Chapter V

The Two Men Clothed in Black

The personage who entered wore a black gown. He was very gray and wrinkled, and not far from his sixtieth year. The archdeacon had not even risen to receive this personage. He had made the latter a sign to seat himself on a stool near the door, and said, “Good day, Master Jacques.”

“Greeting, master,” replied the man in black.

It was evidently the meeting of a teacher and a disciple.

“Well!” resumed the archdeacon, “how are you succeeding?”

“Alas! master,” said the other, with a sad smile, “I am still seeking the stone. Plenty of ashes. But not a spark of gold.”

“I am talking od the trial of your magician. Is it not Marc Cenaine that you call him? Have you been successful with the torture?”

“Alas! no,” replied Master Jacques, still with his sad smile; “we have not that consolation. That man is a stone. I am at my wit’s end over him.”

“You have found nothing new in his house?”

“This parchment. There are words in it which we cannot comprehend.”

So saying, Master Jacques gave him a parchment. The archdeacon looked at it.

“Pure magic, Master Jacques!” he exclaimed. “’Tis the cry of the vampires when they arrive at the witches’ sabbath. ’Tis the command which chains the devil in hell. This parchment is abominable.”

“We will put the man to the torture once more. Here again,” added Master Jacques, fumbling afresh in his pouch, “is something that we have found at Marc Cenaine’s house.”

It was a vessel belonging to the same family as those which covered Dom Claude’s furnace.

“Ah!” said the archdeacon, “a crucible for alchemy.”

“I will confess to you,” continued Master Jacques, “that I have tried it over the furnace, but I have succeeded no better than with my own. By the way, I almost forgot. When doth it please you that I shall apprehend the little sorceress?”

“What sorceress?”

“That gypsy girl you know, who comes every day to dance on the church square, in spite of the official’s prohibition! She hath a demoniac goat with horns of the devil, which reads, which writes. The prosecution is all ready; ’twill soon be finished, I assure you! A pretty creature, on my soul, that dancer! The handsomest black eyes! When shall we begin?”

The archdeacon was excessively pale.

“I will tell you that later,” he stammered, in a voice that was barely articulate.

“Fine. In the matter of the little girl,—Smelarda, as they call her,—I will await your orders. Come, now, master, when will you come to aid me in making gold? I am impatient to succeed.”

The archdeacon shook his head, with a bitter smile. “Master Jacques read Michel Psellus’ ‘Dialogus de Energia et Operatione Daemonum.’ What we are doing is not wholly innocent.”

“Speak lower, master! I have my suspicions of it,” said Jacques Charmolue. “But one must practise a bit of hermetic science when one is only procurator of the king in the ecclesiastical court, at thirty crowns tournois a year. Only speak low.”

Dom Claude reminded his disciple that they had some figures to study together, and the two quitted the cell, to the accompaniment of a great “ouf!” from the scholar, who began to seriously fear that his knee would acquire the imprint of his chin.

Chapter VI

The Effect which Seven Oaths in the Open Air Can Produce

Jehan made his way out of the cathedral, satisfied with the fact that he had the purse. He only walked for a moment, when he heard a powerful and sonorous voice behind him.

“Upon my soul!” exclaimed Jehan, “that can only be my friend, Captain Phoebus!”

This name of Phoebus reached the ears of the archdeacon at the moment when he was explaining to the king’s procurator the dragon which is hiding its tail in a bath. Dom Claude started, turned around and saw his brother Jehan calling to a tall officer at the door of the Gondelaurier mansion.

It was, in fact, Captain Phoebus de Châteaupers. He was backed up against a corner of the house of his betrothed and swearing like a heathen.

“By my faith! Captain Phoebus,” said Jehan, taking him by the hand, “you are cursing with admirable vigor.”

“Horns and thunder!” replied the captain.

“Horns and thunder yourself!” replied the student. “Whence comes this overflow of fine words?”

“Pardon me, good comrade Jehan,” exclaimed Phoebus, shaking his hand.

“Will you come and drink?” asked the scholar.

This proposition calmed the captain.

“I’m willing, but I have no money.”

“But I have!”

“Bah! let’s see it!”

Jehan spread out the purse before the captain’s eyes. Meanwhile, the archdeacon, who had abandoned the dumbfounded Charmolue where he stood, had approached them and stopped a few paces distant, watching them without their noticing.

“Let us go and drink,” said Jehan.

“Where shall we go?” said Phoebus; “‘To Eve’s Apple.’”

The two friends set out towards “Eve’s Apple.” The archdeacon followed them, gloomy and haggard. Was this the Phoebus whose accursed name had been mingled with all his thoughts ever since his interview with Gringoire? He did not know it, but it was at least a Phoebus, and that was enough.

At the turning of a street, the sound of a tambourine reached them from a neighboring square. Dom Claude heard the officer say to the scholar,—

“Thunder! Stop!”

“Why, Phoebus?”

“I’m afraid the Bohemian sees me.”

“What Bohemian?”

“The little girl with the goat.”

“La Smeralda?”

“That’s it, Jehan. I always forget her devil of a name. Let us make haste, she will recognize me. I don’t want to have that girl accost me in the street.”

“Do you know her, Phoebus?”

Here the archdeacon saw Phoebus sneer, bend down to Jehan’s ear, and say a few words to him in a low voice; then Phoebus burst into a laugh, and shook his head with a triumphant air.

“Truly?” said Jehan.

“Upon my soul!” said Phoebus.

“This evening?”

“This evening.”

“Are you sure that she will come?”

“Are you a fool, Jehan? Does one doubt such things?”

“Captain Phoebus, you are a happy gendarme!”

The archdeacon heard the whole of this conversation. His teeth chattered; a visible shiver ran through his whole body. He stopped for a moment, leaned against a post like a drunken man, then followed the two merry knaves.

Chapter VII

The Mysterious Monk

The illustrious wine shop of “Eve’s Apple” was situated in the University, at the corner of the Rue de la Rondelle and the Rue de la Bâtonnier. It was a very spacious and very low hall on the ground floor, with tables everywhere.

Night was falling; the square was dark; the wine-shop, full of candles, flamed like a forge in the gloom.

One man paced back and forth in front of the tavern, gazing at it incessantly. He was enveloped in a mantle to his very nose. From time to time he paused in front of the dim window, listened, looked, and stamped his foot.

At length the door of the dram-shop opened. This was what he appeared to be waiting for. Two men came forth.

The man in the mantle went and stationed himself on the watch under a porch on the other side of the street.

“Seven o’clock is on the point of striking,” said one of the comrades. ’Tis the hour of my appointed meeting. Do try to walk straight, master bachelor; you know that I must leave you.”

“Leave me then!”

On that, Phoebus strode off.

The man in the mantle, uttering a profound sigh, strode off in pursuit of the captain.

On emerging into the Rue Saint-André-des-Arcs, Captain Phoebus perceived that some one was following him.

The captain was brave, and would have cared very little for a highwayman, with a rapier in his hand. But this walking statue, this petrified man, froze his blood. There were then in circulation, strange stories of a surly monk, a nocturnal prowler about the streets of Paris, and they recurred confusedly to his memory. He remained for several minutes in stupefaction, and finally broke the silence with a forced laugh.

“Monsieur, if you are a robber, as I hope you are, you produce upon me the effect of a heron attacking a nutshell. I am the son of a ruined family.”

The hand of the shadow emerged from beneath its mantle and descended upon the arm of Phoebus with the grip of an eagle’s talon,—

“Captain Phoebus de Châteaupers!”

“What, the devil!” said Phoebus, “you know my name!”

“You have a rendezvous this evening.”

“Yes,” replied Phoebus in amazement.

“At seven o’clock.”

“In a quarter of an hour.”

“At la Falourdel’s.”

“Precisely.”

“With a woman?”

“I confess—.”

“Who is called—?”

“La Smeralda,” said Phoebus, gayly. All his heedlessness had gradually returned.

At this name, the shadow’s grasp shook the arm of Phoebus in a fury.

“Captain Phoebus de Châteaupers, you lie!”

The captain leaped backwards, so violently that he disengaged himself from the grip which held him.

“Ah! this is well!” he stammered, in a voice stifled with rage. He drew his sword. “Here! On the spot! Come on! Swords! Swords! Blood on the pavement!”

But the other never stirred.

“Captain Phoebus,” he said, and his tone vibrated with bitterness, “you forget your appointment.”

This simple remark caused the sword which glittered in the captain’s hand to be lowered.

“Captain,” pursued the man, “tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, ten years hence, you will find me ready to cut your throat; but go first to your rendezvous.”

“Here is the wherewithal to pay.”

Phoebus felt the stranger’s cold hand slip into his a large piece of money. He could not refrain from taking the money and pressing the hand.

“You are a good fellow!” he exclaimed.

“One condition,” said the man. “Prove to me that I have been wrong and that you were speaking the truth. Hide me in some corner whence I can see whether this woman is really the one whose name you uttered.”

“Oh!” replied Phoebus, “We will take, the Sainte-Marthe chamber; you can look at your ease from the kennel hard by.”

“Come then,” said the shadow.

Once they were near the chamber, Phoebus, like a frequent visitor of the house, opened a door which opened on a dark hole. “Enter here, my dear fellow,” he said to his companion. The man in the mantle obeyed, the door closed upon him; he heard Phoebus bolt it, and a moment later descend the stairs. The light had disappeared.