"Ay, ay!" said Badelon. "And if you fail of your stroke I will not fail
of mine! I shall be there, and I will see to it he goes! I shall be
there!"
"You?"
"Ay, why not?" the old man answered quietly. "I may halt on this leg for
aught I know, and come to starve on crutches like old Claude Boiteux who
was at the taking of Milan and now begs in the passage under the
Chatelet."
"Bah, man, you will get a new lord!"
Badelon nodded. "Ay, a new lord with new ways!" he answered slowly and
thoughtfully. "And I am tired. They are of another sort, lords now,
than they were when I was young. It was a word and a blow then. Now I
am old, with most it is--'Old hog, your distance! You scent my lady!'
Then they rode, and hunted, and tilted year in and year out, and summer
or winter heard the lark sing. Now they are curled, and paint
themselves, and lie in silk and toy with ladies--who shamed to be seen at
Court or board when I was a boy--and love better to hear the mouse squeak
than the lark sing."
"Still, if I give you my gold chain," Count Hannibal answered quietly,
"'twill keep you from that."
"Give it to Bigot," the old man answered. The splint he was fashioning
had fallen on his knees, and his eyes were fixed on the distance of his
youth. "For me, my lord, I am tired, and I go with you. I go with you.
It is a good death to die biting before the strength be quite gone. Have
the dagger too, if you please, and I'll fit it within the splint right
neatly. But I shall be there--"
"And you'll strike home?" Tavannes cried eagerly. He raised himself on
his elbow, a gleam of joy in his gloomy eyes.
"Have no fear, my lord. See, does it tremble?" He held out his hand.
"And when you are sped, I will try the Spanish stroke--upwards with a
turn ere you withdraw, that I learned from Ruiz--on the shaven pate. I
see them about me now!" the old man continued, his face flushing, his
form dilating. "It will be odd if I cannot snatch a sword and hew down
three to go with Tavannes! And Bigot, he will see my lord the Marshal by-
and-by; and as I do to the priest, the Marshal will do to Montsoreau. Ho!
ho! He will teach him the coup de Jarnac, never fear!" And the old
man's moustaches curled up ferociously.
Count Hannibal's eyes sparkled with joy. "Old dog!" he cried--and he
held his hand to the veteran, who brushed it reverently with his lips--"we
will go together then! Who touches my brother, touches Tavannes!"