers, and reflecting that, after all, Raimond V. was not so cruel as to force him into real danger, the recorder opened the door, and suddenly jumped back.

At that moment he was roughly overthrown by the onset of two Camargnan bulls, that rushed from the stable, head downward, and uttering a peculiar and stifled bellowing, for they were muzzled.

The two animals were not of very large size, but were full of vigour.

One was tawny, streaked with dark brown; the other was black as jet.

The first use they made of their liberty was to bound over the court, paw the earth with their fore feet, and try to divest themselves of their muzzles.

The appearance of the two bulls was greeted with hurrahs and bravos by the guests of the baron.

“Eh, well, recorder, your inventory?” cried Raimond V., holding his sides, and giving full vent to his hilarity. “Come, clerk, enter upon your official report my bulls, Nicolin and Saturnin. Ah! you demand the arms that I possess, – there they are. It is with the horns of these fellows from Camargne that I defend myself. Eh, Man-jour! I see by your fear that you recognise them as arms, serious and offensive. Come, recorder, label Nicolin, and draw up Saturnin.”

“God’s death!” cried the lord of Signerol, “these bulls look as if they would like to make an inventory of the clerk’s and recorder’s breeches!”

“By Our Lady, in spite of his corpulence, the recorder made a leap then that would do honour to a toreador!” “And the clerk, – how he winds around the trees! He is equal to a frightened weasel!”

“Christmas! Christmas! Nicolin has a piece of his cloak!”

It is needless to say that these different exclamations described the phases of the improvised race with which Raimond V. entertained his friends.

The bulls were in hot pursuit of the recorder and his clerk, whom they wished first to attack. The halberdiers and Little John had prudently availed themselves of the protection of the wall.

Thanks to the trees planted in the court, the recorder and his clerk were able for some time to escape the attacks of the bulls by running from tree to tree.

But after awhile their strength was exhausted. Fear paralysed their energies, and they were about to be trampled under foot by these ferocious animals. Be it said to the praise of Raimond V. that, notwithstanding the brutality of his savage pleasantry, he would have been distressed beyond measure if a tragedy had ended this adventure.

Happily one of the halberdiers screamed:

“Master Isnard, – climb a tree, – quick, quick, before the bull gets back.”

The corpulent recorder followed the halberdier’s counsel, and throwing himself upon the trunk of a sycamore, he held on with knees, feet, and hands, making unheard-of efforts in his clumsy ascent.

The baron and his guests, seeing that the man was no longer in real danger, again began their jests and laughter. The clerk, more nimble than the recorder, was now safely seated in the top of a sycamore.

“Master Bruin has come at last! Take care, beware!” cried Raimond, laughing till the tears came in his eyes at the efforts of the recorder, who was trying to straddle one of the largest branches of the tree he had climbed with so much difficulty.

“If the recorder looks like an old bear climbing his pole,” said another, “the clerk looks like an old, shivering monkey, – see his jaws chatter.”

“Come, come, clerk, get to your task; where is your pen and your ink, and your register? You are safe, now, – scribble your scrawl,” cried the old lord of Signerol.

“Attention, attention, the tournament has begun!” cried one of the guests. “It is Nicolin against a halberdier.”

“Largess, largess for Nicolin!”

Seeing the two men of the law safe from their horns, the bulls had turned upon the halberdiers.

But one of the halberdiers, throwing himself against the wall, pricked the animal so sharply in the nose and the shoulder, that the bull dared not make another attack, and bounded off into the middle of the court.

Seeing the courage of the halberdier, the baron cried:

“Have no fear, my brave fellow, you shall have ten francs to drink his health, and I will furnish the wine gratis.”

Then addressing the invisible Larmaée, the old gentleman ordered: “Tell the shepherd to send his dogs, and drive these bulls back into the stable. The dance of the recorder and the clerk has lasted long enough.”

The baron had hardly finished speaking, when three shepherd dogs of large size came out of a half-open door and ran straight after the bulls. After a few flourishes, the animals ended the farce by galloping into the stable, the magazine of arms and artillery of Maison-Forte, as the treacherous sign-board had announced.

The recorder and his clerk, seeing themselves delivered from danger, still did not dare descend from their impregnable position. In vain Laramée, bearing two glasses of wine on a silver plate, came offering the stirrup-cup from the baron, and telling them, what was true, that the bridge had been replaced, and their horses and mules were waiting for them outside.

“I go from here only that my clerk may draw up an official statement of the grievous outrage by which the baron, your master, has rendered himself amenable,” cried the recorder, almost breathless, wiping the sweat from his brow, which literally ran with water, in spite of the cold weather. “Perhaps you are reserving some other bad treatment for us, but the governor, and if necessary the cardinal himself, will avenge me, and on my oath, there shall not remain one stone on another of this accursed house – may Satan confound it – ”

Raimond V., holding in his hand a long hunting-whip, descended into the court, gave the ten francs to the halberdier who had so bravely combatted the bull, and went up to the tree from which the recorder was fulminating his threats.

“What is that you say, you scoundrel?” said the baron, cracking his whip.

“I say,” shouted the recorder, “I say that the marshal will not leave this offence unpunished, and that on my arrival in Marseilles, I will tell him all, I – ”

“Eh, Manjour!” cried the baron, with another crack of the whip, “I hope you will tell him all. I have received you in this way that you may tell him, indeed, that he may learn in what light I hold his orders,” cried the old gentleman, unable to restrain his anger; “the Provençal nobility has known how, in the last century, to drive from its province the insolent Duke d’Epernon and his Gascons, as unworthy of governing it, and shall we not drive away a Vitry, a wretched assassin, who acts like an Italian bandit, who leaves our coasts without defence, who obliges us to protect ourselves, and then comes to take away from us the means of resisting the pirates! Get out of here, you rogue, and go to draw up your scrawls elsewhere than in my house!”

“I will not get down!” cried the recorder.

“Do you want me to smoke you out of the tree like a badger in the trunk of a willow?”

Believing Raimond V. capable of anything, Master Isnard slowly descended the tree. His clerk, who had remained silent, imitated his example, and reached the ground at the same time with his master.

“Stop!” said the baron, putting a few pieces of silver in the scribe’s hand. “You can drink to the health of the king, our count. All this is not your fault, clerk.” “I forbid you to accept one coin!” cried the recorder. “You shall be obeyed, Master Isnard,” said the scribe. “These are two silver crowns, and not one coin,” and he pocketed the present.

“And I will add in my report, sir, that you tried to corrupt my agents,” said the recorder.

“Out of here, out, out, you stinking beast!” cried the baron, cracking his whip.

“You give people strange hospitality, Baron des Anbiez,” said the recorder.

This reproach seemed to touch Raimond deeply; he said: “Manjour! all the country knows that the lord and the peasant have found free refuge and loyal hospitality in this house. But I am and will be without pity for the petty tyrants of a tyrant cardinal. Out of here, I say, or I will whip you like a bad dog!”

“It will sound well,” cried the recorder, purple with rage, and walking backward toward the bridge, “It will sound well that you have attempted the life of an officer of the king’s justice, and that you have driven him away from your house with blows of the whip, instead of allowing him to execute peaceably the orders of his Eminence, the cardinal, and of the marshal.”

“Yes, yes, you can tell all that to your marshal, and you can add that, if he comes here, although my beard is gray, I engage to prove to him, sword in hand and dagger in fist, that he is nothing but a hired assassin, and that his master, the cardinal, – God preserve the king from him, – is only a sort of Christian pacha, a thousand times more a despot than the Turk. You can tell him, too, to beware of pushing us to extremes, because we can remember a noble prince, brother of a good and noble king, blinded for the moment by this false priest, cousin of Beelzebub. You can tell him, too, that the nobility of Provence, worn out by so many outrages, would rather have for their sovereign Count Gaston of Orleans, than the King of France, since at this time the King of France is Richelieu.”

“Take care, baron,” whispered the lord of Signerol, “you are going too far.”

“Eh, Manjour!” cried the impetuous baron, “my head can answer for my words; but I have an arm, thank God, able to defend my head. Out of here, you knave! Open your long ears well, and shut them well to keep what you hear. As for our cannon and ammunition, you will see nothing of them. We will renounce our arms when the dogs beg the wolves to cut off their paws and pull out their teeth. Out of here, I say; and repeat my words, and worse, too, if it seems good to you!”

The recorder, having reached the gate, rapidly crossed the bridge, followed by his clerk and his guards, and as he mounted his horse, hurled a thundering anathema at the house of the baron.

Raimond V., delighted with the success of his trick, entered with his guests, and sat down to the table, as the hour of luncheon had just arrived.

The end of the long day passed away in joy, in the midst of gay conversation arising from this adventure.

From one of the windows of the castle, Honorât de Berrol had witnessed this scene. Knowing the obstinacy of his future father-in-law, he had not attempted remonstrance, but he could not repress his fear when he thought of the imprudent words Raimond V. had uttered on the subject of Gaston of Orleans.