“Twelve rowers!” replied Gourville, “twelve! impossible!”
The number of eight rowers for a lighter had never been exceeded, even for the King. This honor had been paid to Monsieur the Superintendent, even more for haste than out of respect.
“What does that mean?” said Gourville, endeavoring to distinguish beneath the tent, which was already apparent, the travellers, whom the most piercing eye could not yet have succeeded in discovering.
“They must be in a hurry, for it is not the King,” said the skipper.
Fouquet shuddered.
“By what do you know that it is not the King?” said Gourville.
“In the first place because there is no white flag with fleurs-de-lis, which the royal lighter always carries.”
“And then,” said Fouquet, “because it is impossible it should be the King, Gourville, as the King was still in Paris yesterday.”
Gourville replied to the superintendent by a look which said, “You were there yourself yesterday.”
“And by what do you make out they are in such haste?” added he, for the sake of gaining time.
“By this, Monsieur,” said the skipper: “these people must have set out a long while after us, and they have already nearly overtaken us.”
“Bah!” said Gourville, “who told you that they do not come from Beaugency or from Niort even?”
“We have seen no lighter of that force, except at Orleans. It comes from Orleans, Monsieur, and makes great haste.”
Fouquet and Gourville exchanged a glance. The skipper remarked their uneasiness, and to mislead him, Gourville immediately said, “It is some friend, who has laid a wager he would catch us; let us win the wager, and not allow him to come up with us.”
The skipper opened his mouth to reply that that was impossible, when Fouquet said with much hauteur, “If it is any one who wishes to overtake us, let him come.”
“We can try, Monseigneur,” said the skipper, timidly. “Come, you fellows, put out your strength; row, row!”
“No,” said Fouquet, “stop short, on the contrary.”
“Monseigneur! what folly!” interrupted Gourville, stooping towards his ear.
“Quite short!” repeated Fouquet. The eight oars stopped, and resisting the water, they imparted a retrograde force to the lighter. It was stopped. The twelve rowers in the other did not at first perceive this manoeuvre, for they continued to urge on their boat so vigorously that it arrived quickly within musket-shot. Fouquet was shortsighted; Gourville was annoyed by the sun, which was full in his eyes; the skipper alone with that habit and clearness which are acquired by a constant struggle with the elements, perceived distinctly the travellers in the neighboring lighter. “I can see them!” cried he; “there are two.”
“I can see nothing,” said Gourville.
“It will not be long before you distinguish them; by a few strokes of their oars they will arrive within twenty paces of us.”
But what the skipper predicted was not fulfilled; the lighter imitated the movement commanded by Fouquet, and instead of coming to join its pretended friends, it stopped short in the middle of the river.
“I cannot comprehend this,” said the skipper.
“Nor I,” said Gourville.
“You who can see so plainly the people in that lighter,” resumed Fouquet, “try to describe them to us, Skipper, before we are too far off.”
“I thought I saw two,” replied the boatman; “I can only see one now under the tent.”
“What sort of man is he?”
“He is a dark man, large-shouldered, short-necked.”
A little cloud at that moment passed across the azure of the heavens, and darkened the sun. Gourville, who was still looking with one hand over his eyes, became able to see what he sought, and all at once, jumping from the deck into the chamber where Fouquet awaited him, “Colbert!” said he, in a voice broken by emotion.
“Colbert!” repeated Fouquet; “oh, that is strange! but no, it is impossible!”
“I tell you I recognized him, and he at the same time so plainly recognized me that he has just gone into the chamber of the poop. Perhaps the King has sent him to make us come back.”
“In that case he would join us instead of lying by. What is he doing there?”