The Red Mask | Page 6

blood of the St. Augéres. And to think," he
continued in accents of withering scorn, "that you should attempt to
throw upon your deed the glamour of patriotism! What harm has this
poor wretch done France? Speak up! Have you naught to say?"
But rage, despair, and shame had choked the Count's utterance, and
were fighting a mighty battle in his soul. So violent, that as the
Cardinal paused to wait for his reply, his lips twitched convulsively for
a moment, then, staggering forward he fell prone upon the ground, in a
swoon.
"Call the guard, Monsieur de Cavaignac," said Mazarin to me. "That
man has committed his last crime. A week in a dungeon of the Bastille
and the companionship of a holy father, may fit him for a better life
beyond the scaffold."
"You see," said his Eminence, an hour later, as we stood alone in his
study. "if I had allowed the world to know for whom St. Augére's blow
was intended, the world would have sympathised, as it always does,
with a luckless conspirator; would, mayhap, have loved me less. Again,
there are always fanatics ready to copy such acts as these, and had they
known that what has ended in the death of an obscure valet was an
attempt against the life of Mazarin--I am afraid that some murderer's
knife would have cut short my existence before the appointed time."
"As it is," he went on, with a wave of the hand, "St. Augére meets the
doom of a cowardly traitor; he dies, regretted by none, for a deed of
surpassing loathsomeness. As for André, his death has been too easy."
"How comes it, Monseigneur," I asked, "that he gave no warning to his
confederate, made no attempt to defend himself."
"Can you not guess?" he said, smiling, "When I had forced the
confession of his treason from him I bound his arms to his side and
pressed a gag into his mouth, which I removed together with his mask."

"But the mask?" I cried.
Again he smiled.
"How dull you are; I changed it whilst you were seeing to the coach."
"Why did you conceal the fact from me, Monseigneur?" I cried. "Did
you mistrust me?"
"No, no, not that," he said, "I thought it wiser; you might have betrayed
my identity by a show of respect. But go, leave me, Cavaignac, it
grows late."
I made my bow, and, as I retired, I heard him muttering to himself the
words of St. Augére: "Thus perish all traitors to the welfare of France."
And with a chuckle he added: "How little he guessed the truth of what
he said."

This story appears in The Life and Work of Rafael Sabatini web site
http://www.rafaelsabatini.com/ .


A free ebook from http://www.dertz.in/