“At what hour?” asked Wogan.
“Ten o’clock, monsieur, at the little postern in the garden wall.”
“And the time now?”
“Nine.”
Wogan dressed with some ceremony, supped, and at eight minutes to ten slipped down the stairs and out of doors. He had crushed his hat down upon his forehead and he carried his handkerchief at his face. But the streets were dark and few people were abroad. At a little distance to his left he saw above the housetops a glow of light in the air which marked the Opera-House. Wogan avoided it; he kept again to the alleys and emerged before the Chevalier’s lodging. This he passed, but a hundred yards farther on he turned down a side street and doubled back upon his steps along a little byway between small houses. The line of houses, however, at one point was broken by a garden wall. Under this wall Wogan waited until a clock struck ten, and while the clock was still striking he heard on the other side of the wall the brushing of footsteps amongst leaves and grass. Wogan tapped gently on a little door in the wall. It was opened no less gently, and Edgar the secretary admitted him, led him across the garden and up a narrow flight of stairs into a small lighted cabinet. Two men were waiting in that room. One of them wore the scarlet robe, an old man with white hair and a broad bucolic face, whom Wogan knew for the Pope’s Legate, Cardinal Origo. The slender figure of the other, clad all in black but for the blue ribbon of the Garter across his breast, brought Wogan to his knee.
Wogan held out the Pope’s procuration to the Chevalier, who took it and devoutly kissed the signature. Then he gave his hand to Wogan with a smile of friendliness.
“You have outsped your time by two days, Mr. Wogan. That is unwise, since it may lead us to expect again the impossible of you. But here, alas, your speed for once brings us no profit. You have heard, no doubt. Her Highness the Princess Clementina is held at Innspruck in prison.”
Wogan rose to his feet.
“Prisons, sir,” he said quietly, “have been broken before to-day. I myself was once put to that necessity.” The words took the Chevalier completely by surprise. He leaned back in his chair and stared at Wogan.
“An army could not rescue her,” he said.
“No, but one man might.”
“You?” he exclaimed. He pressed down the shade of the lamp to throw the light fully upon Wogan’s face. “It is impossible!”
“Then I beg your Majesty to expect the impossible again.”
The Chevalier drew his hand across his eyes and stared afresh at Wogan. The audacity of the exploit and the imperturbable manner of its proposal caught his breath away. He rose from his chair and took a turn or two across the room.
Wogan watched his every gesture. It would be difficult he knew to wring the permission he needed from his dejected master, and his unruffled demeanour was a calculated means of persuasion. An air of confidence was the first requisite. In reality, however, Wogan was not troubled at this moment by any thought of failure. It was not that he had any plan in his head; but he was fired with a conviction that somehow this chosen woman was not to be wasted, that some day, released by some means in spite of all the pressure English Ministers could bring upon the Emperor, she would come riding into Bologna.
The Chevalier paused in his walk and looked towards the Cardinal.
“What does your Eminence say?”
“That to the old the impulsiveness of youth is eternally charming,” said the Cardinal, with a foppish delicacy of speaking in an odd contrast to his person.
Mr. Wogan understood that he had a second antagonist.
“I am not a youth, your Eminence,” he exclaimed with all the indignation of twenty-seven years. “I am a man.”
“But an Irishman, and that spells youth. You write poetry too, I believe, Mr. Wogan. It is a heady practice.”
Wogan made no answer, though the words stung. An argument with the Cardinal would be sure to ruin his chance of obtaining the Chevalier’s consent. He merely bowed to the Cardinal and waited for the Chevalier to speak.
“Look you, Mr. Wogan; while the Emperor’s at war with Spain, while England’s fleet could strip him of Sicily, he’s England’s henchman. He dare not let the Princess go. We know it. General Heister, the Governor of Innspruck, is under pain of death to hold her safe.”
“But, sir, would the world stop if General Heister died?”
“A German scaffold if you fail.”
“In the matter of scaffolds I have no leaning towards any one nationality.”
The Cardinal smiled. He liked a man of spirit, though he might think him absurd. The Chevalier resumed his restless pacing to and fro.
“It is impossible.”
But he seemed to utter the phrase with less decision this second time. Wogan pressed his advantage at the expense of his modesty.
“Sir, will you allow me to tell you a story,—a story of an impossible escape from Newgate in the heart of London by a man in fetters? There were nine grenadiers with loaded muskets standing over him. There were two courtyards to cross, two walls to climb, and beyond the walls the unfriendly streets. The man hoodwinked his sentries, climbed his two walls, crossed the unfriendly streets, and took refuge in a cellar, where he was discovered. From the cellar in broad daylight he fought his way to the roofs, and on the roofs he played such a game of hide-and-seek among the chimney-tops—” Wogan broke off from his story with a clear thrill of laughter; it was a laugh of enjoyment at a pleasing recollection. Then he suddenly flung himself down on his knee at the feet of his sovereign. “Give me leave, your Majesty,” he cried passionately. “Let me go upon this errand. If I fail, if the scaffold’s dressed for me, why where’s the harm? Your Majesty loses one servant out of his many. Whereas, if I win—” and he drew a long breath. “Aye, and I shall win! There’s the Princess, too, a prisoner. Sir, she has ventured much. I beg you give me leave.”
The Chevalier laid his hand gently upon Wogan’s shoulder, but he did not assent. He looked again doubtfully to the Cardinal, who said with his pleasant smile, “I will wager Mr. Wogan a box at the Opera on the first night that he returns, that he will return empty-handed.”
Wogan rose to his feet and replied good-humouredly, “It’s a wager I take the more readily in that your Eminence cannot win, though you may lose. For if I return empty-handed, upon my honour I’ll not return at all.”
The Cardinal condescended to laugh. Mr. Wogan laughed too. He had good reason, for here was his Eminence in a kindly temper and the Chevalier warming out of his melancholy. And, indeed, while he was still laughing the Chevalier caught him by the arm as a friend might do, and in an outburst of confidence, very rare with him, he said, “I would that I could laugh so. You and Whittington, I do envy you. An honest laugh, there’s the purge for melancholy. But I cannot compass it,” and he turned away.
“Sure, sir, you’ll put us all to shame when I bring her Royal Highness out of Innspruck.”
“Oh, that!” said the Chevalier, as though for the moment he had forgotten. “It is impossible,” and the phrase was spoken now in an accent of hesitation. Moreover, he sat down at a table, and drawing a sheet of paper written over with memoranda, he began to read aloud with a glance towards Wogan at the end of each sentence.
“The house stands in the faubourgs of Innspruck. There is an avenue of trees in front of the house; on the opposite side of the avenue there is a tavern with the sign of ‘The White Chamois.’”
Wogan committed the words to memory.
“The Princess and her mother,” continued the Chevalier, “are imprisoned in the east side of the house.”
“And how guarded, sir?” asked Wogan.
The Chevalier read again from his paper.
“A sentry at each door, a third beneath the prisoners’ windows. They keep watch night and day. Besides, twice a day the magistrate visits the house.”
“At what hours?”
“At ten in the morning. The same hour at night.”
“And on each visit the magistrate sees the Princess?”
“Yes, though she lies abed.”
Wogan stroked his chin. The Cardinal regarded him quizzically.
“I trust, Mr. Wogan, that we shall hear Farini. There is talk of his coming to Bologna.”
Wogan did not answer. He was silent; he saw the three sentinels standing watchfully about the house; he heard them calling “All’s well” each to the other. Then he asked, “Has the Princess her own servants to attend her?”
“Only M. Chateaudoux, her chamberlain.”
“Ah!”
Wogan leaned forward with a question on his tongue he hardly dared to ask. So much hung upon the answer.
“And M. Chateaudoux is allowed to come and go?”
“In the daylight.”
Wogan turned to the Cardinal. “The box will be the best box in the house,” Wogan suggested.
“Oh, sir,” replied the Cardinal, “on the first tier, to be sure.”
Wogan turned back to the Chevalier.
“All that I need now is a letter from your Majesty to the King of Poland and a few rascally guineas. I can leave Bologna before a soul’s astir in the morning. No one but Whittington saw me to-day, and a word will keep him silent. There will be secrecy—” but the Chevalier suddenly cut him short.
“No,” said he, bringing the palm of his hand down upon the table. “Here’s a blow that we must bend to! It’s a dream, this plan of yours.”
“But a dream I’ll dream so hard, sir, that I’ll dream it true,” cried Wogan, in despair.
“No, no,” said the Chevalier. “We’ll talk no more of it. There’s God’s will evident in this arrest, and we must bend to it;” and at once Wogan remembered his one crowning argument. It was so familiar to his thoughts, it had lain so close at his heart, that he had left it unspoken, taking it as it were for granted that others were as familiar with it as he.
“Sir,” said he, eagerly, “I have never told you, but the Princess Clementina when a child amongst her playmates had a favourite game. They called it kings and queens. And in that game the Princess was always chosen Queen of England.”
The Chevalier started.
“Is that so?” and he gazed into Wogan’s eyes, making sure that he spoke the truth.
“In very truth it is,” and the two men stood looking each at the other and quite silent.
It was the truth, a mere coincidence if you will, but to both these men omens and auguries were the gravest matters.
“There indeed is God’s finger pointing,” cried Wogan. “Sir, give me leave to follow it.”
The Chevalier still stood looking at him in silence. Then he said suddenly, “Go, then, and God speed you! You are a gallant gentleman.”
He sat down thereupon and wrote a letter to the King of Poland, asking him to entrust the rescue of his daughter into Wogan’s hands. This letter Wogan took and money for his journey.
“You will have preparations to make,” said the Chevalier. “I will not keep you. You have horses?”
Mr. Wogan had two in a stable at Bologna. “But,” he added, “there is a horse I left this morning six miles this side of Fiesole, a black horse, and I would not lose it.”
“Nor shall you,” said the Chevalier.
Wogan crept back to his lodging as cautiously as he had left it. There was no light in any window but in his own, where his servant, Marnier, awaited him. Wogan opened the door softly and found the porter asleep in his chair. He stole upstairs and made his preparations. These, however, were of the simplest kind, and consisted of half-a-dozen orders to Marnier and the getting into bed. In the morning he woke before daybreak and found Marnier already up. They went silently out of the house as the dawn was breaking. Marnier had the key to the stables, and they saddled the two horses and rode through the blind and silent streets with their faces muffled in their cloaks.
They met no one, however, until they were come to the outskirts of the town. But then as they passed the mouth of an alley a man came suddenly out and as suddenly drew back. The morning was chill, and the man was closely wrapped.
Wogan could not distinguish his face or person, and looking down the alley he saw at the end of it only a garden wall, and over the top of the wall a thicket of trees and the chimney-tops of a low house embosomed amongst them. He rode on, secure in the secrecy of his desperate adventure. But that same morning Mr. Whittington paid a visit to Wogan’s lodging and asked to be admitted. He was told that Mr. Wogan had not yet returned to Bologna.
“So, indeed, I thought,” said he; and he sauntered carelessly along, not to his own house, but to one smaller, situated at the bottom of a cul-de-sac and secluded amongst trees. At the door he asked whether her Ladyship was yet visible, and was at once shown into a room with long windows which stood open to the garden. Her Ladyship lay upon a sofa sipping her coffee and teasing a spaniel with the toe of her slipper.
“You are early,” she said with some surprise.
“And yet no earlier than your Ladyship,” said Whittington.
“I have to make my obeisance to my King,” said she, stifling a yawn. “Could one, I ask you, sleep on so important a day?”
Mr. Whittington laughed genially. Then he opened the door and glanced along the passage. When he turned back into the room her Ladyship had kicked the spaniel from the sofa and was sitting bolt upright with all her languor gone.
“Well?” she asked quickly.
Whittington took a seat on the sofa by her side.
“Charles Wogan left Bologna at daybreak. Moreover, I have had a message from the Chevalier bidding me not to mention that I saw him in Bologna yesterday. One could hazard a guess at the goal of so secret a journey.”
“Ohlau!” exclaimed the lady, in a whisper. Then she nestled back upon the sofa and bit the fragment of lace she called her handkerchief.
“So there’s an end of Mr. Wogan,” she said pleasantly.
Whittington made no answer.
“For there’s no chance that he’ll succeed,” she continued with a touch of anxiety in her voice.
Whittington neither agreed nor contradicted. He asked a question instead.
“What is the sharpest spur a man can know? What is it that gives a man audacity to attempt and wit to accomplish the impossible?”
The lady smiled.
“The poets tell us love,” said she, demurely.
Whittington nodded his head.
“Wogan speaks very warmly of the Princess Clementina.”
Her Ladyship’s red lips lost their curve. Her eyes became thoughtful, apprehensive.
“I wonder,” she said slowly.
“Yes, I too wonder,” said Whittington.
Outside the branches of the trees rustled in the wind and flung shadows, swift as ripples, across the sunlit grass. But within the little room there was a long silence.