Count Hannibal

About him things were to be seen that would have seemed stranger to him

had he been less strange to the city. From the quarter of the markets

north of him, a quarter which fenced in the cemetery on two sides, the

same dull murmur proceeded, which Mademoiselle de Vrillac had remarked an

hour earlier. The sky above the cemetery glowed with reflected light,

the cause of which was not far to seek, for every window of the tall

houses that overlooked it, and the huddle of booths about it, contributed

a share of the illumination. At an hour late even for Paris, an hour

when honest men should have been sunk in slumber, this strange brilliance

did for a moment perplex him; but the past week had been so full of

fetes, of masques and frolics, often devised on the moment and dependent

on the King's whim, that he set this also down to such a cause, and

wondered no more.

The lights in the houses did not serve the purpose he had in his mind,

but beside the closed gate of the cemetery, and between two stalls, was a

votive lamp burning before an image of the Mother and Child. He crossed

to this, and assuring himself by a glance to right and left that he stood

in no danger from prowlers, he drew a note from his breast. It had been

slipped into his hand in the gallery before he saw Mademoiselle to her

lodging; it had been in his possession barely an hour. But brief as its

contents were, and easily committed to memory, he had perused it thrice

already.

"At the house next the Golden Maid, Rue Cinq Diamants, an hour before

midnight, you may find the door open should you desire to talk farther

with C. St. L."

As he read it for the fourth time the light of the lamp fell athwart his

face; and even as his fine clothes had never seemed to fit him worse than

when he faintly denied the imputations of gallantry launched at him by

Nancay, so his features had never looked less handsome than they did now.

The glow of vanity which warmed his cheek as he read the message, the

smile of conceit which wreathed his lips, bespoke a nature not of the

most noble; or the lamp did him less than justice. Presently he kissed

the note, and hid it. He waited until the clock of St. Jacques struck

the hour before midnight; and then moving forward, he turned to the right

by way of the narrow neck leading to the Rue Lombard. He walked in the

kennel here, his sword in his hand and his eyes looking to right and

left; for the place was notorious for robberies. But though he saw more

than one figure lurking in a doorway or under the arch that led to a

passage, it vanished on his nearer approach. In less than a minute he

reached the southern end of the street that bore the odd title of the

Five Diamonds.