The Bright Face of Danger Being an Account of Some Adventures of Henri de Launay, Son of the Sieur de la Tournoire   By: Robert Neilson Stephens (1867-1906)

Being an Account of Some Adventures of Henri de Launay, Son of the Sieur de la Tournoire. Freely Translated into Modern English

By Robert Neilson Stephens

Author of "An Enemy to the King," "Philip Winwood," "The Mystery of Murray Davenport," etc.

Illustrated by H. C. Edwards

Boston L. C. Page & Company Mdcccciiii

Copyright, 1904 By L. C. Page & Company

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London All rights reserved

Published April, 1904 Colonial Press

Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. Boston. Mass., U.S.A.

THE BRIGHT FACE OF DANGER is, in a distant way, a sequel to "An Enemy to the King," but may be read alone, without any reference to that tale. The title is a phrase of Robert Louis Stevenson's.

THE AUTHOR.

[Illustration: "'I GIVE YOU ONE CHANCE FOR YOUR LIFE,' SAID I QUICKLY."]

CONTENTS

I. MONSIEUR HENRI DE LAUNAY SETS OUT ON A JOURNEY

II. A YOUNG MAN WHO WENT SINGING

III. WHERE THE LADY WAS

IV. WHO THE LADY WAS

V. THE CHATEAU DE LAVARDIN

VI. WHAT THE PERIL WAS

VII. STRANGE DISAPPEARANCES

VIII. MATHILDE

IX. THE WINDING STAIRS

X. MORE THAN MERE PITY

XI. THE RAT HOLE AND THE WATER JUG

XII. THE ROPE LADDER

XIII. THE PARTING

XIV. IN THE FOREST

XV. THE TOWER OF MORLON

XVI. THE MERCY OF CAPTAIN FERRAGANT

XVII. THE SWORD OF LA TOURNOIRE

XVIII. THE MOUSTACHES OF BRIGNAN DE BRIGNAN

XIX. AFTERWARDS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"'I GIVE YOU ONE CHANCE FOR YOUR LIFE,' SAID I QUICKLY"

"'AND NOW SHE WILL WAIT FOR HIM IN VAIN!'"

"WE WERE INTERRUPTED BY A LOW CRY"

"'THE WRETCHES!' SAID THE TORTURED COUNT, STAGGERING TO HIS FEET"

"I LEAPED OVER THE BED, AND UPON THE MAN WHO WAS TRYING TO STRANGLE THE COUNTESS"

"MY FATHER'S THRUSTS BECAME NOW SO QUICK AND CONTINUOUS"

THE BRIGHT FACE OF DANGER

CHAPTER I.

MONSIEUR HENRI DE LAUNAY SETS OUT ON A JOURNEY

If, on the first Tuesday in June, in the year 1608, anybody had asked me on what business I was riding towards Paris, and if I had answered, "To cut off the moustaches of a gentleman I have never seen, that I may toss them at the feet of a lady who has taunted me with that gentleman's superiorities," if I had made this reply, I should have been taken for the most foolish person on horseback in France that day. Yet the answer would have been true, though I accounted myself one of the wisest young gentlemen you might find in Anjou or any other province.

I was, of a certainty, studious, and a lover of books. My father, the Sieur de la Tournoire, being a daring soldier, had so often put himself to perils inimical to my mother's peace of mind, that she had guided my inclinations in the peaceful direction of the library, hoping not to suffer for the son such alarms as she had undergone for the husband. I had grown up, therefore, a musing, bookish youth, rather shy and solitary in my habits: and this despite the care taken of my education in swordsmanship, riding, hunting, and other manly accomplishments, both by my father and by his old follower, Blaise Tripault. I acquired skill enough to satisfy these well qualified instructors, but yet a volume of Plutarch or a book of poems was more to me than sword or dagger, horse, hound, or falcon. I was used to lonely walks and brookside meditations in the woods and meads of our estate of La Tournoire, in Anjou; and it came about that with my head full of verses I must needs think upon some lady with whom to fancy myself in love.