The Man in Black | Page 4

and tumult of the fair? A score of yards away a dancing girl, a very Peri--or so she seemed by the light of four tallow candles--was pirouetting on a rickety platform. Almost rubbing elbows with her was a philosopher, who had conquered all the secrets of Nature except cleanliness, and was prepared to sell infallible love-philtres and the potion of perpetual youth--for four farthings! And beyond these stretched a vista of wonders and prodigies, all vocal, not to say deafening. So one by one, with a shrug or a sneer, the onlookers melted away, until only our trio remained: Master Crafty Eyes counting his gains, the boy sobbing against the bank on which he had thrown himself, and the monkey gibbering and chattering overhead--a dark shapeless object on a invisible rope. For night was falling: where the fun of the fair was not were gloom and a rising wind, lurking cutpurses, and waste land.
The showman seemed to feel this, for having counted his takings, he kicked up the boy and began to pack up. He had nearly finished, and was stooping over the coil of rope, securing the end, when a touch on his shoulder caused him to jump a yard. A tall man wrapped in a cloak, who had come up unseen, stood at his elbow.
"Well!" the showman cried, striving to hide his alarm under an appearance of bluster. "And what may you want?"
"A word with you," the unknown answered.
The voice was so cold and passionless it gave Crafty Eyes a turn. "Diable!" he muttered, striving to pierce the darkness and see what the other was like. But he could not; so as to shake off the impression, he asked, with a sneer, "You are not a vicomte, are you?"
"No," the stranger replied gravely, "I am not."
"Nor the governor of a county?"
"No."
"Then you may speak!" rejoined the showman grandly.
"Not here," the cloaked man answered. "I must see you alone."
"Then you will have to come home with me, and wait until I have put up the boy," the other said. "I am not going to lose him for you or anyone. And for a penny he'd be off! Does it suit you? You may take it or leave it."
The unknown, whose features were completely masked by the dusk, nodded assent, and without more ado the four turned their faces toward the streets; the boy carrying the monkey, and the two men following close on his heels. Whenever they passed before a lighted booth the showman strove to learn something of his companion's appearance, but the latter wore his cloak so high about his face, and was so well served by a wide-flapped hat which almost met it, that curiosity was completely baffled; and they reached the low inn where the showman rented a corner of the stable without that cunning gentleman being a jot the wiser for his pains.
It was a vile, evil-smelling place they entered, divided into six or eight stalls by wooden partitions reaching half-way to the tiles. A horn lantern hung at each end filled it with yellow lights and deep shadows. A pony raised its head and whinnied as the men entered, but most of the stalls were empty, or tenanted only by drunken clowns sleeping in the straw.
"You cannot lock him in there," said the stranger, looking round him.
The showman grunted. "Cannot I?" he said.??
"There are tricks in all trades, master. I reckon I can--with this!" And producing from somewhere about him a thin steel chain, he held it before the other's face. "That is my lock and door," he said triumphantly.
"It won't hold him long," the other answered impassively. "The fifth link from the end is worn through now."
"You have sharp eyes!" the showman exclaimed, with reluctant admiration. "But it will hold a bit yet. I fasten him in yonder corner. Do you wait here, and I will come back to you."
He was not long about it. When he returned he led the stranger into the farthest of the stalls, which, as well as that next to it, was empty. "We can talk here," he said bluntly. "At any rate, I have no better place. The house is full. Now, what is it?"
"I want that boy," the tall man answered.
The showman laughed--stopped laughing--laughed again. "I dare say you do," he said derisively. "There is not a better or a pluckier boy on the rope out of Paris. And for patter? There is nothing on the road like the bit he did this afternoon, nor a bit that pays as well."
"Who taught it him?" the stranger asked.
"I did."
"That is a lie," the other answered in a perfectly unmoved tone. "If you like I will tell you what you did. You taught him the latter half of the story. The other he knew before: down to