The Fools Love Story | Page 6

well, you should sleep in France. Come, take my coat." And, advancing, Kuoni holds out his long black tunic, which he has removed whilst speaking.
The livery of motley makes the Frenchman pause, and a suspicion flashes across his mind.
"This is not one of your jests, sir fool?"
"If you doubt me," cries Kuoni, with an impatient gesture, "wait and see."
"No, no, Kuoni, I believe you," he exclaims, "but why is this necessary?"
"Why?" echoes the other. "Oh thou far-seeing sage! What would the coachman who is to drive you think, did he behold a cavalier return in my stead? Besides, what if you chanced upon your assassins between this and the Rathhaus? Do you not see how my cap and bells would serve you?"
"True, true," murmurs the other.
"Then waste no more time; it wants but a few minutes to midnight now. Come, on with it!"
Savignon wriggles into the black velvet tunic and Kuoni draws the hood, surmounted by the cock's comb, well over his head, so that it conceals his features, then, standing back to judge the effect:
"By the Mass!" he ejaculates with a grim laugh, "how well it becomes you! Did I not always say it would! Here, take my bauble as well, and there you stand as thorough a fool as ever strutted in a Royal anteroom. Who would have thought it? de Savignon turned fool and Kuoni turned courtier! Ha! ha! 'tis a merry jest, a jest of that prince of jesters--Death!"
"Your merriment is out of season," grumbles the Marquis.
"And so is your chocolate hose with that tunic; but it matters not, 'tis all a part of this colossal jest."
Then growing serious of a sudden:
"Are you ready? Then follow me; I will set you on your way."
Opening the door, the jester leads the nobleman, silently and with stealthy tread, out of his chamber and down the broad oak staircase.
He pauses by the wainscot, in the spacious hall below, and after searching for a few seconds, he alights upon a spring--which, fortunately, he knows of old. A panel slides back and reveals an opening through which he conducts the Frenchman.
They emerge presently into a courtyard at the back of the mansion, and through a small postern they pass out into the street.
Here they pause for a moment; it is commencing to rain; the sky is overcast and the night is inky black.
"Yonder lies your road," says Kuoni; "at the corner you will find the coach. Do as I told you, and may God speed you. Farewell!"
"But you?" exclaims de Savignon, a thought for the jester's safety arising at last in his mind; "are you not coming?"
"I cannot. I must return to impersonate you and receive your visitors, for, did they find you gone, the pursuit would commence before you were clear of the city, and you would, of a certainty, be taken."
"But you will be in danger!"
"Have no concern on that score," is the reply, delivered in grim accents.
"But--"
"Enough of buts; begone before midnight strikes, or, by the Mass, your stay in Schwerlingen will be unpleasantly prolonged. Farewell!"
And, stepping back, the jester slams the door and de Savignon is left alone, shivering with cold. For a moment the idea again occurs to him that he is being victimised by Kuoni. But he remembers that were the plot undiscovered the jester would scarcely be in possession of the secret.
Next he begins to marvel why Kuoni should evince such solicitude for his escape and for his life, after having always shown himself so bitter an enemy in the past. However, fear overcomes his doubts; so, swearing that if the fool has duped him he will return, if it be only to wring his neck, he sets off briskly in the direction indicated.
Meanwhile, Kuoni has retraced his steps to the Frenchman's bedchamber: tricked out in de Savignon's clothes and with de Savignon's hat drawn well over his brows, so as to shade his face, he flings himself into the chair lately occupied by the Marquis--and waits.
Presently the deep-toned bell of St. Oswald's chimes out the hour of midnight; scarce has the vibration of the last stroke died away on the silent night air, when his ear detects another and nearer sound.
He springs up, and turning finds himself confronted by three masked men, standing, sword in hand, by the open window through which they have entered. In an instant he has drawn de Savignon's rapier from its scabbard.
"How now, my masters," he exclaims, mimicking the Frenchman's foreign accent, "what do you seek?"
"The Marquis Henri de Savignon" says one, in a voice which the jester does not recognise.
"I am he," he replies haughtily; "what is your business? Are you robbers or assassins, that you come in this guise and penetrate at such an hour into my bedchamber?"
"We bear you news," says the former speaker, delivering